Okay. All right. Well, in the bulletin, it says we're going to talk about the Well, wait, before I get to that, I know what I was going to say. Okay, so I'm like constantly watching the Israel thing, the Israel-Hamas war, which was instigated by Hamas against civilians in Israel, which is against the laws of warfare in our world. And I just want to say a couple things, although I could be here all morning and just talk about this. You know, I was very upset yesterday when I saw Obama's response to the conflict when he said, well, yeah, what Hamas is doing is terrible, but the occupation is unbearable. What that means when you see someone talking about the occupation is, and the way he's stating it, is that what's unbearable is the fact that there's a state of Israel. In other words, Israel needs to be exterminated from the world, that's what he means. And so the whole idea of the occupation is that this land belongs to the people called the Palestinians. The name Palestinian is from Philistines. The Philistines are exterminated. Centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries ago, before the time of Christ, all the Philistines were exterminated. There is no such things as the Philistines. Hadrian renamed the land after the Philistines, calling it Palestina in about 135 AD. And he did that as an affront to the Jews because the Philistines were their ancient enemies. So there has never been a nation of Palestinian people. That is a figment of imagination. It is a figment of the Arab world's imagination and a propaganda piece in order to convince the world that these people once had this land and now it was taken from them and Israel's occupying the land that belongs to the Palestinian people. This must be kept in the Arab propaganda that goes out to the world. Because why? because they want to destroy Israel, they hate Israel. And so here's what happened, here's the real story of what happened. In 1948, when Israel declared themselves to be a state, David Ben-Gurion went out and they made a statement, a declaration, and they declared themselves to be a state. Just days before that, when it was pretty fairly known that this was going to happen, the Arab world told the Arabs who lived in Israel to come out, leave. You need to get out because we're going to attack. And once we've destroyed Israel, you can go back and you can have all the spoil. So a lot of Arabs left Israel. Not all. A lot did. And when they went out, they went to several places which are now what we call refugee camps. These were in Gaza, they were in West Bank, they were in southern Lebanon, they were in southwest Syria, and in Jordan. At the time there was about 500,000 of them. Okay, now what happened was not what the Arab world expected because Israel won that war. So these people didn't get to go back and take the spoil. And they said, well, you should let them come back. And Israel's like, well, no, we're not going to do that. I mean, these people didn't want to fight alongside of us. They decided to, you know, be against us. Now the Arabs who did stay, by the way, in Israel and didn't leave and fought alongside the Israelis, there's still populations of them in Israel today. There's a population of about a little over 10 million people in Israel. About 2 million of them are Arab, what people today call Palestinians. But they're really just Arabs. Now, what Israel did in about 2005 was open up citizenship, full citizenship rights to these people. Because there's always been problems in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is mostly Arab. So they opened up citizenship to them. And initially, most Arabs would not take advantage of Israeli citizenship because they were considered traitors by the rest of the Arab world. But over the last 20 years or so, more and more of them have secretly become Israeli citizens because they realize it's a much better life. And what I'm saying then is that Israel absorbed these Arabs into their population. The next question is, why hasn't Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt absorbed the Arabs from the so-called refugee camps into their populations? Now the population of these refugees is around 4.1 million. So that's the first question. And the reason they haven't, now here's who supports these people in these refugee camps. No, the situation, this is not a good circumstance for these people. The UNWRA is basically the organization that provides health, medical attention, as well as education in these many, many refugee camps, all consolidated to add up to over 4 million people. But why are they having this situation? Are they having this situation because of Israel? No, they're having this situation because the Arab nations around there want to propagate a lie that this is a separate group of people known as the Palestinians who, where Israel is, belongs to them. In fact, if you look at the propaganda, and I wrote a book, it's in 2006. If I had two weeks, I could probably finish this book and get it published. In that book, I've got pictures of the curriculums for the young children in these refugee camps. And if you look at where Israel is, it's a Palestinian flag in the shape of Israel. That is the map. The other maps that you look at and see have, for example, an AK-47 wrapped around it, wrapped around the state of Israel. Others have no recognition of the state of Israel on the map at all. They're all trained and indoctrinated against Israel from little bitties. I mean, they train them how to do executions. I mean, from little bitties. They practice with their brothers and sisters how to do executions, get them on their knees, put a gun behind their head, and blow their head away. And the little kid falls over like he's dying. This is the type of hate that they're being educated with in these places. And here's another issue. And as long as, here's the thing, as long as they keep those refugee camps there, the Arabs have to keep these refugee camps there. Because if they don't, their entire view that Israel's an occupant is delegitimized. They have to keep the refugee camps. This is the thorn in the side of the world that is keeping there from being peace over there, so to speak. So they're never going to absorb those people. That's part of the plan. from the Arab world to exterminate Israel. In their mind, 1948 is what they call Nakba. Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe. This was the greatest catastrophe in the Arab world and it still is today. People who think there have been multiple wars since then, like 57, 67, 73, don't understand. It has been war since 1948. That is what they think, that is what they believe, that is what they are pursuing, the extermination of Israel. That is their only goal. When asked about whether they regretted what they did on October 7th, going in, raping women, then murdering, beheading them, doing all this in front of their children, beheading babies, when they did that, when asked if they regretted this, they said, no, we don't regret it, it's fully justified. And we do it again on October 10th, and we do it again on October 11th, and we do it again on October to the 18th power, is what they said. In other words, here's what's happening. This will never, ever stop. And Israel is starting to understand that. What does that mean? That means that Israel cannot live under the shadow of terrorists on all their borders and hope to remain alive. So what do they have to do? Well, they have to eliminate the terrorists on every single site. This is what this is coming down to. But look, the world is not going to go for that. The world is, again, talking about the two state solution. Do you know that the first two state solution was over 100 years ago? We've had this. They don't want a state. They want the refugee camps and they want the extermination of Israel. That's what they want. What good is it gonna do to make another state in southern Gaza which will be a terrorist state on the border of Israel? What good is that gonna do? Is that gonna pacify the Arab world? Not as long as Israel's in the land. No. It will never pacify. It has nothing to do with it. All you're doing then is legitimizing a terrorist state. That's all you're doing. So this is a ridiculous situation. One other thing I want to say, and then I'll move into our lesson, but this is important because it's setting up. I can see now where things are going. I couldn't see this a few weeks ago. It's starting to get clear. But here's the other thing. In 1948, when the Arab world was going to attack Israel, when they declared themselves to be a state, there were about 400,000 Jews in Arab countries, most along North Africa. Well, they kind of realized, like, it's not going to be a good thing for us to be here in these Arab states, so they left their entire lives, all their homes, their cars, everything they had in 1948, all their belongings, and they went back to Israel. They migrated to Israel. And Israel welcomed them with open arms and assimilated them into Israeli culture in 1948. The numbers that year for migration were about 600,000, including all those people. Did they ever get restitution for the things that they left in Morocco and Libya and other places that they came from? Did they ever get compensated for that? No. No, they lost everything. Imagine you losing everything. Losing everything and having to go to a place you don't know anything about and having to start over. And see, Israel assimilated them, but they wouldn't do that with their own people. This is not Israel's fault. This is the Arab world's fault. What is happening is their fault. Don't let any of this propaganda trick you. This is not the way that Obama states it as some kind of a moral equivalency. There is no moral equivalency. This is the difference between absolute good and absolute evil. Israel is the most humanitarian war machine in the world. And the people in Gaza use humans and babies and women as shields. When Israel opened... See, I told you I'd just go on all hour. Israel opened a path for civilians to escape Gaza like four days ago. When they opened that road, guess what? Hamas started shooting at everybody in the area, including their own people who were trying to get out the road. They don't care about those people at all. They only care about one thing, the destruction of Israel. That is it. That is all. And they're breeding hate generation after generation. And it's not Israel's fault. This is Israel's ancient land. So in my book, my book is called The History of the Land and the People. And I go all the way back to creation and I start with the creation of the world and work through who the land really belongs to. By the way, the land does not belong to Israel. Yeah, Leviticus 20, the land is mine, God said. And Israel's a tenant possessor. He gave them the right to be a tenant in the land. Ultimately, he will have them being tenants in the land because he said so. But the archeological evidence shows Israel has lived there since the days of David and Solomon. I mean, we have the archaeological evidence. I've got stuff that was written by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1930s, pamphlets that talk about Solomon's Temple having been on that place. And that's their own literature. So, anyway, I'll get off on all this. Now they want to say, no, it was never Israel's, this always belonged to the Palestinians, and those aren't even a people, okay? They're just Arab people who should be taken into Jordan, taken into Syria, taken into Lebanon, taken into Egypt, taken into wherever. But no, they're not going to allow that to happen. So, let's see what happens, okay? Well, what's going to happen is world opinion is going to turn against Israel. Everybody's gonna turn against Israel, including the United States of America. If you haven't seen it on the university campuses, what do you think's coming in the next generation in the United States of America? Just look at the young people's response now to what's going on, and you're gonna get the political opinion of America 20 years from now. And the political opinion is going to be anti-Semitic. That's what it's going to be. Well, we're Israel's best friend. We're their most important friend in the world. If they don't have us, You know, what are our warships doing out there in the mid, you know, peering over southern Lebanon? They're saying Hezbollah don't get involved in this, that's what they're saying. Our army bases, we have 25 or 30 army bases throughout the Middle East, they're being attacked. Our soldiers are being attacked now, because why? Well, because we're behind Israel, because we're supporting them. So our guys are getting attacked too, so understand what's going on and you know, you'll be okay, but I'm just preparing you for the next generation, too, because, my goodness, this is going to be a mess, folks. All right. Let me bring up the PowerPoint. I'll try to relent on that topic. What I see happening then is everybody in Israel, the whole world being opposed to Israel, and Israel is very vulnerable. They recognized this after this attack because they didn't have any clue this was going to happen. This was a total surprise. Hamas has not done anything serious for 16 years, but they discovered through this that for the last two to three years they've been planning this. How in the world did the world's greatest secret society or secret service organization, Mossad, not know this was going on? How did they not know? We're talking about Mossad here. We're talking about like, these guys are trained Like better than the Secret Service, CIA, FBI. These are like the top people in the world. How did they not know about this? And that's what Israel's worried about right now. Because if they didn't know about this, what's being planned on the northern border? What's being planned coming out of Jordan or the West Bank? See, they're saying this can happen again. You know, Hezbollah has 160,000 rockets and missiles, okay? There's a difference between a rocket and a missile, right? Rocket doesn't have a guidance system. Missiles do. They have over 2,000, this is way more than Hamas has, 160,000. They have 2,000 guided missiles. You know, they can put those right on key infrastructure in Israel and turn the lights out and, you know, who knows what else would happen after that. I mean, it's moments away from that happening. So, this is an existential threat. And Israel knows that. And that means we're going to come to a crossroads because the world doesn't want them to obliterate all these people. They want to let the humanitarianism in there. Israel, by the way, supplied 50 percent of the electricity to Gaza absolutely free. They've been doing this for decades. And this is what they get in return. Yeah, because they breed hatred for Israel. It doesn't matter what Israel does. I mean, they treat them. They do surgeries for their people come from Gaza into Israel. They take them to the hospitals. They give them free surgeries. They give them heart transplants. They give them all this stuff. And this is what they get in return. Really? And yet here goes the world. Oh, you need to be nice to these people and so forth. No, you don't. No, you need. You know, I used to live in Texas. We have these things called rattlesnakes. If they're on your property, I'm sorry, but you don't be like, you know, let's relocate that. You kill it. Is there something wrong with this? No. Why? Why do I kill it? Because if I don't kill it, it's going to kill me. That's why. And laws of proportionality in combat. People need to read up on laws of proportionality because what they're saying now is that, well, Israel's response is too much. If you read the laws of proportion, they're not. Under the laws of combat, this is not illegal. What they are doing, let me ask you a question. If somebody pulled a gun on you and you had a gun, let's say they had a nine millimeter, okay, and you realize they're gonna shoot you with this nine millimeter. And you decide that you're going to shoot them with the only thing you have available, which is a grenade launcher. Is that disproportion? No, because you are defending yourself and you use whatever means you have to eliminate what? The threat. So these laws are not being looked at, but interesting, I read the paper on it. It was written by a law professor at a Texas Tech University, of which I'm a graduate. Guns up. But should read the paper on laws of proportion in combat. Israel is not doing anything outside of bounds and they're very careful in every strike they decide to make to try to eliminate or limit severely civilian casualties. But are there going to be civilian casualties? Well yes, but what are the military objectives? And these are difficult decisions that have to be made and it's not, you can't look at the results. Laws of proportion are not, you never look at the results and say well they killed this many civilians and therefore it was not proportional. No, the laws of proportion are based on the decision before it happens, how those decisions were made. And so it's much more complicated than just saying, well, a bunch of people died, therefore it's not justified. It doesn't work like that in law. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I told you I wasn't gonna do this. But I warned you I could do it. Okay, well, we're gonna have a couple weeks on an interesting, a wonderful doctrine called the Doctrine of Kenosis. So we've been looking a little bit at the life of the king. And last week, what did we say about the life of the king? Well, we said that what Jesus did in his life was out of the social norms. Remember he talked to the woman at the well in Samaria? And his disciples come back and they're like, they didn't say anything, but they were thinking, what was he doing talking to this woman? His life was also, or his interpretations were out of line with the Pharisaic interpretations. You know, you've heard it said, but I say to you. The Pharisees had made it all external. They were trying to get a works type of righteousness with God. But Jesus said, no, it's not about works righteousness with God. You can't earn that. Righteousness is by faith. So when he put forth the true interpretation of the law, what was he saying? He was saying, you can't keep it. I mean, look, people, he says, if you've even looked at a woman, he says, you've lusted in your heart. You've committed adultery. You know, if you've even hated your brother, you've committed murder in your heart. His whole point was that you're all guilty. So you can't get righteousness by works. You've got to turn to righteousness by faith in the Messiah. And Jesus taught that. And then, of course, his teaching method was out of, it was not in sync with the rabbis teaching. The rabbis would always quote other rabbis, you know, to build this giant fortress of, look how many rabbis are on my side. you know, and therefore give authority to their teaching. Jesus didn't quote any rabbis. He just said, and the people recognize this, they were amazed at his teaching, and they recognized that he was one who was teaching with authority. In other words, why is it true? Why didn't he have to quote other rabbis? Well, because he is the truth. And so anything he says is absolute truth. And so this was a little bit different. R.T. France, who's a student of the gospel, said, in the Jewish world of the first century A.D., Jesus of Nazareth was a man apart. While second to none in his reverence for the scriptures, his diligent study of them, and his acceptance of their teachings, he yet applied the Old Testament in a way which is quite unparalleled. The essence of his new application was that he saw the fulfillment of the predictions and foreshadowings of the Old Testament in himself and his work. What he's talking about is, you know, you see those things like Jonah. Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster. And Jesus says, that's fulfilled in me in the sense that I'm greater than him. And the idea is that what Jonah prophesied in a way was the three days and three nights in the tomb and the resurrection, right? And so Jesus was fulfilling patterns of the Old Testament. Same thing with him going down to Egypt, his father and mother taking him down to Egypt. And then once the threat was removed, they went back to the land. And that was a pattern of fulfillment. Like he went down and followed the same steps that the nation Israel had followed. They went down to Egypt and 400 years later they came out. And so that's what Francis is talking about. He fulfills these predictions and foreshadowings of the Old Testament in himself and his work. Such a use of the Old Testament was not only original, it was revolutionary. See, the Old Testament is not having a few predictions about Jesus and Jesus fulfilled a few of those things. The Old Testament is stock full. It's what we are calling in the modern day, the Old Testament is messianic. It is thoroughly messianic so that even the patterns and things are fulfilled in Him. It was such that a Jew who did not accept it, must violently oppose it. So it's not surprising, he says, that a community founded on this teaching, which would be the new Christians, the new believers in the Gospels that go into the Book of Acts, soon found itself irreconcilably divided from Jews who still look forward to a coming Messiah. I mean, like, yeah, eventually they divide in the Book of Acts, and it's like, well, you've got the Pharisees, and then you've got Christianity, Paul and the Christianity. And they become very opposed to one another. And there's no wonder because they're dividing over who is the Messiah. One group is still waiting for him, right? Even today. And the other groups have already believed that he's come, right? Okay, so I just throw that quote in there to kind of summarize the life of the king. Now we want to look at some of the doctrines that relate to the life of the king. Just as with the virgin birth, the birth of the king, we looked at two doctrines, the hypostatic union and the trinity. And y'all were like, ah, this is heavy stuff. Yeah, well, because it is, but it's wonderful. I mean, who is he? I mean, He's the most complicated person to ever live, so it's not gonna be easy, right? But we are building this out of the Old Testament using the created creature distinction and so forth, so it all does fall into place. But here what we're gonna find, the three doctrines that associate with the life of the king are gonna be his kenosis, his impeccability, and his infallibility, okay? So today we'll talk about the kenosis thumb. If you open your Bible to Philippians chapter two, we'll find the word that this doctrine is based on. used here by Paul in Philippians 2. If you just look at verse 7, is where we find the word behind kenosis. And then we'll go back and look at the whole passage. He's talking about Christ Jesus, and he says in verse seven that he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. This word emptied there in verse seven is kanao, okay, from which we get kenosis, and it's translated emptied. But the question is, you know, what did he empty himself of? Did he empty himself of his deity? Did he lay his deity aside? Did he empty himself of his attributes, or let's say some of his attributes? Maybe he kept some and laid others aside. Or did he lay aside the use of his attributes? In other words, he kept the attributes, he just didn't use them. You know, like, what exactly did Christ in the Incarnation empty himself of in Philippians 2? Well, the key passage is 2, 1 through 11, so let's kind of back up and just look at what this passage is teaching. What he's doing in verses one through four is giving some exhortation to the Philippians to be humble, humility, and next week we'll work with humility because I consider it to be the greatest Christian virtue. So he's saying in verse one, therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there's any consolation of love, if there's any fellowship of the spirit, if any affection and compassion, Paul says, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in the same spirit, right? Intent on one purpose. What purpose is that? That we do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, we regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. And then he goes into the attitude in verse five that we're supposed to have in ourselves, which was the attitude that was also in Christ Jesus. In other words, it's a really practical passage, right? Put other people's interests ahead of your own, right? But then he drops this bomb, this nuclear bomb of a doctrine on us called kenosis. And this is what the critics of Christianity have never liked about the Bible. The Bible roots the practical application that we enjoy in the Christian life into doctrine. It's not, in other words, it's not just some verses or moral sayings. The Bible is not that type of, you know, there's a lot of religious, you know, religions that use sayings, you know, wise sayings. The Bible's not like that. It roots the practical outworking in our lives in these very complicated doctrines. And that's what he's doing here. He's tying in this idea of our humility and putting others ahead of ourselves to the doctrine of Christ's kenosis. In other words, there's a real reason we're doing this. It has to do with what Christ did, okay? So, it's a very practical context. And notice how he says there in verse, Five, have this attitude in yourselves. That word attitude is a word that really refers to a mindset, a mindset. And the word technically means you need to, do I have it here? Don't have it here. You need to develop this mindset based on very careful thought. So he wants us to think very carefully about something. What does he want us to think about? He only wants to think about Christ Jesus, verse five, right? He wants us to think about him. He's saying, Christian, if you're going to actually put other people's interests ahead of your own, you have to think very closely about Christ Jesus, because he did something that put others ahead of himself. And if we're ever to develop the mindset that other people are more important than ourselves, we have to understand the mindset of Christ and why he put us ahead of himself. So let's go into this passage, verse five, this kenosis passage. Have this attitude developed by very careful thought, a specific attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. So he developed this. I'm gonna show you he developed this mindset. who although he existed in the form of God, and actually it's a present participle, not past, he exists, just exists with an S, no E-D, in the form of God. Now that word form makes it sometimes sound to people today like, well, he wasn't really God, he's just the form of God. But this word means exact and full representation. He's the exact and full representation of God. And it actually uses the word formed again in verse seven, form again, see, taking the form of a bondservant, which is a human. And it means, again, exact and full representation. Okay, exact and full representation. So in verse six, he exists in the exact form and representation of God, But it says he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. So he's God, but he didn't regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but instead he emptied himself. He divested himself of something, okay? But taking the form or the exact representation of a bond servant, so he's true humanity too, okay? He's true deity in verse six, he's true humanity in verse seven, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, what did he do? He humbled himself. And here it is, by becoming obedient. You mean he, I thought he already was obedient. What do you mean he became obedient? What does this mean? What this means is that Jesus Christ had to be sanctified. So I'm gonna have to explain to you again the doctrine of sanctification, which we've seen in the Old Testament. We studied at the conquest with Joshua. It's a picture of the sanctification process, right? We saw it with David, we saw it with Solomon. A lot of the Old Testament events, what we did is explore the doctrine of sanctification. So I'm gonna take you to some passages here shortly that show you that the Lord Jesus Christ himself had to be sanctified. You say, but he didn't have any sin. Good observation. You know why? Because sanctification is not about defeating sin. That's one. If Jesus Christ had to be sanctified and Jesus Christ didn't have any sin, then obviously sanctification doesn't have to always have to deal with defeating sin, does it? So let's go on with this passage, then I'll take you to some of these and show you. You have to learn. Now this is getting complicated. Now, here's the question in verse 5, right? It's telling us we need to have this attitude that was in Christ Jesus. Now wait a minute. Didn't we just study Christ Jesus? And we said He's in hypostasis. He's a hypostatic union. Meaning He's God and man, right? He's 100% God. He's 100% man and one person. without confusion, without separation, forever. So when it tells us we need to have an attitude like Christ Jesus, the next question we should all ask is this. Attitude in His deity or attitude in His humanity? Because I surely can't have the same attitude as God. I'm not God. So is this appealing to His humanity or His deity? it's appealing to his humanity. It's telling us to have a specific attitude in ourselves that Jesus Christ had in his humanity. Okay? So, let's look at the basis then for this doctrine. Okay? The basis. First of all, the basis is the creator-creature distinction. I mean, we already know Jesus Christ is the creator, right? At the incarnation, he took to himself the creature. A true humanity. So we have the God-man. Immanuel, God with us, right? The God-man. We talked about this under the birth of the king. So we should have all this down, hypostatic union. There's the statement in italics. He is undiminished deity. In other words, 100% God. United with true humanity, 100% man. We see that here in Philippians 2, verse 6. 100% God, the form of God. Verse 7, 100% man, takes the form of a bondservant. Okay, so it's all right here. United in one person without confusion or separation forever. So that's one of the basis for understanding the kenosis. Another basis for the kenosis, understanding it, is the hypostatic union itself, which I just stated, but this is idea that how does this get practical? How does this relate to me at all? What does this have to do with me? It relates to us directly because it's tied to the Christian life and how it's lived. Isn't Philippians 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 telling us to have a specific attitude in our sanctification? The same attitude that was in the Lord Jesus Christ that led him to put us before himself and that's supposed to lead us to put others before ourselves, right? So this is about the Christian life. And just as the Trinity is highly applicable, it helps us solve the problem of the one and the many. What's more important, me or the marriage that I had with my wife? Me is the one, I focus on myself, many is me and my wife, the marriage itself. And we said there's a balance between these two. You can't put one ahead of the other and the other, you've got to sort through everything and make sure there's good balance there. Same thing here, there's really practical application in our sanctification. So that's the result, see here, the result of the kenosis doctrine is sanctification. And I've already mentioned it a bit, but what is the aim of sanctification? We talked about this in the Old Testament again with David, Joshua, Solomon. We said the aim of sanctification is to learn loyalty to God. In other words, when you put your crosshairs on what am I trying to accomplish here? You put your crosshairs on what you're trying to accomplish. You put your crosshairs on learn loyalty to God. Notice I didn't say stop sinning. I didn't say that. I said learn loyalty to God. That's your direct, what you're aiming at. As a by product, what happens to sin in your life? You start to work that out, right? But that's a byproduct. You don't aim your crosshairs at it and say, I'm going to stop sinning. I'm going to stop sinning. I'm going to, guess what? I'm not going to eat any cookies. I'm not eating. What are you going to do next? Eat cookies. So what do you do? You aim at eating good food. And that way, you're not hungry for cookies. See? You see how that works? It's called the indirect approach. You directly target learning loyalty to God as a byproduct. An indirect thing that happens is those things get worked out in your life. So, it's to learn loyalty to God through His Word. Now, Jesus Christ had to learn loyalty to God. That bothers a lot of people. That statement will bother a lot of people. What do you mean He had to learn loyalty to God? He is God. Yeah, but He's also man, right? In his humanity, he had to learn loyalty to God. He had to learn obedience. That's what we're reading here. In verse 8, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient. And he did that all the way to the point of death, even death on a cross, which was a horrible way to die. Unspeakable in polite Roman society. So let's get into the sanctification a little bit. The result of this doctrine is sanctification. Now, I'm going to give you an example. You remember Adam? Everybody remember Adam? God created Adam. When God made Adam, did God make Adam very good? Did Adam have a sin problem when God made him? No, he didn't have a sin problem. Now, theologians have tried to describe the state or condition Adam was in when God first created him. And the way they've typically described it is by saying he had unconfirmed holiness. He was in a state of unconfirmed holiness. Now, they don't wanna say that Adam was righteous. And the reason they don't wanna say he was righteous is because he hadn't produced any obedience and righteousness. There's no track record of producing obedience and righteousness. So they just say he was in a state of unconfirmed holiness when God first made him. And the implication then is of course that Adam has to be tested, right? Tested to produce obedience and righteousness, right? Now if he remained in obedience to the Lord, let's say in Genesis 1 and 2, for years and years and years, of course he would have produced a historical righteousness, right? But we all know that didn't happen. So, second example, the last Adam, right, is Christ. The Bible sets this up, right, between Adam and Christ. These two we're supposed to look at. Now, Jesus, he came into the world a lot like Adam, right? I mean, he's born of a virgin, so his condition when he came into the world and his humanity is what we would just say is the same as Adam, unconfirmed holiness. Now, why did he do this? Well, he did this to solve our problem that we have in Adam, right? But how does he do this? He's gonna be tested too. I mean, we have it. I mean, it's in the gospel records. Satan came to him in an opportune time. For 40 days, he tested him, right? And then when he became hungry, then Satan dropped the three big temptations on him. What did Jesus have to do? Well, he had to learn obedience and he had to produce a historical righteousness. Adam didn't do this, but Christ did do this, right? And that's what Paul's arguing for here in 2.8, Philippians 2.8, where it says, again, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Who is he being obedient to? Well, to the father, right? Of course, to his father. He says in John 10, I only do always what is pleasing to the father. That was his goal was to please the father always. But he had to learn obedience. He had to have a track record. He had to develop historical righteousness. So Paul's arguing for that. And he did it. He did it even to the point of death, death on a cross. A horrible way, an unthinkable way to die. Now, again, we tend to think of sanctification as we've gotta defeat the sin in our lives, but did Jesus, he didn't have any sin to defeat. I mean, he withstood the temptations, and we'll get to that. That's gonna be the doctrine of impeccability. The doctrine of impeccability is asking the question, was Jesus Christ temptable? Could he be tempted? Does he really know what it's like to be you? Does he really know what it's like to be me? Because the tendency for people to say, well, he's God, and God can't be tempted, James 1, so we know, therefore, that Jesus doesn't know what it's like to really go through what we go through. So we're gonna have to deal with the temptability issue under impeccability, okay? And that's what we'll do in the coming weeks. For now, Jesus didn't defeat sin. He didn't have any sin to defeat in his life. We have to defeat sin, you and I, because we have a fallen nature in Adam. And we have personal sin, but Jesus isn't fallen, right? So what was he doing on the cross? Was he defeating sin or was he paying the penalty for sin? See, he was paying the penalty for our sin, right? And that's what we're gonna remember today in the communion, right? What he did for us on the cross. He paid the penalty for our sin. So what this illustrates though is that sanctification is not fundamentally about defeating sin. And we know this because of Hebrews 2.10. Well, here and also Hebrews 2.10. So let's flip over to Hebrews 2.10. Jesus Christ still had to learn obedience. He had to be sanctified. Hebrews 2, verse 10. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, Okay, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. Now wait, who, in the first part of verse 10, it was fitting for him, who's that talking about? It was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, to bring many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation. Now who's the author of their salvation? That's an easy one, right? Jesus, okay. But who is the one before that, it was fitting for him, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, That's the father, right? Okay, this isn't too difficult. So we got the father, and it says the father, it was fitting for him to perfect, to mature, to bring to maturity the author of their salvation, and he did it through sufferings, right? He did it through sufferings. How about also chapter five, Hebrews five, verse eight. If you didn't think the Lord Jesus Christ needed to learn obedience, I don't know what you're going to do with this verse. Because this verse says explicitly that he did have to learn obedience. So did you have to learn that in his deity? Or you have to learn that as humanity, does deity learn? Deity's omniscient, right? Never learned anything. He already knew everything. But here it says, although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered and having been made perfect. He became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation. See, did he have to learn obedience? I just want to hear you say yes. Because I want you to agree with God's word. So, does sanctification require that we have to defeat sin in our lives? No. No. It has to do fundamentally with generating a historical righteousness. Now, let me give an example that will make sense. If you have a field, you are a farmer, you have a field. You want to ultimately bring that field to productivity. You want to have fruit on that field, that's your goal. Now, if you go out and you have all sorts of insects and you have, somebody's phone is talking. Now, if you go into the field, it's got all sorts of insects, it's got weeds. Before you can plant, you have to clear all that, right? You have to get rid of the bugs, you have to get rid of the weeds. And now, once you've done that, is it good? No, you just have a bare field. Next thing you gotta do is you gotta go out there, you gotta start, you gotta plant, you gotta sow, right? And then you gotta water it, take care of it. And then at the end, you reap, right? You get a crop. Now, that's what sanctification looks like for us. Our lives are infested with sin. Right? So, you're trying to move all that out so you can get some good productivity, right? But it doesn't look like that for Jesus. And it didn't look like that for Adam when he was first created either. What they started with was a clear field. Nothing in the field, just the furrows, you're ready to plant and develop. So that's the difference between what Christ had to do. And that second part where you start with a bare field and you start generating produce, that's the view, that's the idea of sanctification. That's where sanctification is operating. When we walk by the Spirit, there's this fruit, right? All that fruit would be classified as righteous. Love, joy, peace, patience, that's all righteous things before God. See, that's the produce, okay, and that's the sanctification. The sanctification isn't, you know. you know, getting rid of the bugs or something, sin in your life or something like that. Okay, the sanctification is the positive righteousness that is produced through our lives. And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. Okay, what he was doing then in his life is he was generating a historical righteousness. That's what he was doing. And he was doing it in his humanity. That's why it says he learned obedience, like Hebrews 5.8, through the things that he suffered. Now, what are the results? Look back at Philippians chapter 2 verse 9 to see the results. Because he did this, he became obedient all the way to the point of death, even death on a cross. And then it gives us the results in verse 9 and 10. And here they are. For this reason, or because of this, right? God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. There's essentially two things that are the result of his sanctification in his humanity. And the first one is his exaltation. He's exalted. He holds the highest position, okay? Ephesians 1.10, that all things will be summed up in Christ. Colossians 1.18, talk about that he might come to take first place in everything. And we know that. We know and we think about the Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate king of the universe. I mean, there's no one that is gonna be above him, right? Because that's the result. of what He did in His life of learning obedience to the Father through the things that He suffered. He was laying down a pattern for us. So that's the first thing, exaltation. And what happens when we live, when we learn and we are sanctified? What happens in the resurrection? We're rewarded, we're exalted. The second thing, of course, is eternal reward, which is tied in with this, and that's for us too. But look, for Him, every knee is going to bow. Every knee, those in heaven, those on earth, those under the earth. You know, it's really better to do that now in life than it is to wait after you die, because guess what? I mean, the people that deny him now, they're gonna bow to him later. In other words, those who do not bend the knee volitionally now will have the knees broken later. And they will bow, and they will worship him. because he is the king of the universe. And nobody is gonna escape this, nobody. All those people you know who don't believe in him right now, they will all bow later. It's much better to believe now and willingly bow before the king than it is to wait and have your knees broken. But that's the results of his sanctification. This brings us to some other Kenosis passages, Isaiah 50, one of my favorite, which I've taken you to before. You're noticing something about, of course he's deity, but you're also noticing he's got this humanity. So look at Isaiah 50, verse four. Something had to happen in his humanity. I mean, is he really the last Adam? We say the last Adam, Adam was a man. Yes, he really is, see? And he came into this world to complete what Adam failed to do. Isaiah 50, verse 4, this is a prophecy about the Messiah. And it says, the Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples. Speaking of the Father, given the Son, a tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. Well, I thought you already knew everything. Why'd you have to receive this instruction from the Father so you'd know how to sustain one who was weary with just a word? You see the sanctification process that the Messiah was prophesied to go through? He awakens me, it says, morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. Every morning in Jesus Christ's household, Okay? His father woke him up early in the morning and he sat on the side of the bed, probably his other brothers over there laying in bed in the same room, you know, asleep, snoring. And Jesus was getting instructed from the father. But wait, deity can't be instructed. Deity already knows everything. Yeah, but he's also humanity. And the humanity did have to be instructed. See, the temptation for us is to say Jesus had it easier than me. Jesus is God. Therefore, you know, yeah, Jesus did it, but I can't do it. You know, I've heard people, I'm sure you've heard people say, I tried living the Christian life, it didn't work. Well, you didn't try it right. You didn't try it the right way. Because Jesus Christ is the test pilot for the Christian life. And he did it, and it does work. It's just that he did it the correct way. He was awakened every morning and he listened as a disciple. Is that what you do? Do you wake up every morning and you get from the word of God? You know? Do you depend constantly, always, and forever on the Father? Do you do that? That's what He had to do. And He had to do it in His humanity, just like you and I have to do it. Matthew 24, 36. Here's one that's very interesting. I'm sure you've heard this verse, but here's the address. This is a good verse. Something Jesus says that's kind of astonishing. You think, how can you say that? Matthew 24, 36. Speaking of the day of the second coming, the day of the second coming, and Jesus talking about this, he says, But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor even the Son. Just the Father alone knows. What do you mean you don't know, Jesus? You don't know the day of your own second coming? How could he say something like that? I mean, he's God. So is he speaking here out of his deities or is he speaking here out of his humanity? He's speaking out of his humanity. Humanity didn't have omniscience. Humanity had to learn. And here's something he didn't know. He didn't know the day of his own second coming in his humanity. How do we explain passages like this? We explain them with the kenosis, the emptying. He divested himself of the use of certain attributes, or the independent use of his attributes. We'll get to the definition probably next week. Mark 5. Well, we're in Matthew, so just go over to Matthew 21, that's closer, Matthew 21, 18. Here's another one, you think, how can this be? Matthew 21, 18. Now in the morning when he was returning to the city, he became hungry. What? God doesn't get hungry. God is always brim full of energy, right? Because he's omnipotent. He never gets tired. Why are you gonna go eat in about 10 minutes? Because you're gonna run out of energy. And you need more calories so you can have calories to burn so you can have, you know, you can do things you need to do. Does God ever need to eat anything? Is he like, you know, gosh, I'm starving, let's go have some tacos. That's what we say at our house, let's have some tacos. No, but here he is, here's God in the flesh and he became hungry, see. He, to the point, look, verse 19's funny. This is supposed to be funny. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he came to it, expecting what? Get some figs, right? And he found nothing around except leaves only. He said to it, no longer shall there ever be any fruit from you. Okay, I'm glad I could make you laugh a little bit today. But how do you explain this type of passage, right? That he gets hungry? With the kenosis. You know, He took upon Himself our frailties. Our frailties. You know, sometimes you can't do something because you gotta eat. Just ask my wife. She'll say, no, no, no, I gotta eat first. We're not doing anything before I eat, right? And it's that way for me, too. I'm just making jokes. Okay. And then Mark 5, well that's kind of a long one. Here I'll show you one where you see both sides though. Luke 8.22, Luke 8.22. What I mean by both sides, you see his deity and you see his humanity in the same event. Luke 8.22. I love this one. This was on the Sea of Galilee, the lake, the Lake of Galilee. Now, Luke 8, 22. Now, in one of those days, Jesus and his disciples got into a boat and he said to them, let us go over to the other side of the lake. So they launched out, they put to sea. Verse 23, but as they were sailing along, he fell asleep. Now, wait a minute. He's so tired, he's just conked out in the boat, right? It says, and a fierce gale of wind descended on the lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger. And they came to Jesus, and they woke him up, saying, Master, Master, we're perishing. So the first thing you see is this guy is completely conked out, and there's a big storm. He's not waking up because of the big storm. I mean, do you wake up when there's a big storm? Especially if you're sitting on a boat being tossed to and fro, you're gonna wake up. Did this guy wake up? No. That means he's what we call exhausted, right? And you say, how can the guy be exhausted? He's God. I thought God didn't get tired. Yeah, but this must be talking about his humanity, right? But then look what happens next. Master, master, we're perishing. He got up and he rebuked the wind and the surging waves and they stopped and it became calm. And he said to them, where's your faith? And they were fearful and they were amazed. They're like, 33 seconds ago, you were totally conked out. You couldn't even stay awake. Now you command the wind and the waves and they cease. Who is this? That's what they say. Who then is this? Because they saw both sides, right? In the matter of 30 seconds they saw both sides. His humanity and his deity. What are we getting at with kenosis? We're getting at the idea that you have to keep these two things in balance with one another. First of all, you cannot dilute the deity of Christ. You cannot dilute it one bit. He is 100% God. He always was in all these scenes that we looked at. But you also have to put a proper emphasis on the humanity, right? That he was tired. That he thirsted, right? that he had to eat, you know. Philippians 2 is the answer for how all this works together. Christ, who is full deity and full humanity, this is what he really did. He gave up the assertion of his deity in the incarnation so that he could learn obedience in his humanity through his sufferings and generate historical righteousness. He gave up the independent use or assertion of his divine attributes. Why? So he could be sanctified in his humanity. Now why does he need to do that? There's two most important reasons. Number one, if he cheated and he just used his divine attributes, then guess what? He did not develop a historical righteousness that he can impute to us in justification. Remember, when a person believes, God justifies them. He imputes righteousness to the person. Where does that righteousness come from? I'm going to say, you're not getting the attribute of God. You do not become God in imputation. You get a righteousness imputed to you that was generated in space and time by Jesus Christ. So if he cheated and he uses divine attributes, there's no righteousness that he developed to impute to you. So it's just a wee bit important. Just a wee bit. Without that, we have nothing. That's what Satan was trying to get him to do in the temptations was to use his divine attributes. And the whole reason he wouldn't is because if he did, he wouldn't have a righteousness to give to you and to me. That's why it's there. The other reason is this. If he cheated and he used his divine attributes, then we do not have an example to follow for how to be sanctified. Because you and I can't cheat and use divinity. We're not God. So he did it this way because, as Philippians 2 says, he had your interests and he had my interests ahead of his own interests. And that's why he says, develop this attitude in yourselves. He says, I want you to think about this. Because if you really think about what I just told you, You can't care about yourself anymore. You can only care about others. And he showed us the way. He didn't have to die on a cross. He had to do that for you and for me. He had to come down here and take upon himself our frailties. He had to do that. This is the essence of love. This is what it means to lay aside what matters to you most and to put what matters to others most ahead of that. That's why we're supposed to remember, right? They said, if you're Him, take yourself off the tree. Why didn't He take Himself off the cross? Because He would have been concerned about Himself then and not about you. For God so loved, you put your name in there. For God so loved, put your name in there. That whosoever believes in him, put your name in there, you're the whosoever, shall not perish, right, but you have everlasting life. Because that's true, he loved you that much. So that's what the kenosis is, right? Putting aside or giving up the independent use of his divine attributes. He had them all the time. He just wasn't gonna use them unless the Father approved of it, which is why he says, always do what pleases the Father. So let's just stop there and pray, and then we're gonna partake together and we're gonna remember. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you that you gave your son in the fullness of time, born of a woman, born under the law, that he put aside his own self-interest, that he had our interest in mind, that we're so valuable even as his enemies, that he wanted to deliver us. He wanted to rescue us. He wanted to save us. And we thank you that he paid the penalty in full. that he offered himself up as an offering to you, and that it satisfied you, it propitiated you, and that, you know, now it's a simple transaction. Anyone who believes in him has also satisfied you because we're in the one who is the satisfaction himself, Jesus Christ. So we thank you as we reflect upon his attitude. May we also have that same attitude and now go forth in our sanctification and humble ourselves, putting others ahead of ourselves as he did on the cross for us. May we remember this as we take communion today in Jesus name. Amen.