We just read one of the greatest
chapters in the Bible and, in my opinion, sang one
of the greatest songs in our book that should well prepare
us to worship if we entered into it. By His Spirit we enter into
it. Philippians 2, go back there,
the purpose of this passage is to promote love and unity among
brethren, to teach us humility and lowliness of mind so that
we will truly esteem others better than ourselves and take our rightful
place as servants. And the great and really the
only example that we need that will teach us these things is
Christ and Him crucified. And that's what the Lord uses
here. Look at verses 5 through 8 again. Verses 5 through 8. Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Why does He
say let this mind? Because He's telling us to submit
to this way of thinking. Give way to this mind in you. This is what we've been taught.
This is what we know to be true and so and right and good. So he says, submit to this. Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation
and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the
likeness of men, being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient even unto death, even the death of
the cross. I have entitled this message,
The Self-Made Man, not for Cleverness, but that's what this is about. The Lord in Scripture says He
made Himself of no reputation. He made Himself to be flesh. The habit or the fashion of a
man. Now, many men and women boast
that they are self-made men and women, don't they? You've heard
people boast about that. But they are not. No one is.
What do we have we have not received? No matter what it is, whatever
talents or whatever it may be, strength, beauty, wisdom, all
comes from above. And Scripture says, Let not the
wise man glory in his wisdom, but he that glorieth glory in
the Lord. For by the grace of God we are
what we are and can do what we can do. And Scripture says the
Lord raises us. It says promotion doesn't come
from the east or the west or the south, but God is the judge,
and He said it that one, and it has to come in another. So
we don't make ourselves anything, but the Lord has predestined
things concerning us. But if we could, if you or I
could make ourselves to be anything we wanted to make ourselves to
be, how would you make yourselves?
What would you make yourself to be? How would you form yourself? Where would you put yourself?
In what position? What family? What upbringing? How would you make yourself if
you could order your life? Most people would choose to be
rich and famous and beautiful and noble, wouldn't they? One hundred percent of people
in the world would choose to be so, wouldn't they? Wise, mighty,
noble, rich, famous, well-loved, well-liked, beautiful to look
at, and all of these things, wouldn't they? Not this man. The opposite, the
exact opposite is true of him. He made himself, he who was rich,
made himself the poorest of the poor. Now I begin here because,
as I said, the purpose of this chapter is to promote lowliness
of mind. It's to promote esteem of others
more highly than ourselves. And the only thing, the only
thing that will humble us is looking at him. The only thing
that will make us think low thoughts of ourselves and high thoughts
of others is to see how he treated us. What he did for us. It's
the only thing. So I begin here. He made himself
humble. He made himself a servant. He
chose his upbringing. He chose to be born of the poorest
of the poor. Parents, very poor parents. And so he was raised in a home
where he had to work, I'm sure, as a child every day. Pity him. Not to be served, but served. He made himself with no beauty,
no outward beauty. None. No covenants. He made his own body. He prepared
his own body. And he made it with no covenants. Why? He's teaching us a divine
lesson here. Because God doesn't see as man
sees. We see things all wrong, don't
we? We look at the flesh. God doesn't look on the flesh.
He made himself of no reputation. No reputation. He made himself
despised. In fact, he was of ill repute
to most. He chose his birth. He chose
to be born in a barn. He chose his parents, working
class. He chose his life, the life of
service. He chose his friends, lowest
of the low, sinners. He chose to die. How many people
would choose to die if they didn't have to? He didn't have to die. The wages of sin is death. He
did not have to die. He chose to die. Most people
would choose to live forever. He chose his death. If you could
choose your death, how would you choose it? You would choose
a painless one, wouldn't you? You would choose a quick one,
wouldn't you? It shows the most painful, the
most shameful, and a long and arduous and terrible death. Why? Why did He do all this? Well, He did it as a substitute. He became us. Now, here's why
He was made in the likeness of man, in the likeness of sinful
flesh without sin. To God, and just I just want
you to turn to one scripture, one other scripture, OK? Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is the psalm
of the cross. There's no doubt that this is
our Lord speaking. In fact, he cried these very
words in the first verse from the cross. Many of the old Puritans
believe he quoted this whole psalm. Everything our Lord said
was not written. Many believe He quoted this whole
psalm. But to God, do you know how we appear to God? Worms. Look at verse 6. Our Lord says, I am a worm and
no man. A reproach of men, a despise
of the people. To God, all flesh has corrupted
his way. Flesh is not beautiful to God. As I quoted Genesis 6, where
it says, all flesh has corrupted his way. Especially since flesh
is so full of pride, and flesh is so full of the lust of the
flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the thing that the Lord hates
more than anything, which is most prevalent in flesh, is a
proud look. What are we proud of? Flesh.
So he took flesh. He took flesh and honored God
with flesh. He didn't have pride. The only
person who could be proud was not. He's become our substitute. He
was made flesh in the likeness of sinful flesh as our representative
in the flesh before God to please God in the flesh. But not with
outward beauty. That doesn't impress God. Outward
beauty impresses us. But we sure are deceived by it,
aren't we? Show of the flesh. God's not. in his flesh pleased
God, and God seeth not as man, but he came in the beauty, not
of outward flesh, but of holiness, in the beauty of holiness, from
the womb of the morning. Thou hast the dew of youth upon
thy brow. Not form or comeliness, but just,
well, the beauty of meekness. There's nothing more beautiful
to us even, believers, nothing more beautiful than humility
is, nothing. Nothing more beautiful, and there's
nothing more Christ-like. Nothing more beautiful than lowliness. We go out to people like that. Nothing more beautiful than love,
real love. Nothing more beautiful than mercy.
Nothing more beautiful than grace. And yes, works. Everything about
His flesh, everything about our flesh is corrupt. Our hands,
our feet, our eyes. Our mouths, right? Our tongues,
and so on. And our hands. You look into
his eyes and the scripture says they were like dove's eyes. Pure.
Pure. No deceit in his eyes. No guile
in his eyes. No mischief in his eyes. Nothing
but honesty and integrity. His mouth says grace poured from
his lips. His hands always doing good. clean hands, although his hands
were probably the dirtiest hands and the most calloused hands
of anyone's, because he was working all day, every day. His hands
were dirty. He probably had dirt under his
fingernails. Is that bad? Oh, no. That's not
dirt at all. Filth is, what did we read Sunday? It's not from without. from within. Oh my, His hands, His feet, His
mouth, His eyes, His speech, His works, His flesh. Flesh, no lust. No lust. A flesh and blood man with no
outward beauty, but God said, He's altogether lovely. God looked
down from heaven on His Son and said, I am well pleased with
my Son. He is beautiful. It's just beautiful. But he had no outward beauty.
None. Sin has corrupted our flesh and
our bodies. You know what the Scripture says
about our flesh? It says, in our flesh dwelleth no good thing. It's a shame, isn't it? God made
man out of flesh and said he's very good. After God created
all manner of flesh and then created man, he said, it's very
good. He made man in the likeness of
himself. But sin ruined it. The first
Adam, oh my. He corrupted our flesh. That
which is flesh is flesh, the scripture says. Flesh profiteth
nothing. Nothing. So, God was manifest
in the flesh. He was made in the likeness of
sinful flesh, but without sin, to glorify himself in the flesh
and body, to give himself as it were a chaste virgin to his
God. Man was created for God, for
his glory. We've fallen way short of his
glory. No man has ever glorified God
as he ought, beginning with the first Adam. And it's His works
by whom we're justified. It's His life that is well-pleasing
to God, and we are accepted in Him. It's His death that our
sins are punished. It's His stripes by which we're
healed, and His resurrection by which we live. It's a great
mystery, this thing of substitution, this unity of the believer with
Christ. But as in Adam, all die. Listen to this. was not. He was deceived in the transgressions. He was deceived by Satan. He
was a weaker vessels, even then, and she was deceived by Satan
and Adam. It had to be Adam, the covenant
head, the representative of all human race. Had not Adam sinned,
we all wouldn't have died. In Adam was his seat. God would
have destroyed Eve and given him another wife. But it didn't
happen to him. Adam willingly and willfully took that prison
and rebelled and plunged our race into sin and corruption,
didn't he? Adam. Well, that wasn't a noble
thing that Adam did. That was a rebellious thing.
But as a type of Adam, the second Adam he's called, Christ, in
a noble acts, in a noble acts, in love to his fallen bride,
who would forever be cast out and ever corrupt, became one
with her by being made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's a noble
act. Verse 8 says, He was found in
fashion as a man. He humbled himself and became
obedient unto death. The wages of sin is death. And
He obeyed that law, that commandment. The soul that sinneth must surely
die, and his soul was made an offering for sin, even the death
of the cross, because it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. And we were cursed in Adam, so
Christ willingly and in love and in mercy took sin upon himself in his
body, in his flesh, and condemned sin in the flesh. Here's the
beauty. Here's the beauty of our Lord.
He did this for those who hated him. He did this for those who
despised him. He did this for those who rejected
him. He did this for us who, while we were yet enemies, Christ
died for us. The altogether lovely one
died for the unloving. The altogether lovely son of
the Most High God, the lovely bridegroom, gave himself for
an ugly bride, a sinful bride. Now that's his glory. That's
his beauty. And this is the only thing that
will break our heart, the only thing that will conform us to
his image. Paul said that. We beholding His face in a glass,
in this word, if we behold His face, it's the only thing that's
going to change us in His image from glory to glory is looking
at Him. Now go back to verse 1. So this
is the purpose of this chapter. He says in verse 1, if there's
any consolation in Christ, there is comfort, there's consolation,
The consolation of the gospel is that Christ died. Who is He
that condemned Him? It's God that justified. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's will? It is Christ.
God that justified. It's Christ that died. The consolation
is Christ died so we are accepted. If any comfort, look at verse
1, if there is any comfort of love, perfect love, His love,
should give us comfort. See, Christ didn't do this for
a righteous man, for a good man. He did this for sinners. If there's
any comfort in His love for us, if there's any fellowship of
the Spirit, the fellowship of His suffering, we enter into
what He did for us, and it ought to give us this fellowship of
kindred spirits. If any bowels and mercies, if
there's any deep-seated appreciation and love and gratitude for Christ
and what He did for us. My, my. He poured out His bowels. Then he says in verse 2, so fulfill
ye my joy. Make me happy, Paul said. Let
you be like-minded like Him. Having the same love. The love
of Christ. And being of one accord. In tune
together. One mind. Let nothing, he says,
be done through strife or vain glory. Nothing is accomplished. The wrath of man worketh not
the righteousness of God. And any glory or credit we take
to ourselves is vain glory, isn't it? Because what do we have we
have not received? Christ is the only one who deserved
the glory, yet he didn't demand it. He didn't go around demanding
the glory at all. In lowliness of mind, verse 3,
in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves.
Our Lord said this, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Be
harnessed to me. This is the only way an old,
wild ass's coat is going to learn, is to be harnessed to Christ.
He'll show us the way. He says, I am meek and lowly
in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Rest and peace with God is for
the meek and the lowly. The meek shall inherit the earth.
Rest and peace with God, and rest and peace within from trying
to please this ugly man within us called self. And he cannot
be appeased. He cannot be pleased. He is always
offended. This old ugly fellow is always
offended when he should be ashamed. This is the only thing, people,
that will make us like Christ. It really is. And we each need
to listen to this for ourselves. I suppose as a pastor, you know,
I do want everyone to hear this, because I know all of us need
this. But as a man, I need this worse than anybody. And I won't
receive it unless I take it personally, unless I think, I need this. I know she needs this. I know
you need this. But I need this. So don't apply
this to anyone but ourselves. In lowliness of mind, Christ
said, I'm meek and lowly. We shouldn't have any trouble
thinking low thoughts of ourselves, because we are. In fact, Scripture says, if any
man thinks he's something when he's nothing. And that's the
source of all our problems, isn't it? We get offended because we
think we're too high of ourselves. But Christ, my, my. Oh, how He
was mistreated. And look back at chapter 1. It
says in verse 29, it's given on behalf of Christ, not only
to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake. We're going
to suffer at the hands of this world because Christ did. And
we might even suffer at the hands of our brethren because Christ
did. But the fact is, he never hurt
his brethren. He only did them good. We do.
In many things, we all offend all. If we haven't, we will.
But we have. And so we don't get half of what
we deserve. He got nothing. So this is the
only thing that will keep us from being offended, because
we're nothing. You can't offend the chief of
senators, or shouldn't be able to. Let each esteem other better
than themselves. The only way we'll esteem our
brother higher than ourselves is to think low thoughts of ourselves.
If our brother offends us, or someone offends us, it's because
we think he's offended somebody. when we are nobody. Verse 4,
Look not every one on his own things, but every man also on
the things of others. Isn't that what Christ did? Christ
never met his own needs. Christ never thought of himself.
He never met his own needs. He never did anything to relieve
his own suffering. Never. We spend most of our lives
on ourselves. I heard a brother preach this
just today. And he said that, and I agree
with him. We spend most of our lives on ourselves, not our Lord. He spent every waking hour of
every day, all his life, thinking about others. Who was he thinking
about? Who was he serving? Good people? People that deserve this? It's
the opposite. Our brethren deserve it from
us. Well, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ
Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, equal with God, deserving of all praise
and honor. But that's not what he took.
Verse 7, he made himself of no reputation. My, my. No reputation. Took upon him
the form of a servant. Servant. Now didn't he say one
time to his brethren, his disciples, didn't he say, let him that is
greatest among you be the servant. He had just told them he was
going to the cross to die. Here's how bad we are. He had
just told them that he was going to go and suffer many things
at the hands of the Jews and that he was going to be ill-treated
and die a death he didn't deserve. He set his face like a flint. He did it willingly. For people
that didn't deserve it, okay? For them. And it wasn't five
minutes later they were arguing among themselves about who's
going to be greatest. Can you believe that? Yes. Because I've done it. It won't
be a few minutes after this message that I'm thinking too high of
myself. And I will have forgotten all about His sacrifice. You? He made all of us. He took upon Him a form of a
servant. He was made in the likeness of man. We can't enter into this
what it was like for Him to be made like a man. The nearest
we can come to that is if we would make ourselves into a dog.
Would you become a dog by choice? No. That lower life form? that God is infinitely higher
above us than we are a dog. And he made himself in the likeness
of that which is repulsive to God. He made himself that way. And he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death. He didn't have to die, as we
say, but he voluntarily agreed to die, even the death of the
cross. to become a curse for us. My,
my. So here's what God says about
him. Because he became the lowest of the low. Because he made himself to be not somebody, but a nobody. A
worm and no man. Because he agreed to die for
his enemies even, because he agreed to take their sin upon
him, because he agreed to suffer their punishment, to take their
blame and suffer the punishment that they were due. So God says,
from here on out, He is the greatest of the greats, because He was
the lowest of the low, less than the least. Now He's going to
be the greatest of the great, and every knee should bow in
Him. Every tongue should confess. That's what it says there, verse
10. God, verse 9, God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name
that's above every name. There's no man's name that deserves
to be remembered except Jesus Christ, His name. And that's the only name, Peter
said, the only name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. Why? Because he did this. Mary didn't
do this. Paul didn't do this. Paul, one
time the Corinthians were in a popularity contest about preachers. Some of them said, I like this
preacher and I like that preacher. And Paul said, it's so carnal.
What is this, a ball team? And then he went on to say, did
Paul die for you? Did Apollos die for you? None of us. We plant,
we water. Jesus Christ is the one that
died. He's the one that deserves all the praise. If Paul said,
I'm less than the least of all the saints, I'd not be fit to
be called an apostle. Amen. That's the man that will
esteem Christ so highly and others better than himself. So God has
highly exalted him, given him a name above every name, that
the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, things in heaven,
things in earth, things under the earth, devils, angels, men,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father. So let's bow, let's worship,
and let's praise Him for doing such a wonderful work for us.
And let's be like Him. Let's be like Him. In light of
what Christ did for us, we shouldn't have any trouble forgiving our
brothers. He hadn't really done anything to us compared to what
we've done to our Lord. In light of what Christ did for
us, we shouldn't have any trouble remembering our brother's praying
because we're just like him. And, you know, we don't know
him like our Lord knows us. We may misunderstand, we may
misconstrue, we may misjudge things, and not our Lord. He
knows we're rotten. He knows it. He knows we're going
to do it again. He knows we repent and we say
we're sorry, and we might just do it again. He knows that. He
forgives us anyway. We shouldn't have any trouble.
The only way... But with man this is impossible.
And not with God. And this is the way that God
says, This is how you're going to be like Him. This is how you're
going to do it. You can't make yourself do this. You can't make
yourself like Christ. The only way you can is to behold
Him. And it ought to break your heart.
It ought to break your pride. It ought to bend your knee. It
ought to make your hand reach out to your mother. It ought
to change you. It's the only thing. Stand with
me. Our Lord, we don't have words
to thank You. As we all now know us, You know
what things we not only have need of, but what we want to
say, ought to say, can't say, don't say, should say. The Holy Spirit takes these groanings
that cannot be uttered. He knows the mind of God, the
will of God. He knows our frame and our hearts
and the sin. Whatever is there goes to the
Father for us and makes intercession for us. O Lord, our great cry
is mold us and make us into the image of Christ. Make us thankful
people. Make us grateful people. Make
us worshipful people. Make us merciful people, kind
people, loving, gracious and kind like our Lord. forgiving
and forbearing and love-suffering like our Lord. Make us like Christ
to the praise of the glory of Thy grace. It's in Christ's name
we pray and ask His name. Amen.