It's so true. When we look to
Christ, unity is produced. When we look to ourselves, division
is produced. That's just so. I read an article
by Brother Henry Mahan. And within the article, he made
this statement. And I thought this was excellent.
And the definition is so good. He said, the spirit of anger
and division in insignificant things can only be traced to
two things. Can only be traced to two things. And these are the greatest evils
that can be charged to a believer. Pride and self-righteousness. Now listen to this definition.
My pride tells me I am right and others are wrong. My self-righteousness tells me
I have a right to be offended. That's the cause of division.
That's it. How does the Spirit of God make
a believer overcome these two great evils? How does the Spirit
of God, and it must be the Spirit of God, we can't overcome it.
How does the Spirit of God make us overcome these two great evils? He makes us behold the condescension
and humility of the Son of God in order to save proud, self-righteous
sinners like you and me. The Son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ came down from the highest, loftiest place to the lowest
possible low in order to save self-righteous,
proud sinners like you and me. If you can hear that and you
can see Him and still go on in pride and self-righteousness
I guarantee you, you've got a worse problem than the person you're
blaming. I guarantee it. I've titled this, The Triumph
of Lowliness. Now first of all, let's remember
who Christ is from where He came. Secondly, then we'll see how
low He actually went. And then thirdly, We'll see what
the Spirit does in a believer when He applies this to our inward
being. Now first of all, before we can
see how low Christ condescended, we're going to have to see how
high He was in glory, how high the throne of God is, where He
was. Now, that one, as I told you
this morning, that babe born in Bethlehem, is holy God. He is holy God. The newborn infant
wrapped in swaddling clothes is the infinite God. That's who He is. He's the second
person in the Trinity. He is God the Son. Matthew chapter
1 verse 23 says, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall
bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which
being interpreted is God with us. God with us. 1 Timothy 3.16, Paul said, without
controversy, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. That is the greatest mystery. God was manifest in the flesh. Go to John chapter 1. That infant,
just try to think on it, that infant was God our Creator. I see that infant was God our
Creator. Look at this, John 1 verse 1,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made. He is the
Creator. Look down at verse 14. And the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, the only begotten
Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the Son of God. That's why He's called the Son
given. The Son given. Go to Isaiah 9
and verse 6. I know you've probably heard
these scriptures, but I want you today to see what they mean. Isaiah 9 verse 6. This One who came down from heaven
is the Son of God. Isaiah 9 In verse 6, he says here, unto us a child
is born. Unto us a son is given. See, the child that was born,
that's God's son that God gave. And the government shall be upon
his shoulder. You know what that means. When
the government is on your shoulder, that means it all falls on you.
You have the full responsibility of everything. He has the full
responsibility of God's kingdom. the full responsibility to bring
each and every one that God will save to God and present them
perfect, holy, without spot, without blemish, so that they
can enter into God's presence. The government of that was on
that infant baby's shoulder. Who is he? His name shall be
called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty, God, the everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. I was thinking about this last
night. Mary hailed God just like you hailed your baby. That's amazing. Now, believer, think how high,
think how glorious, think how lofty the throne of God is. Now, we can't comprehend this,
but we, you know, we can kind of soar off in our imagination
and think it's got to be a high and glorious throne. He said, as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. God's way higher than we are. He's the highest. That's where
the Son of God dwelt with the Father. And yet, God left His
majestic throne. God came down from reigning over
the whole universe. He came down and omnipotence
took the weakest thing there is, human flesh. Omnipotence, that one who is
all powerful, took the weakest thing there is, the form of a
man. The form of a man. A pure spirit
willingly became partaker of flesh and blood. made in the
likeness of men. Do you realize what a step down
that was? Brethren, if holy God can come
down from so high to save a wretch like you and me, Don't you think we ought to come
down from our throne of pride and self-righteousness and bow
to Christ and submit ourselves to one another as Christ commands
us? He says, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart. And you know what you'll find?
Rest for your soul. Pride and self-righteousness
won't give you any rest. No peace. But you come to Christ. And to come to Him, you're going
to have to come down. He's meek and lowly. You're way too high
right now to come to Him. You've got to come down to come
to Him. Now secondly, let's see how far
down our holy God condescended. Well one, His human body, His
humanity was conceived in the womb of a virgin of the Holy
Ghost. Look there in verse 7, Luke 2,
7. She brought forth her firstborn
son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn. You know, I
tell you this a lot, how that Christ is so much superior to
Adam, the first Adam. God created the first man a full
grown man. He breathed into him the breath
of life and he opened his eyes and he was a full grown man living
in a sinless environment with one law. Do not partake of the tree that
God commanded him to eat. Not to eat. And he broke that
one law and plunged all his children into sin and death. The Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God came down in spirit and took
this body that was conceived in the womb of this woman and
He grew from an infant or grew into an infant. and was born
and then grew and increased, Scripture says, in wisdom and
stature as a man. And he did this in a sinful environment
under over 600 laws that God had given and he was holy in
his heart and his entire life never broke one commandment. Now is that not superior to Adam? He's the king of kings and he's
the lord of lords. What does that mean? That means
every king, every president that's ever lived in this world, every
dictator, every despot, he's been ruling them. Every one of
them. every one of them. Well, what
about the ones that did evil? He said, has evil happened in
a city and have I not done it? Well, why would he let evil come
to pass? To bring good. He said, the wrath of man, the
wickedness of man shall praise God. Any wickedness, any wrath
that comes about shall praise God. And he said, and the remainder
of wrath I will restrain. If it doesn't glorify Him in
some way, He said, I'll restrain it. I won't let it happen. You
see, that's who God is. That's who this one born in a
manger, laid in a manger was. He's sovereign God. The King
of kings and Lord of lords. And yet, He didn't choose to
come through royalty. He chose to be born of a poor
woman whose husband was a lowly carpenter. This one right here, he came
as the king. He was born king. And he didn't
choose to be born in a palace. He chose to be born in a barn.
This one who came forth came to robe his children in his righteous
robe, his righteousness. And he chose to be wrapped in
swaddling clothes, swaddling bands. He said, I go to prepare
a place for you that where I am, there you may be also. And yet
he came down and had no room for him in the inn. Here he is, he's light. He's
light. And he was born in the dark of
night and nobody but a few knew about it. Scripture says, Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.
All you who believe God, you who are the elect of God, shout
and rejoice. Behold, thy king cometh unto
thee. He's just and he has salvation. How's he come? and riding upon
an ass upon a colt, the foal of an ass. How many presidents,
how many kings, how many princes would do that? Have you ever
seen one that would do that? Come riding into town, not even
on a full grown donkey, he came in on a colt, one that had never
been ridden before. You know of all the imposters
that ever walked this earth that claimed to be Messiah, never
any of them imitated that. None of them ever came down that
low because they were proud sinners, that's why. They're trying to
get a following and a proud man don't think you can get a following
unless you do something proud and impressive. Presidents come
and kings come and they're riding in luxury and they're surrounded
by dignitaries. The Lord Jesus Christ came. He's the king. He came lowly
on a foal of an ass surrounded by publicans and sinners. How unlike us proud, self-righteous
boasters. We want to be seen. We want to
be recognized as powerful, as perfect, as accomplished, with
a reputation that makes others envious. We just, we think about
it in our minds about what they must be saying. And yet, this one right here,
Philippians 2.6 says, being equal with God. made himself of no reputation,
and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men." Here's the triumph of lowliness, brethren.
The infant of ages, the infinite of ages became an infant of days. This one representing his people,
he grew up and lived our youth. He grew up from a baby, he was
a baby representing his elect. When you milked at your mother's
breast and cried and bit her because you were mad, you had
enough sin to send you to hell a thousand times. Christ did
that for you perfectly, so you did it perfectly. That's what
He says of His people. and He grew up into a man and
He lived our teenage years faithfully. He lived our manhood faithfully
without sin. Christ did this for His elect.
And then He went to the cross and took all the sin of His people
and was regarded as nothing before God. He said, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And he said, because thou art
holy, and I am a worm. The word is maggot, and no man. That's low. That's the triumph
of lowliness, brethren. He did this to free His people
from the bondage of our sin. He did it to free us from the
law's curse and from the bondage of our sin nature. And so His
entire life, He served. He served. His whole life, He
served. This is the triumph of lowliness.
This one to whom every knee shall bow. bowed his knee and made himself
a servant. When it was time to speak to
a fallen woman who had multiple husbands and was just a liar
and was just lost in her sin, you found him sitting at the
well ready to meet her and talk to her and reveal himself. Whenever
it came time to convert a tax collector, who was a cheating
tax collector. He was working for the Roman
government, squeezing taxes out of his own people for the Roman
government, and while he was squeezing, he went ahead and
squeezed out a little bit for him too. And when it was time
to convert one, he went straight to Zacchaeus' house and called
him. Here he is, the high and lofty
one, bowed down, washing his disciples' feet. And in all of
that, what He's showing us, brethren, is how the greatest service of
all was that He went to the cross and justified His hell-deserving
people. That's how He served. That's
how He served. We live in a day when you have
to be extra careful not to infringe and not to offend anybody. Everybody is so right and everybody
is so dignified. You have to be careful. You will offend them. This one was superior to us in
all ways. He was superior to us in every
way. And he never once acted superior
to anybody. Not once. He ate with publicans
and sinners. There was a harlot one time.
Just a whore. That's all she was. That's all
you could say about her. And this woman saved and saved
and saved her money all year long, it said, and bought an
alabaster box of ointment. And she came into this house
where he was. Nobody paid her any attention.
She comes in there and breaks open that alabaster box of ointment
and pours it on his head to anoint him for burial because she knew
he was going to the cross. Did he say, get this whore away
from me? You know what he did? He said,
leave her alone. She's done a good work. He never
said that about anybody else. That's the one place in scripture
where he said somebody did a good work. It was her. He didn't make
himself superior to anybody. The poor, the lame, the inferior,
the outcasts of society. That's who he made himself home
among. And ate with them. And dined
with them. And walked around with them.
befriended them. Aren't you glad He did it to
you, sinner, and to me? Scripture says our incarnate
Lord was seen of angels. He was seen of angels. Don't
you just know that angels were just amazed to see all of this? Here's the one who created heaven
and earth. Here's the one who rules all
things in heaven, earth and hell. Who says a sparrow can't fall
to the ground without his consent. Who says the very hairs of your
head are all numbered. This one was made a little lower
than the angels. Don't you know that just amazed
them? I'm sure that was a marvel for
them to see Him eat and drink and sleep and sigh and suffer
just like the creatures He made. Just like the men and women He
made who are His creation. Let's go down even lower. Let's go to the cross. Just think of how he humbled
himself to even take on this work of saving his sinful people. That's astute just to humble
himself to even undertake the salvation of his sinful people.
If the angels, can you imagine one of the highest loftiest angels
in glory coming down to save a bunch of ants on an ant hill.
That wouldn't compare to Christ coming down to save a sinner
like you. We have no room to boast that
we're right in anything. You know that? You want to mark iniquity? You want to mark iniquity? You
want God to mark yours? We don't have a right to be offended
in anything. We don't have a right to be regarded
by God at all except as obnoxious sinners. That's it. We don't have a right to be regarded
by God as anything but those who are deserving of His eternal
wrath. That's all. And yet God This One who was
in no way to blame for any of our problems. He was in no way
to blame for any of our problems. He stooped down to take our sin
and to take our curse that He might make us the righteousness
of God in Him. So we wouldn't have to suffer
the wrath of God. So that we could have acceptance
and communion with the Holy God. What a curse He bore for His
people. Believer, I want you to think about this now. This
was for you. This curse was for you. Scripture
says, when He hung upon the tree, His visage, His appearance, was
marred more than any other man. More than any other man in history.
His visage was marred. And that doesn't even compare
to the soul agony of being forsaken by God the Father who He loved. And it ended in a dusty, dark,
borrowed tomb. That's God. We're talking about
God. He went from a glorious high
throne to an inglorious grave. Now, don't make a mistake here.
The Lord was never, He was never more glorious than in His humiliation. That was glory. That was glory. You look to the
cross, the believer sees glory when he looks to the cross. He
shall be exalted and extolled and shall be very high. You remember scripture says to
be the very least is to be the greatest. That's not how it is
in the world. But in the kingdom of God to
be the very least is to be the greatest. That's why scripture
says of Christ He shall be exalted and extolled and shall be very
high. Because He made Himself the least.
Our Lord's condescending love is as glorious as the person
of Him who exhibited it. Now He exhorts us, He exhorts
you and me to conquer, to conquer, to conquer one another, to conquer
other sinners by the same lowliness. He's proved that gentleness and
meekness will prevail. Pride and self-righteousness
won't prevail. I can promise you that. But lowliness
and meekness will. When we're overcome by pride
and self-righteousness, when our old man brought us into the
bondage of our flesh, the only thing we can do The only thing
we can do is blame another for whom Christ
died. When we're with our brethren
having a problem, we can only blame them. We can't do anything
else but blame them. When we're in our pride and self-righteousness,
that's all we can do. While at the same time, we justify
ourselves and claim no fault of our own. That's bondage. That's a result
of bondage. That's a result of those two
great evils Brother Henry talked about. When we are accused, lambs
roar like lions. I'm ashamed of that. Lambs roar
like lions when we're offended. And just how opposite is that
to our Redeemer? They called him a glutton and
a wine-bibber. He didn't get angry. He didn't
threaten his accusers. They charged him falsely before
Pilate's judgment seat. False charges. Scripture says,
Like a lamb before a shearer's is dumb, so he opened not his
mouth. Believer, the Son of God could
have justly put all the blame on you. He could have justly
done that. But rather than justify Himself,
He justified you. If I know that, can I not find
it in my heart to lay down my life for another? If not, what does that say about
me? If I can't, what does that say about me? It says, I'll take all the benefits
from Christ bearing the cross for me, but I'm too proud and
self-righteous to bear a far lighter cross for Him. That's exactly what it says.
Lastly, What effect will this condescension have on a believer
when the Holy Spirit applies this to our heart? What effect
is it going to have on a believer? First of all, the Spirit of God
is going to bring His child to confess our sins. He is going to bring us to see
I am the guilty one. Not, not, oh well I'm a sinner. We're all sinners. No, no, no.
I'm talking about you the only one. I'm the chief of sinners. I'm the least of all. He's going to bring you to mourn
your sin. How's He going to do that? He's
going to bring you to see Christ on the cross bearing the sin. He's going to make you see Christ
on the cross bearing, being pierced because of you and your sin. He's there getting what I deserve. He's there getting what I deserve
so I don't have to get it. I tell you that will break your
heart. That will make you see what a sinner you are. And then once the Holy Spirit
is created in us and broken in a contrite heart, He will make
us willing to lay down our lives to Christ and submit to our brethren. That's exactly what he'll do.
If a brother or sister is overtaken in pride and self-righteousness
so that they cannot and will not give you any grace and mercy
and love. Now listen to me. I'm not talking
right now to the one who is overtaken in pride and self-righteousness.
I'm talking about to you to whom God has revealed your sin and
God has made you lay hold of Christ and be in submission to
Him. I'm talking to you. When you
behold a brother or a sister overtaken in pride and self-righteousness
so that they refuse, no matter how you beg, they refuse to give
you any grace or any mercy or any love. But all they do is lay all the
blame on you. Let me tell you what to do. You
follow Christ by taking all that blame. And you can do that and know
in your heart they don't even know the half of it. They ain't even seen the bad
stuff. It's in here. And when you do that, bear the
whole burden. Bear them. Bear their burden.
Bear this one who's overtaken, who's a brother. Bear all their
offenses. Bear all their spewing and all
of their wrath and all of their ungodly behavior. Bear it all. Just bear it. Bear
every bit of it. Lay down your life for that one. And as you do that, you freely
give them whatever they need to be reconciled to God. And
hopefully, reconciled to you. And you pray for them without
ceasing while you're doing that. And if they end up never being
reconciled to God, if they end up being never reconciled to
you, at least you have the peace in your heart of knowing you
followed Christ and obeyed what He told you to do. You can live with a clear conscience. And your brethren will defend
you. They will. Because believers
can see through the charade. They'll defend you. There was no room for Christ
in the inn. You know, that's the problem
when we're overcome by pride and self-righteousness. Our inn
is booked to capacity. There's no room. No room for
God. But then the Holy Spirit graciously makes room, doesn't
He? He graciously makes room and
Christ enters in and that's when you mourn and are so ashamed
that you acted the way you did. Have you ever been ashamed of
your sin? If you've never been ashamed
of your sin, you've never confessed your sin. I'm talking about so ashamed
of it that you just... That's when we become the ones
asking God and asking our brethren to forgive us. And right away, you know what
we find? grace and mercy and love and
rest for our souls right away. I pray God will bless that and
I pray he'll give you a blessed time with your families this
week and keep these things on our mind and on our hearts. Let's pray together. Lord God, we thank you. Make
us to search Your Word and see that these things are straight
from the Word of God. Make us search Your Word to see
this is exactly what You speak to Your people. Lord, make this Word effectual
in our heart. Make room in our heart for Christ. Make us mourn our sin. Make us
be ashamed of our sin. Make us lay a hold of Christ.
Make us submit to Him and to one another. Worms just don't
fight. Lord, make us worms. Work reconciliation in the hearts
of Your people. Reconcile us to You. Show us how Christ has reconciled
us and make us come, bow down as a friend and not an enemy. Lord, be with Your people this
week. Open the door of utterance that
we might speak these things to family and friends Help us, give
us the words to speak as we ought. Be with your people that are
traveling and give them traveling mercies. As we give gifts one to another,
Lord, make us constantly think about Your unspeakable gift,
Your Son. And let us remember, there's
no greater gift. If we have Him, we have all. Thank you, Father. We ask it
in Christ's name. Amen.