Speaker: That, but we are so thankful for you guys being here.
This kid's Christmas choir was a lot of work and I, I think
it was, was work well worth it?
It was, uh, adorable seeing them up there.
But again, as I said at the very beginning of this, if you weren't with
us, uh, there's a message conveyed there.
This is not just about us saying, well, it's Christmas time.
This is traditional, so we want to do something cute.
There's a, a message that is.
Being communicated through these tiny voices that are up here on the stage.
And, and we'll be honest, y'all, I think the world sometimes looks at
the church and says, man, the church is, is brainwashing or indoctrinating
these children, uh, listen.
Uh, if we believe that heaven and hell exists and we believe that all souls will
either spend eternity in heaven or in hell, uh, we would be foolish not to teach
our young ones about Jesus Christ as the only way, the truth and the life, and the
only path to heaven and hell or to heaven.
That is so we make no apologies about the fact that we are teaching.
About Jesus teaching them about the fact that there is salvation found in no one
else other than Jesus Christ and teaching them that the Bible is the word of God.
And so, uh, this is some of the fruits of the labors of our kids men team.
We do scripture memory here together.
And so it's gonna be fill in the blank this week.
So those are gonna be up on the screen here, I believe.
And so we can do it together.
Luke two, 10 through 11 says this, and the angel said to them, fear not for.
Behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people, for
unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
Good job.
Next week we're gonna do that without the fill in the blanks.
It's just gonna be blank all blank.
So.
Um, Bible memory app fighter verses whatever you use, index cards you
can get to, to memorizing that.
But we love God's word here and, uh, we're gonna give our
attention to that right now.
So if you've got your Bibles with you, go ahead and open
up to Philippians chapter two.
You're saying, wait a minute, this is a Christmas.
Series.
This is Christmas season and we're gonna look at the Christmas story, but
we're gonna look at the Christmas story through the lens of the Apostle Paul.
Uh, the apostle Paul wasn't there when Jesus was born, but
the apostle Paul did meet Jesus.
He did meet Jesus after Jesus's resurrection while Paul was on the road,
uh, to Damascus, to persecute the church.
God saved Paul.
And so Paul met Jesus and that changed his life.
And so Paul is gonna talk to us about the birth of Jesus in
Philippians chapter two, but.
I want you to think about these, these cute kids that were on stage
a minute ago dressed super well.
Their hair was quaffed just perfectly.
Uh, some of y'all moms may have emptied a couple of cans of hairspray
on some of those boys' heads just to get their hair to, to stay right in
spot the way, way it needed to do.
You did a good job.
They look great, but I, I had three of my kids up there and I can tell you,
uh, they look better up here than they normally do on a regular basis, right?
And that can be true of us, right?
It, it, it's so often easy for us to show up someplace like this at, at
church or to go to a family function with, you know, or, or to a work party
or someplace that where, where we're out and we're away from our comfort zone.
And when we're there, it's not hard for us to dress up, to try to look a
certain way, to try to put ourselves out as, as being a certain type of person.
What's harder is when we consider our family.
What's harder is when we consider those that we're around every
single day, those that we let our guard down around, those that we
feel like we don't have to impress.
Uh, those are the people that get the real us.
And as we think about what it means to follow Jesus, following Jesus,
which is our goal as, as Christians, at least following Jesus is, is
not just following Jesus when it's easier for us to look a certain way.
Or to sound a certain way or to dress up or to clean ourselves up
for church or whatever it may be.
Now following Jesus is following Jesus with our entire lives.
And this morning as, as we think about Christmas reminders and we think
about this baby that was sent to do great things because God has indeed
done great things through Jesus.
I want us to to think about how he came.
He didn't come on the war deed.
He didn't come into to to the palace.
He didn't come to immediately claim his rightful position
as the Lord of the universe.
He came as a baby, and our text is gonna tell us.
He came as a baby to humble himself by becoming obedient to the point
of death, even death on a cross.
And he did that out of a love for us.
That's unlike a love that we have ever known.
And so as you think about following him this Christmas.
And that idea that, again, following Jesus is not just when it's easy, but it's
following Jesus with our entire lives.
I want you to ask the question about how are you following Jesus
right now with those people that you don't feel like you have to impress?
What does your Christianity look like at home?
In fact, I, I wanna suggest this.
The Christian you are at home is the Christian.
You really are the, the Christian you are around the people that you're
not worried about them going anywhere because they're flesh and blood.
The people that, that you're gonna be around a lot over the next few weeks
because school's about to let out.
It's Christmas season.
You're gonna spend time around family because that's what we do around family.
I want you to think about how you are following the example that we're gonna
read about of Jesus this Christmas and ask, who's the Christian my family
knows me to be, not who's the Christian my church knows me to be, not who's
the Christian, you know, my, my kids' private school or the co-op or whatever.
That not, not that person.
Who do those that are closest to me, who I don't feel like I have to impress?
Who do they know me to be as a follower of Christ?
Do they know me?
To be the follower of the one that came as a baby, born in the likeness
of men, to humble himself to the point of death, even death on a cross?
Philippians chapter two, if you're not there, go ahead and turn there
and we're gonna begin in verse five.
Philippians two, five says this, have this mind among yourselves,
which is yours in Christ Jesus.
Who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing
to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
This is one of the thickest theological passages in all of Paul's writing.
He begins saying, have this mind among yourselves.
It's, it's a callback to what he said in verses one through four of Philippians
chapter two, where he has encouraged, in fact urged us as followers of
Christ to be united in the way that we think, united in mind and affection
and sympathy, and to have the, the same mind and the same love to be.
Full accord and to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in
humility to count others more significant than ourselves, and to let each of
us not look to our own interest, but also look to the interest of others.
Paul says that mind is to be yours and it's to be yours in Christ.
In other words, to live that way is really only possible for somebody who's been
impacted by and transformed by Jesus, and the reason being is because this is
the way that Jesus first lived for us.
And that's the transition that Paul's making here from the plea to the paradigm.
I want you to have this mind in yourselves and, and look to Jesus.
Jesus lived this perfectly for us.
And how did he do it?
Well, he goes on to say, this is yours in Christ Jesus, who
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God.
A thing to be grasped to, to grasp that word there means
to hold on for selfish gain.
It's not to hold on for life, but it's to hold onto something and say, I'm not
willing to give this up because if I give this up then it's going to cause me to
to suffer and I don't want to suffer.
So I'm gonna hold onto this.
Paul says, though, he was in the form of God, form is the Greek word, morphe,
where we get our English word morph morphology to to be like in appearance,
but not just appearance, but he goes on to say the form of God did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped.
That Jesus Christ did not just simply appear he wasn't similar to God.
He wasn't similar in appearance to God, but he was God equal with the Father.
I've got identical twins that were up here on stage.
One of them was the shepherd wearing the fake beard.
It's fake.
Don't worry.
Anyways, they are used to, their names are Sam and John, and you can
really throw either name at either one of them because as identical
twins, they've existed in the form of one another for their entire lives.
And so people mix them up all the time, and so you can call one
by Sam or John and they'll turn around now, they'll correct you.
They'll be like, I'm not John, I'm Sam, or I'm not Sam.
I'm John.
But they are not the same.
In essence, they are not the same in nature, the way that
the son existed in the form of God and was equal to the father.
This is a, a, a depth of equality that, that Paul's stressing here.
And, and he did not.
It says, count equality with God, a thing to be grasped.
Jesus, in other words, did not consider that something that he
could hold onto for selfish gain.
And the reality is if anyone could've, Jesus could've, right?
If anyone had a right to say, I, I'm, I'm good.
Where I'm at, it was Jesus.
It was the son of God.
Yet Paul says he did not count that something to be grasped, but he goes on
and he says something that's massive.
He says he emptied himself.
He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being
born in the likeness of men.
This phrase to to empty himself has created a lot of
questions with the church.
What does it mean that Jesus emptied himself?
And, and one thing we have to guard against is an improper
understanding of the nature of Jesus.
And so we can't allow us to, to begin to think that Jesus emptying
himself mean that Jesus became less God or that Jesus gave up some of
his godness when he came to earth.
He wasn't emptying by losing.
But in fact, what Paul says here is he was emptying by adding.
What in the world does that mean?
Well, he was emptying himself by Paul says, taking on the form of a servant
and being born in the likeness of men.
So Jesus emptying himself was actually an emptying by addition.
It, it's like this, uh, Jesus existed in the form of God.
He was equal with God the father, and, and the Bible says that,
no, I can see God and live.
And, and so if we were to have had the son of God come to earth even as a baby,
and yet not veil his full glory in the true humanity that he took on, then he
would've immediately consumed every single person within the face of the planet.
The, the glory of God and the sinfulness of man cannot coexist.
And so for God to carry out the great things that he had planned,
this mission that he had planned for Jesus to come as a savior, Jesus had
to willingly empty himself by adding to his true deity, true humanity.
You can think about it this way.
He veiled the fullness of his glory behind the fullness of his flesh.
Such that the son of God, God in the flesh, was born as a baby.
It says taking the form of a servant.
That word form of is the same word for form used earlier, the form of God.
Now he's in the form of a servant, explained further being
born in the likeness of men.
That word servant is the Greek word, do loss, which means slave.
It's a lowly position that Paul is emphasizing here, and so you've
got the son of God without losing anything from his essence as God.
Willingly condescending to us by taking to himself our frail human nature.
John described it in his birth account this way, and the word became flesh.
That's what Paul's talking about here.
He emptied himself and took on the form of a servant being found or
being born in the likeness of men.
This is what's known in theological circles as big word
here, the hypostatic union.
And it's important for us to understand this because it's integral to our
understanding of of Jesus as our savior.
Jesus was not two in one.
The way that your shampoo and conditioner are two in one.
Right.
Jesus was truly God and truly man, without any intermingling, without
any mixing, without any loss on either one of those natures that
Jesus came and took on full and true humanity to his full and true deity.
And those two natures existed in the one person Jesus Christ, that's
known as the Hypostatic Union.
And the reason this is a tier one issue is because without his true
humanity, he wouldn't be our savior.
And so we have to understand this, this humbling, this humiliation,
this sacrifice of God the son, to not count equality with God.
A thing to be grasped, but emptying himself to be found, to be formed, to
be found in the, the form of a servant, to be born in the likeness of men.
That that was necessary if we were gonna be saved.
You guys ever seen the show, undercover Boss?
Okay.
It gets me, I tear up at the end when he's, they, they're always like, we're
gonna pay for your college tuition and all your kids are gonna drive
Ferraris for the rest of their life.
And you know, it, I, it gets, it hits me in the heart.
'cause I'm like, oh man, they, they, they were working so hard and now you
went undercover and now they're there.
When the undercover boss goes undercover, he is playing a.
He's playing and, and trying to play it off as though that he or she is, uh, uh,
just a regular Joe, just a regular worker.
Just a regular employee.
And so they'll go through the various jobs and they'll talk to people and
they'll buddy up next to him and they'll talk to him about what works
like and everything else like that.
And, and they're, they're passing themselves off as just a regular person.
When Jesus came, he didn't come that way.
Jesus didn't come just trying to pass himself off as one of us.
The wonder of the incarnation is Jesus came as one of us, the full son of God.
True deity.
True God became true humanity without losing any of his of
his deity, any of his godness.
Christmas reminds us of the great humiliation of the Son of God.
Reminds us of the incarnation, and when I think about that, I wonder
what excuse could we possibly offer?
God.
What excuse could we possibly offer Jesus as to why we would not follow suit
in the way that we treat one another?
Our first point this morning is we think about our family and the type
of Christian that we are at home.
Being the type of Christian that we truly are is Christmas should remind us this.
Let the incarnation, the birth of Jesus.
Let the incarnation remove your excuses this Christmas as to why
you don't have to love people the way that Christ has loved you.
It's easy to lose sight of the fact this Christmas that for Jesus to come to earth
as a baby, he had to give up quite a bit.
We just see the manger scene.
We see that and we're like, oh, yeah, Jesus came as a baby.
And yeah, the, the cross and everything else.
But John MacArthur said this of the incarnation, it was the most
profound possible humiliation, the most profound possible humiliation.
Uh, think with me for just a moment of some of what Jesus
gave up when he became that baby.
When he took on flesh to his full godness, he gave up these things.
He gave up this, he never knew a temperature change.
Think about that for a second.
Jesus in eternity had never been cold, never been hot.
Jesus never felt discomfort, and yet he came here and was born in a
stable, and laid in a feeding trough.
Jesus had never felt pain and yet I'm sure as the son of God was
learning to walk, he probably tripped.
He probably stubbed his toe.
He probably skinned his knees.
Jesus had never learned anything or had to learn anything, and yet Luke says
he grew in wisdom and stature with men.
He subjected himself, he submitted himself to the human restraints of
having to learn how to speak, learn how to walk, learn the customs of the day.
Jesus had never felt tired, but John four tells us that he sat down
by the well because he was tired.
He was weary.
Jesus had never felt lonely.
He had never had to make a friend, and yet he came to earth as a baby and had to go
through that process and would ultimately be abandoned by all of his closest
followers in his time of greatest need.
Jesus had never felt tempted, but subjected himself to the will of the
Father and the leadership of the spirit or the, the, the, the leading, the
prompting of the spirit when he went into the wilderness and was tempted
there in the wilderness for us.
Jesus had never experienced betrayal, and yet one of those that professed
to be one of his closest followers was going to turn him over to death.
Jesus had never been restrained and yet allowed himself.
To be chained and imprisoned as he awaited the trial and subsequent
subsequent sentencing to death.
Jesus had never been mocked and yet as he hung on the cross,
people mocked him and berated him and blasphemed him to his face.
Jesus had never felt the weight of sin and yet bore our sin for us as
he suffered and died in our place.
Jesus had never felt the wrath of his father and yet knew the wrath
of God in a way that if you're in Christ, we will never know the wrath.
Jesus had never known death, and yet after he yielded up his spirit, his
lungs, the lungs that were formed in the womb of Mary, that were
realized in that baby laying in that manger, those lungs stopped pumping.
This is scratching the surface of what Jesus gave up, and Paul
says this, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and
being born in the likeness of men.
This is some of the sacrifice that that involved in, in what that looked like.
And so the question for us this Christmas is what does sacrifice look like for you?
How are you following?
How are you having this mind?
Like Paul says in verse five, how are you having this mind among yourselves,
which is yours in Christ Jesus?
Yes.
And again, we're thinking about it specifically with those closest to us.
Maybe it's, it's not hard for you to show up at church and be like, well,
yeah, man, I'm, I'm willing to sacrifice.
I'll give them my time.
I'll show up, I'll set up chairs.
I'll stay late.
I'll tear chairs down.
I'll help with the kids' Christmas choir.
I'll, you know, help with this.
I'll, I'll cut donuts.
I'll do whatever I need to.
I'm happy to do that for everybody.
But what about when you go home, and again, you're around the people
you don't have to impress anymore.
How are you following Jesus there?
How are you sacrificing for those?
That are in your immediate circle, what are your excuses for why you're
not loving them as sacrificially as maybe you should, because that's
the way that Christ loved you.
Maybe one of your excuses is, man, I just, you know, I'm, I'm just so tired after a
long day of work when I get home, I just, I just, I can't, or maybe you think, man,
you know what, my, my family, they've gotten on every single one of my last
frayed nerves, and I just, I can't even.
Or maybe you just think, well, they don't love me that way, so
I'm not gonna love them that way.
Or maybe you think, you know what?
I just need a place to recharge without having to be on, and that's home for me.
And so I, I can't think about having to, to be sacrificially loving
of, of my family when I'm at home because I just, they're the people
that just accept me for who I am.
Or maybe you think, man, you know what?
They've sinned against me.
They've wronged me, and so I, I don't want to sacrifice for them.
I understand the emotions and the feelings and how those can challenge our
willingness to love sacrificially, but I want you to think about this for a second.
I want you to imagine standing in front of Jesus as Jesus is
dying on the cross for our sins.
For your sins, and I want you to explain to Jesus all of the reasons why you're not
willing to sacrificially love your family as he's hanging on the cross for you.
When we think about it that way, all of a sudden those excuses that we come
up with as to why we shouldn't have to sacrificially love our families, those
closest to us, they pretty quickly lose their legitimacy when we think
about, man, how much Christ has loved me, how much he sacrificed for me,
and am I gonna sit here and tell him?
Yeah, but, but, but Jesus, you don't understand how hard they are to love.
See the incarnation.
When we understand it appropriately and rightly, it removes those excuses from us.
And yeah, we should love one another in a place like this.
Or when you're going to your company function, you should
be a witness for Christ.
You should love people there.
But again, I want us to think about that place where it's so easy for us to let
our guard down because it's our family.
We don't have to impress anybody.
Who are you there?
How are you following Christ with them?
The Christian that your family knows you to be is the Christian that you are.
It's often easy for us to to love others and give our family the
leftovers, and that's not the paradigm of what it means to follow Jesus.
Have this mind amongst yourselves, always perpetually.
Keep having this mind amongst yourselves.
Jesus went from the throne to the manger and didn't count equality with God a thing
to be grasped but emptied himself for us.
It was more than than just being born in the likeness of men being found
in the appearance of, of a servant.
It's what he came to do, and that's where Paul continues in verse eight, he
says this and being found in human form.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on across.
So Paul now says, being found in, in human form.
This is the third way that Paul has stressed the humanity of
Jesus here in this passage.
Who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God.
Athe, do you grasp?
But here it is, emptied himself, taking first the form of a servant.
There's his first stress of the humanity of Christ.
Then he goes on and says, being born in the likeness of men, the second
stressor of the humanity of Christ, and then third being found in human form.
This is the third time Paul is stressing the fact that Jesus went from the.
The right hand of the father and took on true humanity to,
to his true deity to come.
For us being found in human form, he humbled himself.
That word to humble himself, it means to condescend, to be brought
low, to be made insignificant.
It's from a word that means to stoop, to bow down, to become low, to become small.
Jesus humbled himself.
Well, he certainly humbled himself by taking on the form of a baby,
being born in the likeness of men.
Born to a, a virgin mother.
Being born to an, uh, to a, a, a, a mother who came from meager means
and to a, a adopted dad who was a, a carpenter by trade, not wealthy at all.
Being born in a, a middle of nowhere town like Bethlehem, being
laid in a manger at his birth.
Certainly, he humbled himself that way.
Nobody's gonna doubt that.
To contrast the difference from the glories of heaven to the lowly
reality of that cold, stable.
Yeah, he humbled himself there.
He humbled himself as he continued to grow up and learn all of these things
like we talked about earlier, and have to try to figure out how do I walk and
what does talking look like and how do I what, you know, foods that I should
eat and what, what shouldn't I eat?
And, and growing and, and understand it.
He humbled himself through his childhood Uhhuh.
He humbled himself as, as a rabbi, as during his earthly ministry.
By, by calling the people that weren't the elite of the elite, but calling to himself
the fishermen, calling to himself the uneducated, calling to himself, the tax
collectors, the people that were despised.
He humbled himself by hanging out in the house of the, the prostitutes and,
and, and spending time around people that that common folk would, would scoff
at if, if they saw and did when they saw him hanging around those people.
Yeah, Jesus humbled himself.
Through the the people that he was around.
He humbled himself by choosing to restrain his power in the face of his opposition.
He humbled himself by not just lightning bolt, smiting the Pharisees
when they stood up against him and tried to stop him from doing things,
but Paul skips over all of that.
He says he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.
And then he gives this caveat, even death on a cross.
The pinnacle, the climax of the humiliation of Jesus is the death of
Jesus, and the baby born came to die.
We talked about that last week.
The wood of the manger means nothing without the wood of the cross and
and death, and this is why Paul gives the qualifier even death on a cross.
Just death for God in the flesh is unthinkable.
For us, it's unimaginable.
How does God die?
In his true humanity, he experienced death so that we won't,
but death on a cross took it to a level that is even more unfathomable.
Have you ever heard somebody say, oh man, they really crucified that person.
Sometimes in, after a bad game, a quarterback has a, a bad game and, and.
The, the analyst will talk about his game, be like he threw four
interceptions and he played for the 49 ERs when he was doing that.
And uh, you know, he did some other things too.
And, and oh man, and then you'll hear somebody go, oh, they really
crucified him after the game.
No, they didn't.
Can I encourage us church to be very, very careful and selective about when
we employ the term they crucified him?
This death was a death that was so shameful, so ignominious, so horrendous.
So.
Painful that Rome passed a law and said, no Roman citizen will ever be
crucified no matter what they do, because it's a death beneath them.
Our word excruciating comes from the Latin word for crucifixion.
This death that Jesus died was not simply a death of old age.
It was not simply a death of being beheaded like a, a
criminal who was a Roman citizen probably would've experienced.
It wasn't a, a death, that was a normal death even for
those that are, are executed.
This was the most horrific death perhaps that the world has even ever
still to date thought of and created.
And this is the death that Jesus died for us.
And this is why Paul says he humbled himself by becoming obedient, obedient
to the will of the Father, to the point of death, even death on a cross.
It begs the question, why?
Why?
Why would the son of God be born in the likeness of men?
Then beyond that, humble himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Why would he condescend so much?
Why would he stoop so low for us?
In short, the answer is this.
If Jesus had never done that, never emptied himself, never took on flesh,
never was born in the likeness of men, never humbled himself to the the point
of death, even death on a cross, then you and I have no forgiveness of our
sins, and you and I have no savior.
The writer of Hebrews puts it like this.
He says, since therefore, the children, that's us.
That's humanity.
Since therefore, the children share in flesh and blood.
He himself, likewise, partook of the same things, partook of flesh and blood.
He himself, Jesus.
Partook the same things that through death, through his death, he might
destroy the one who has the power of death that is the devil, and deliver
all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
That's us.
For surely it's not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
He helps mankind.
Therefore, he noticed this had to be made like his brothers.
It was necessary.
He had to be made like us, like humanity, like mankind in every respect, so that
he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make.
And here it is, propitiation for the sins of the people.
That word propitiation is a big word that means to satisfy the wrath of God.
In other words, Jesus had to take on flesh in order to be qualified.
See Jesus, to be our substitute, had to identify with us.
He couldn't be somebody that wasn't a part of us because he wouldn't have
been qualified to take our place.
So he had to identify as one of us being made like us in every respect,
except for where a fallen nature.
So that he could become our merciful and faithful high priest so that he could
go to the father and say, father, I will die in their place, so that he could
bear the wrath of God against our sin.
He had to be born in the likeness of men.
He had to be the baby born to the Virgin Mary.
He had to grow up and learn.
He had to be perfectly obedient to the father's will for the
30 some odd years of his life.
He had to be betrayed.
He had to be arrested, he had to be mocked, he had to be crucified.
He had to die so that we can live.
That's, that's the why
in in what's the current underneath all of that.
It's given in one of the most famous verses in all the Bible.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
John says elsewhere, and this we know love.
Not that we first love God, but that God first loved us.
See, we talked about it last week.
The wood of the manger means nothing without the wood of the cross because
the baby came to live that life to die on the cross for us, because he loves us.
It wasn't out of obligation and duty.
It wasn't out of guilt or manipulation.
It was because he loves us.
And so this Christmas, we need to be reminded, not only do we need to, to lay
our excuses down and say, man, I, I need to sacrifice because he's sacrificed for
me, but I need to think about why I'm sacrificing, why I'm serving my family.
And the answer is because I want to reflect the love that I've been shown.
Point number two this morning is this, let the incarnation recalibrate your heart.
Let the incarnation recalibrate your heart this Christmas.
Again, we're thinking about those closest to us, those that we don't
feel like we have to impress anymore.
Who we are amongst them is, is really the Christian that we are
because our guards are let down.
We're not trying to put on a show.
We're not trying to impress, and so how are you serving them?
Maybe you're saying, okay, I am serving my family.
Okay, but how's your heart in serving your family?
Are you serving out of man?
I just, well, I guess I'm, I have to do this because I got myself into this.
I said yes.
I said I do.
So I gotta, I, I'm here.
I gotta serve my kids because I brought them into this world, so
I gotta do something to help 'em.
Are you serving because you love them?
Has your heart been recalibrated by the love that you've received
from the Lord such that you are showing that to your family too?
It's appropriate that this week in my family, we had a lot of sickness in the
house because as a parent, when your kids are sick, you're willing to do things
that you wouldn't do for a total stranger.
Like, hold the bucket.
I'll just leave it like that.
You guys can imagine what's in the bucket, right?
Maybe don't too much or rinsing out the bucket to be fused again.
Or you make them the bed on the couch or you stop on your way home
from, from work to pick up a, a soda to help calm their tummy.
Or you make sure that they're, they're warm and comfortable at night.
You give them the medicine that they need, you check their temperature, you
wake up in the middle of the night to check on them to make sure they're okay.
You bring them the ice chips and, and, and when we're doing that for our family
and in situations like that, we don't typically get to the place where we're
like, will you just stop being sick?
Maybe in the darkness of our hearts, we get there sometimes we're like,
okay, I'm done with the sickness, Lord.
But it's not that we're done with them.
We're just like, okay, can we get healthy again?
What's it like to be healthy?
I don't even remember.
What does it sound like?
Not to cough,
but we do it because we love them and we see them in need, and it's a
joy for us to serve them that way.
Why does it change when they get healthy?
Yeah.
We want our kids to be independent.
We don't want our kids to, to, to have to have us show up at their elementary
school and spoonfeed them, right?
But I wonder if the reason why it changes isn't more because we're
naturally sinful and self-centered.
People who find it easier to tell people we love them rather than
to show them that we love them.
Because telling somebody I love them costs me less than showing it.
And the love that we've received wasn't just God sitting in heaven while we're
in our sinful state here, separated from him going, it's okay guys.
I love you.
Look at the the clouds.
Look at the nice day I gave you.
Now he came after us.
He took on flesh being found in the likeness of men being born in human form.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
There's no greater act of love than that.
And he told us that we should look at that and love others.
John 1334 through 35 says this a new commitment I give to you that you love
one another just as I have loved you.
This is Jesus In the upper room, immediately in the in the rear
view mirrors the foot washing.
But this is really looking forward to the cross that you love one
another just as I have loved you.
You also to love are to love one another.
And then he says this, by this, all people will know that you are my disciples.
If you have love for one another.
And again, sometimes it's easier for us to love the strangers.
It's easier for us to love the acquaintances, and it's way harder for
us to love those that we wake up next to or love those that we share a roof with.
You know, all I'm saying this Christmas is, is your heart calibrated to love
them as you serve them this Christmas?
Are you loving them because of how much you've been loved by God?
Are you loving them because you've been transformed by that?
How's your heart?
What's your motivation as you're serving them?
Are you seeking opportunities or waiting for obligations?
Are you being creative in thinking about how you can love and serve
your family because of how much you've been loved by the Lord?
Are you expecting them to serve you or are you looking to serve them?
Listen, one way to express that love for your family this Christmas
is, is to get creative with it, and you can have some fun with this.
Think, man, I wanna love my family.
I wanna show them how much I love them because I know how much God
has loved me, and they're the ones that I'm around most often.
So how can I love them?
Well, this Christmas, maybe it's, this husbands in the room, man.
Let's, let's just all admit it and, and acknowledge the fact that
we all have a wardrobe, don't we?
Wardrobe?
It's the pile of clothes on the floor next to your bed that haven't
made it to the laundry hamper.
I'm just giving you a peek into my, my reality right now.
And, and they're there.
Because they're not necessarily dirty.
They're not clean.
They're not dirty.
And so what do you do?
You grab the shirt off the floor.
Men, don't pretend you're better than me in this, by the way.
And you give it the smell test, you sniff the pits, and if it passes the
smell test, then you're like, great.
I get another day out of this.
And that's why it's on the wardrobe.
It's still useful.
It doesn't need to be in the laundry yet.
Maybe meant a sacrificial act of love for your wife is to clean
up your wardrobe this Christmas.
More about your pastor than you ever wanted to know.
Wives or whoever does the cooking in the family.
I don't mean to be chauvinistic up here.
But maybe it's, it's planning the favorite meal of the people in your, your family.
You're gonna spend some time with them.
School's about to get out.
Maybe you think about what's, what's your kid's favorite meal?
I'm gonna sacrifice for them by, by making sure I prepare their favorite meal at
some point over the next three weeks.
I'm gonna love them that way.
Maybe you're here and, and the family that you have isn't home anymore.
Maybe they're gone.
You're still gonna spend time with them this Christmas.
They're still the ones you let your guard down around, but they're not sharing your,
your space well, maybe loving them this Christmas looks like, Hey, you know what?
I'm gonna send them a steak dinner to say Merry Christmas.
Or I'm gonna call them just to talk and I'm gonna have questions ready to
ask them about how they're doing and what's going on in their life, or I'm
gonna invite them to come and visit me.
Or I'm gonna invite myself to come and visit them.
My presence is your present.
These are creative ways to love your family.
Listen, let me address another way to love your family sacrificially.
Some of y'all are the EO to your family's Christmas right now.
You are carrying.
A dark storm cloud over you that is dragging everybody
else in your family down
and you know, it
maybe part of this Christmas looks like realizing that that is is not okay.
That your attitude, your self-centeredness is having such a detrimental
impact on your family that this season has lost all of its joy.
If that's you this morning, a sacrificial way for you to love your
family is to repent, to snap out of the funk, to find joy in in Christ.
Pastor Rod preached a great message last night with our men at our men's Compass
Crisscut, about the fact that, yeah, there are gonna be seasons that are hard for us.
There are gonna be times that we hurt.
There's always gonna be reason for us at the same time to be able
to say, and yet I will rejoice.
We can all wait around this Christmas for other people to serve us, and
we're gonna find ourselves disgruntled, discouraged, disappointed, or we can
let the incarnation recalibrate our hearts to cause us to say, man, I
wanna love other people, and I wanna do that by serving them because why?
Because of how much Christ has loved me.
In so many ways, the incarnation robs us of our right to say of an
opportunity to serve our loved ones.
I love you, but you know what?
That's just too much for me to do.
There's one more part to our text this morning, and
that's verses nine through 11.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is
above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of the Father.
Here we see the father's response to the humiliation of the son, the father's
response to the incarnation, the father's response to Jesus being born in the
likeness of men and humbling himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
What did the father do?
The Father took him and highly exalted him.
It's a compound word in the Greek it means to put on a super high place, and
that's what the father did with the son.
And not only did he exalt him, but he bestowed upon him the name
that is above every other name.
So here we have Christ being restored to his position that he enjoyed with
the Father before his incarnation.
But there's even more than that because now he's given this new position
in this new title, and many believe that this is the name Lord, because
of verse 11, which says that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the father.
It's important to note something here when it says that he gave him
the name that is above every name and, and we're saying that, that
it's more than just the restoration to the position that he had before.
Nothing is changing inherently about the character of or person of
Jesus, Jesus as God is immutable.
He is the same yesterday, today.
And.
And so it's not as though he lacked something that now he has in a sense
that is qualitatively making him better.
Rather, he's being given a name in relation to us in relation to
creation, such that we now relate to him and subject ourselves and submit
ourselves to him as Lord and exalt his name to the glory of God the Father.
See from the.
The, the resurrection of Jesus and then his ascension to seated, being
seated at the right hand of the Father, which is where he is today.
He has been made the object of our affection as Christians, as the church.
We are the bridegroom or we are the bride of Christ.
He is our bride groom.
And you may say, what about the father?
Well, the father is exalted, is glorified as we worship the son.
And so Jesus becomes the chief object of our affection as the church now, and
we want to acknowledge him that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in
heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that he's
Lord to the glory of God the Father.
We wanna make sure that we've done that here and now, and one of the ways that we
do that is through our obedience to him.
And so we have this mind amongst ourselves so that we would be those
that are participating in Exalting the Son and glorifying the Father.
This sheds light on our goal for how we love one another.
This Christmas we talked about recalibrating our heart, our motivation
for horizontally, our relationships that we have with one another is that we love
them because of how much we've been loved.
But now we talk about our goal for why we wanna love them that way, and
it's ultimately, it's not about them.
It's not about us.
The reason, the goal we should have is to exalt Christ this Christmas
and how we live like Jesus.
Third and final point is this.
Let the incarnation reframe your goals.
Christ has been exalted by the Father and given the name Lord, so that
the name of Jesus, every single knee will bow before him in subjection.
Doesn't it follow that we as his followers should be doing that here and now?
And the way that we do that is not just in a posture, it's in a life that we
live, and that life that we live should be characterized by this love for others.
Seeing the one whom God has now exalted lying in the manger this Christmas
should remind us that our ultimate goal in this life is to exalt him too.
The father looked at the humiliation of Jesus and exalted him and gave
him the name above all names.
We should look at the whole humiliation of Jesus and say, what does it
look like for me to exalt him?
One of the ways we do that is what we're talking about this
morning, loving like He's loved us.
Sacrificing for the good of others, pursuing those in our family, loving
in a way that that goes above and beyond, because that's how God loved us.
That's one of the ways that we can exalt him during this time.
When we refuse to serve one another, when we refuse to humbly love those, God
has put in our lives, we are refusing to exalt Christ and to submit to Him is Lord.
So when you think about.
Attending that, that family get together, your extended family is getting together
and, and your wife has said, Hey, I want you to come and be a part of that.
And you're just thinking to yourself, man, I don't want to
you showing up at that is more than just about you keeping peace with your wife.
It's also more than just you loving your wife.
It's you exalting Christ through serving her by showing up.
Or when you think about that awkward conversation that you need to have with
your brother-in-law about whether or not he believes in God this Christmas, you
may not want to have that conversation,
but it's not just an obligation that you have as a Christian.
That conversation is about the exaltation of Christ as you implore him to be
reconciled to the Father through the son.
At the end of the day this, this is not Paul saying, Hey, you know what?
It'd be really swell if you had this mind amongst yourselves.
And this last section is why.
If he is Lord, then this isn't optional for us.
Loving this way, loving like this isn't optional for us, but I do
wanna offer you a cookie at the end of the stick, not a carrot.
'cause nobody wants a carrot at the end of the stick.
It's the worst.
I don't know who invented that saying.
I don't, it's, it's not, even if it's about horses, I think a horse would
still want a cookie if they knew what a cookie was instead of the carrot.
I want a cookie.
Double stuffed Oreo end of the stick.
Here it is for you.
Ready?
Jesus made it clear during his earthing ministry that if we wanna be
exalted, we have to first be humbled.
Whoever wishes to be first needs to become servant of all.
Okay?
God validates that.
I think through Jesus' own example.
Jesus humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, God exalted him.
James then later is gonna write, humble yourselves before the
Lord and he will exalt you.
So here's the cookie.
Another motivation for our humble and sacrificial love
for our family and for others.
This Christmas is the knowledge that God is gonna honor that Christ likeness
and exalt us one day to be with Jesus.
If we love like him here, we'll be in glory with him there.
Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter two.
I don't have time to get there with us, but it's so amazing that that in, in
Ephesians one, he talks about the fact that God has has raised Christ and seated
him far above and given him the name that is above all names, just like we
read about in Philippians chapter two.
And then he says in Ephesians two, that God is gonna raise
us to and seat us with Christ.
So if you're like Christ and serving one another here and now, you're gonna get
to be with Christ in glory than in there.
And so that's part of the, that's that's the cookie.
There, there it is for you.
Hopefully it's as satisfying as a double stuff or more satisfying even.
It's such a, a good thing for us to do this because as we love one
another this way, not only does it give us that confidence to say, man,
I am the same Christian around my family, that I am around anybody else.
I, I am a true, full, fully devoted follower of Christ, but it's, it's that
exaltation of the Lord as we do this.
It's that comfort to say, man, God is being glorified through the way
that I'm loving my family right now.
The Christian your family knows you to be is the Christian you truly are.
So this Christmas, be reminded when you look at the baby and the manger of Paul's
Christmas story here from Philippians two, five through 11 and his call
for us to love like we've been loved.
I pray this chrisman, that you'll let the incarnation remove your
excuses, recalibrate your heart, and reframe your goals as you consider.
The time that you spend with those closest to you, let's pray together.
Heaven.
Father, we thank you that your plan was for your son to take on flesh and to come
for us to be born in the likeness of men, to add true humanity to his true deity,
such that he might be our true savior.
But we thank you that that was part of your plan, A plan that
none of us would've come up with, none of us would've invented.
We thank you that part of your plan was for that baby to then grow up
and live a perfectly obedient life to you and die on the cross so
that our sins might be forgiven.
That he took our place.
He was our substitute.
He bore your wrath against our sin and gave us his perfect righteousness.
Lord, we thank you that that was part of your plan.
We thank you that part of your plan was that humiliation that then
resulted in the exaltation of Christ being returned to his rightful place
and given the name above all names.
And we as a church Lord now want to go from this place and live a life
of submission and obedience to him.
We want to exalt him with how we live our lives.
And so we thank you so much for the gift of Christ this Christmas I pray.
That it would cause us to stop and think about how we love one
another as we've been loved.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.