enable us to worship today. In
the name of Christ, we pray it, amen. Now last week, we looked at the
text of scripture beginning in verse five and going through
verse 11 and seeing that this description of our Lord's attitude
and conduct was an illustration to us of how we are supposed
to relate to one another. And the way in which we are to
relate is as equals and yet everyone in the church submitting to everyone
else. And that the only way that a
real sense of equality and unity and spirit in spirit and in mind,
the only way to achieve equality is for everyone to do as Paul
says, consider others as better than yourselves. Now that sounds
counterintuitive and it's certainly not what the world says to do.
The world says, make sure to claim your territory. The world
says, you know, you gotta love yourself. And you've got to have
self-esteem. Well, there's a healthy kind
of self-esteem. Very few people have it. Most
of us, it's just conceit. But real unity within the body
of Christ is found in submitting to one another. Now, last week
we didn't get all the way through this, and so I just want to note
a couple of things that we didn't get to. Essentially, we've noticed
that the Lord Jesus Christ was in very nature God, and that's
the equality part. He indeed is equal with God,
and that's what they charged him with. When the Pharisees
brought him before Pilate, they said, he calls himself the son
of God, making himself equal with God. So he was equal with God, but
he didn't consider that that equality with God was something
to be insisted on. And by that, I mean, you know,
laid hold of all the rights and privileges of being God. Instead
of this, he emptied himself, took on the nature of a servant,
being found in human likeness, and being made to appear as a
man, he became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
Now, one application of this particular principle by our Lord, got a fresh application. I was
communicating with Karsten and Morgan about their upcoming wedding,
and they told me a portion of scripture that they wanted me
to preach from, and it spoke of submission, And that all these
things, the various exhortations that Paul gives, and it's in
Colossians 2, verses 9 through 12 or 13, something in that neighborhood. But anyway, all of them are brought
together in love. And I started thinking about
the marriage relationship. Now, man ruins everything. Humans
ruin everything. And the Lord set up, God, our
maker, set up an order within the household. But men, and here,
generally speaking, I mean male adults, have abused the headship
that was given them in the home and caused them to think that
they were better than their wives, more worthy than their wives,
and that they could run the house to suit themselves and to satisfy
themselves. But marriage is also illustrated
here. That is, the relationship between
a husband and wife is illustrated even in this with Christ. They're
equal. They are both human beings. Both
Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. Everything
about them makes them equals so far as their person is concerned. And while there's an order in
the household, it is one, you know, women are, in the scriptures,
are said to submit to your husbands. The interesting thing is the
word translated submit, it's voluntary submission. It's not
some servile business. But while it tells women to submit
to their husband, it never tells husbands to boss their wives.
Never. You know what it tells husbands
to do? Love. Love your wives. And you know
what love does? Love always looks after the interests
of its object. It doesn't look after its own
interests. And that's submission. And so while, uh, You know, I've
read these books on how to have a good marriage and all this
kind of stuff. And they spend a whole lot of time trying to establish
who's boss. Well, the one that they say is
supposed to be boss. Here's the exhortation from the
Lord. You take all the authority that's been handed to you and
you use it for the good of the people in your family. And really. Well, we're not going
to get too much into this, but the primary reason that man was
given the headship in the home is he was the one who is held
responsible for sin. Therefore, he's the one upon
whom the curse of fruitless labor fell and the responsibility of
taking care of the family. And it was simply, he was given
sufficient authority to carry that out. So the responsibility came first,
and then the authority to carry it out. Well, here, our Lord
Jesus Christ, he's equal with God. There's no difference. So
far as the Father and the Son are concerned and the Spirit,
they are all, and this is the mystery of the Trinity, so I
know some of the things I say sound like I'm preaching three
gods, but I'm not. But they are all equal. But Christ said, I'll empty myself
of all my claims, all my rightful claims, and I will take on the form of
a servant. I'll submit. And that's what we are to do,
really, in all of our relationships. No matter what just the arrangement
of a group is, When we are in that group, we
are to look at everyone else in the group, and I'm talking
within the church, but they are by nature equals, and if there
be differences among them in the various positions that they
occupy, every last one of them is a servant position. Nobody's
Lord except our Lord Jesus Christ. is there to serve others. Now,
Christ's example here, as he served his father's will, was
that having done so, and having finished the work that he was
given to do, he was exalted to the highest place. He did not
exalt himself. Now notice that. He says, God
exalted him. Exalted him not only as He would
be rightly exalted as God, but even in his humanity, he is exalted. And he was given a name that's
above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should
bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
of the Father. Now, we're never gonna be exalted
to be Lord of all. That belongs to only one person.
But here is the pattern laid out for us. The way up in the
kingdom of God is down. The way up is down. We take ourselves down and God
will exalt us however is fitting in his sight. Now, let's take
a few minutes to look at this particular passage of scripture. and try to understand as much
as we can of the mystery that's described here. These, I guess
it would be, that constitutes seven verses, I believe it is. We can say them. We can kind
of understand what the words mean. But when you try to truly
grasp what it describes, well, we just get way out of our depth.
I remember being taken to this scripture in Bible school, and
it was part of our theology class, and they described it as the
kenosis of Christ. And the reason they described
it as the kenosis is that the Greek word there at the beginning
of verse seven, it says he made himself nothing. The word there
is kenosis, and it means emptied himself. Emptied himself. And you know, one of the things,
I look back on my instruction, you know, my teaching, and I'm
not saying it wasn't valuable, but how glibly we would look
at passages like this. and argue over the word kenosis. When none of us arguing had a
real clue of what was done. We say the words, but we don't
really grasp the fullness of the meaning. But in describing
our Lord, it says in verse six, who being in very nature, God. Now, there is no stronger way
than I'm aware of to declare that our Lord Jesus Christ is
God. It says His very nature is God. Now, what is the nature of God?
Well, we know that God is spirit, but even that, you know, you
say, well, what spirit? I don't know. I know what spirit
does in us when God gave us that quality of spirit. It's the aspect
of human nature that enables them to communicate or commune
with God. But here in saying the very nature
of God, it doesn't simply mean that Jesus Christ had a spiritual
nature. It means he is God. That that
is the essence of who he is. Now, we stumble over that. Most
people do. Even if we believe it, because
it doesn't matter how we picture Christ in our minds, and all
of us do. You know, people say, well, you shouldn't have pictures
of Jesus. Well, everybody's got one in their mind. I assume. I know when people tell me, you
know, they'll read from the scriptures, the accounts of what Christ did.
I'm, you know, there's a movie going on in my head. But we think of Christ and it
doesn't matter how good looking we make him to be. in our minds,
how tall, how strong, whatever we do, you know, we probably
imagine some heroic figure. It doesn't matter how high. We
really cannot understand how he can be the living God. Because the joining of the eternal
with the temporal, with the joining the uncreated God with the nature
of created man. We can't grasp that. Good thing we don't have to.
God could grasp that. He can not only grasp the concept,
he did it. But Jesus Christ, the full person
of Christ, the God-man, so much God, that he is worthy to claim
equality of God, he is worthy to insist upon maintaining all
the rights and privileges that go with being God. You know, if you're given a title,
generally speaking, you say, well, I'm going to make the best
of this. Well, Christ, you know, he can
make the best of being God. He had that right. No one could
force him to let go of that. he was in very nature God, and
it says he did not consider equality with God. Now right there is
showing us that by describing him as being in very nature God,
it meant equal with God. Though he was in nature God,
he did not consider that equality with God something to be grasped. Now the King James said, Being
in very nature God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.
And it's one of those things that's a little difficult to
lay hold of the meaning of the word because just like every
language, Greek words can have various uses even though they
have a particular meaning. And the word means to grasp or
to lay hold of something. Well, that's what robbers do.
But the meaning here within the context is not robbery. And it
wouldn't have been robbery for Christ to grasp equality with
God, because he's equal with God. So it's not robbery. He
had a right to that. But that's not what's being taught
here. Because what it sets up in contrast is verse 7, but made
himself nothing. He emptied himself. So what's
being contrasted here? Well, taking a position of no
privileges, no rights. So what it means here when it
says, it's not robbery to be equal with God, it's simply using
the more general meaning of the word. And that is, he was equal
with God. That was already in his grasp.
But he did not insist on holding on to that. He let go. He let
go of what was rightfully his. and emptied himself. That song by Charles Wesley describing
our Lord's, describing what's going on here. He left his father's
throne above, so free, so infinite, his grace emptied himself of
all but love. And that's what he did. That's why people couldn't perceive
him as God. That's why Isaiah said, there is no majesty that
we would desire him. You couldn't see God when you
looked at Christ. Far from all the pomp and circumstance
of the religious leaders of that day. And you know, that's why
men dress up like they do. Because if they didn't, nobody
would know that they're better than everybody else. Kings put on robes and wear crowns
because if they didn't, you would never be able to tell that they
were a king because they look just like everybody else. Our
Lord came and though he were the king of the universe, he
did not come wearing a crown. He did not come glowing with
the glory of the divine being. He came here looking just like
you and me. It says, he emptied himself,
taking the very nature of a servant. Now, he has the nature of God. Does God serve anybody? No. You know, people get upset at God
because they don't do what they think God ought to do. Well,
what's God for? God's not for anything. He serves
no purpose because he doesn't serve anything. He is the purpose
of all things. And therefore our Lord had that
position, but what did he do? He who is subservient in nothing
became everything it means to be a servant. He who is everything
that it means to be God became everything that it means to be
a servant. Now, We, who have no right to
lay claim to any glory, any higher position than anyone else, we
are generally speaking very reluctant to take a lower position than
the one we think we deserve, and we've been trying to convince
everyone else that we deserve. Take the very nature of a servant. Oh, that we all would take on
the nature of servants. Having the heart and mind of
a servant. You ever meet people, you just
know that that's kind of the way they're put together. They
are fulfilled in serving. They find joy in it. It'd be great if most of the
world was like that. Our Lord was perfectly that way.
So much so did he submit to be a servant to God. He said, it's
my very food to do the will of him who sent me. And it said he was made in human
likeness. He's just like us. And being found in appearance
as a man, he humbled himself. Now why did he humble himself?
Because no one else was able to do that. Who can humble the
Lord Jesus Christ? Who can humble God? Nobody can work that kind of
humility in God. I once joked with a science teacher
in the eighth or ninth grade, I had him both years, but I thought
I was going to tell a good joke and I just came up and I said,
oh yeah, I bet I'm twice as humble as you are. He just looked at
him and said, well, you got twice as much to be humble about. Well,
we got a reason to be humble. God doesn't. And our Lord Jesus is God. So
nobody can demand humility from him, but he freely made it happen. He humbled himself. How far did he humble himself? He became obedient to death. Now, I don't know. I didn't look it
up. I don't know if the Greek language
would clear this up. I don't know if it's saying that
he became obedient to the point of death. That's true. Or does it mean that he actually
became a servant of death? as though death were a person,
and he bowed to the demands of death. Both are true. How much did he submit to the
Father? All the way to the point of dying, completely and fully
dying. Here we have described in this
passage the full, complete deity That's the godness of Christ
and the full and complete humanity. God can't die. Humans can. One of my favorite episodes of
Star Trek The Next Generation, and one of my favorite guest
characters in it was a character called Q. And he was very godlike
and thought much of himself. And he really pestered the crew
of the Enterprise. Well, he got in trouble with
the other Q because he wasn't the only one and they kicked
him out of the Q continuum. So he lost all his powers and
he became mortal and he ends up on board the Enterprise. And
he's trying to convince them that he can't cause them any
trouble because he has no powers. He's mortal. No one wants to
believe him. And so he goes, what do I have to do to prove
to you I'm mortal? And Worf said, die. What did our Lord do to prove
he was a man, a mortal man? He died. There's proof of his humanity.
But he didn't die just any death. Death on a cross. Now, remember,
we start out God, and then we're down to servant, man, flesh,
death, and then even death on a cross. And he doesn't mean,
he's not referring there to the agony of that kind of death. He's talking about what it signifies.
Because the law says, cursed is everyone who is hanged on
a tree. And our Lord became obedient
to a death that not only proved his mortality, but proved that
he had taken upon himself the sins of others, because he had
none of his own. And he wouldn't have died if he had no sin. And
he wouldn't have been cursed by being hung on a tree if he
was not cursed by God. And if he's not, and if he's
cursed, it must be, there's sin. So he didn't sin, yet there must
be sin on him. So it's somebody else's sin.
So he, in a single person, spans all the distance from being,
as the old timers said, very God of very God, to being absolutely and completely
cursed by God. There can be no greater fault. There can be no greater condescension. We can never do that, and here's
the reason, we can never start where he started. And if we're in Him, we're never
going to go where He went. That's why He went there. We'll
never be cursed if we're in Christ, precisely because He was. So
no believer will ever be able to say, well, Christ is my example
of condescension, and I have done it just like Him. No. To
do it like Him, you've got to start out with all the glory
of God and end up with all the cursedness of the damned. And
I can't be God, and I'm certainly glad I will never be eternally
condemned and cursed by God. I can't follow the example to
the extent he did it, but you know what? I can look at my brothers
and sisters in Christ, and instead of taking into account
whatever graces God has given to me, and whatever position
he may have put me in within this assembly, to look at everyone
that comes here and say, they're better than me. They're more
worthy than me. And to take this position behind this pulpit,
not to accomplish my will, but to accomplish the will of the
father in serving those who come in. Oh, that we all could always
have that attitude. We are servants to one another. How much arguing would cease?
Do servants argue with their masters? No. Well, they're not supposed to. Less arguing. What's the right word here? The
option of reconciling, less division. Less of this, you walk into church
and you see someone and you give them a wide berth. Why? No need to. Servants don't look at others
as though others wronged them. After all, they're servants. Our Lord Jesus Christ became
the servant of servants and did the most humbling, humiliating
even, works of servitude in dying for our sins. Therefore, verse nine, God exalted him. And you know something? If you
ever get any understanding on what it means when it says he
was by very nature God, but he became obedient to death, even
the death of the cross, you will exalt him too. I have sometimes said that faith,
the proper spiritual response, worked in the heart of a believer
is to agree with the Father. What did the Father do? He entrusted
us to Christ. What else did He do? He exalted
Christ. And what do we do? We entrust
ourselves to Christ, and we exalt Christ. Exalted Him and gave Him a name, every name. And He deserves it. Remember name doesn't just mean
what people call you. It's a description of what you
are. And it says, at the name of Jesus. I know that some preachers,
or I know some preachers that don't like to refer to Him as
just Jesus. And one of them used to say,
at the name of His humiliation. No, it's the name of His exaltation, Jesus. Jehovah is Savior. That's an exalted name. The fact
that men use it flippantly, that's their problem. God used it gloriously,
gave him a name, not only that he would save his people from
sins, now his name means he did save his people from their sins.
And he has made it so that at that name,
every knee should bow and heaven, and on earth, and under the earth."
That means you, and me, and everybody else in the world, and everybody
in hell, Satan, and all the demons, everybody, all the angels are
going to bow and call Him Lord. And thus will the Father be glorified. He is glorified in that his son
was willing to condescend. And he is glorified in that his
father exalted him above all. And he is glorified by us when
we truly with heart and mouth confess him to be Lord. All right, you're dismissed to
the regular service.