Given that it's Easter Sunday, and it's my usual practice to depart from whatever series that I'm in to preach on the resurrection of Christ, I will be preaching the gospel today, but in a way that actually continues on with the series that we're in, which is dealing with pride, And in this case, we're focusing on Jesus Christ. And so we're not focusing on pride. We're focusing on humility, the opposite. So I want to look specifically at the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ through the lens of his humility. Never pondered it quite that way before. There'll be two primary texts of scripture that will provide the Framework for the theme and that is first Corinthians 15 1 through 4 and Philippians 2 3 through 11 So let's start with the first Corinthians 15 text Now I make known to you brethren the gospel which I preached to you Which also you received in which also you stand? by which also you are saved and if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Well, this text teaches us several things. It teaches us, number one, that it is still beneficial for believers to hear the gospel, not just unbelievers. It teaches, secondly, that salvation comes by the gospel. Thirdly, it teaches both the fact of perseverance for the saints, perseverance of the saints, but also the duty of perseverance. And finally, it teaches us what the gospel consists of, that is, its essential elements. So let's briefly consider those four things. It's beneficial for believers. Paul is writing the book of Corinthians, or the letter, to a church, obviously. And it's unlikely that everyone in that church was born again, but surely a number of them were. And yet Paul makes known to them the gospel, which he had already preached to them, and which they had already received, and in which, he says, they stand. So it's clear that the gospel is not just exclusively a message for unbelievers. It's also a message for believers. It's not a one-off message, where you hear it once, and then you put it behind you from then on forward. We have a continual need for the gospel, the good news of what Christ has done on our behalf. Why is that? Because there's a constant drift within us towards self-righteousness, and we have need to constantly be redirected in our faith to the righteousness of Jesus Christ in which we stand, lest we settle into self-righteousness. Also, because sin is still in us and still part of us, And we wrestle with the conscience and with issues of assurance at times. We are continually in need of reminder of the reminder that Jesus died for sinners. He came to call sinners to repentance and that his shed blood is what we are looking to to wash away our sins. We are in continual need for a reminder of those things. Verse two connects our salvation with the gospel. He says by which, speaking of the gospel, by which you are saved. God could of course save anyone any way he wished. I suppose, but he chooses to save people through the gospel. That's the appointed means that he has chosen. Romans 1, 16 through 17 says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. So it is the power of God for salvation, the gospel is. And what that means is, practically speaking, that multitudes across this world are perishing right now because they do not believe the gospel, and many of them have never even heard it. Because of the internet, the gospel has gone forward and out to the far reaches of the earth in ways that had never gone before. But of course, at the same time, like any medium, the devil uses it too. And there's false gospels that have gone throughout all the corners of the world as well. But you have to know and hear and believe the real, true gospel to be saved. That's made clear in Romans 10, 13 through 15, where Paul says, for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? See, missionaries are preachers. Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. Good news, that's what the gospel means, good news. How can they believe in a person they've never heard of? So it's essential. Everyone who believes the gospel is saved, but no one is saved who does not believe the gospel. If you are not born again to this day, it means you have not yet believed the gospel. But you're in a good place to be because you're hearing it today. You're going to hear it this morning. You're in the process of hearing it, of hearing the one message and the only message by which God has appointed for salvation to save sinners. The only question remains, will you listen? Will you listen with interest? Will you listen with a sense of personal urgent need? That's the only question. Perhaps this will be the day. The third lesson from the passage concerns the necessity of perseverance. Verse two has an if in it. Speaking of the gospel, Paul says, by which you are saved if, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you unless you believed in vain. It's possible to believe in vain. So much for easy believism, the popular doctrine of our day, really for the last several decades. So much for all the supposed Christians in America and other places who once upon a time said a prayer or dedicated their lives to Jesus, but who have long since abandoned any pretense of following him. So much for the idea that they're all Christians because of words that they said in the past. Jesus told us in the parable of the sower that there would be those who spring up quickly with joy, but who wither away over time because of persecution, the heat of the word. And Luke 8, he says, of those very rocky soil, rocky ground hearers, they believe for a while. But that's not saving faith. There's two kinds in the New Testament, two kinds of faith. One is a faith that's in vain. It's temporary. Jesus said in John 8, to those who believed in him, you are of your father the devil. See, believing didn't mean anything. It didn't help. They believed in vain. Saving faith is always attended with perseverance. Temporary faith is not. So how do you know whether the kind of faith you have is saving faith or temporary faith? You know by perseverance. You know because you persevere in the faith. And when persecution comes, you don't cave to the world's pressure and seek to please the world. you seek to please Christ. You are saved if, if indeed you continue in the word, if you hold fast to the word which was preached to you. And because persecution is very real today and becoming more and more real in our country, and because the pressure is there, and because true biblical faith is not welcome, it is persona non grata these days, Because of that, many are being tested and many are failing the test and proving that the sort of faith that they have is the temporary kind, that they believed in vain. They have been tested and found wanting. They are not holding fast and persevering in the faith. So he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Finally, this passage teaches us the basic elements of the gospel message. The gospel is both broad and specific. Broadly considered, it is all things concerning Jesus Christ. His life, his incarnation, his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, and those kinds of things. His commandments, his teaching, That's the gospel in the broadest sense. And we know that because the gospel of Mark starts out saying this in verse one, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. In fact, we call them the four gospels. That's what their name, the gospel according to Mark, the gospel according to Matthew, the gospel according to John, it's the gospel. And yet what we read in those pages sometimes has to do with the things he did. the miracles that he wrought, the teaching that he gave, and so forth. Thus, the whole gospel of Mark is the gospel. That's the gospel broadly considered. But more narrowly considered, the gospel zeroes in on the death and resurrection of Jesus and the required response to it. And in the epistles, the implications of the gospel and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul references the gospel in a narrow sense in verses three through four. He says, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. First importance, the gospel is of first importance. that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. So the death, that Christ died for our sins, he didn't die simply because of a conspiracy between jealous Jews and apathetic Romans. That was part of it, that played a part, but there was something much bigger going on than just that. And it's also important to understand that Jesus didn't die merely as an example of how a sacrificial we ought to be. Yes, it was an amazing example. And yes, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, but that's not all that was going on there. Jesus being an example. Jesus was not demonstrating how much he loved us. And that's all it really was. Yes, it was an amazing demonstration of love, incomprehensible, but there's more to it than that. What Paul says is he died for our sins. His death was a payment. This is the part of the gospel people don't like. They like to say the gospel is Jesus showing how much he loves us because people love to be loved. and they love to be made much of, and they love to think that God loves them so much, and so they like that part of it. But when it comes to Jesus substituting for them and hanging on that cross because that's what you deserve to have done to you, but he's doing it in your place, that isn't so flattering. He's dying for our sins. He's paying a debt. He's hanging on a cross, suffering in agony. And the point is, we deserve to be hanging on a cross, suffering in agony, gasping for our breath, with the wrath of God being poured out upon us. And yet there he is, dying instead that way, substituting for us. His payment was a debt. and that he was paying a debt and it covers all who believe in him. So if you believe in him, your debt is paid. And if you believe in him in the future, because you have not yet believed in him, if you believe in him in the future, you can know your debt is paid. He paid it. Paul says Christ was buried. Why is that important? That seems sort of inconsequential, really. We just, death, resurrection, forget the burial part. Why is that important? Well, it demonstrates, for one thing, that he was, in fact, dead. He did not go into a swoon, as some liberals suggested, and merely become unconscious and then revive later. He was buried as a dead man. Also, God had said in the curse on Adam, to the dust you shall return. And of course, Jesus is becoming a curse for us. So he has to experience the consequences of sin and death. That is to be buried. Furthermore, the scriptures had declared, you shall not allow your holy one to undergo decay, Psalms chapter 16. And that was speaking of Christ. But that promise has no relevance if Jesus is never in the grave as a dead man in the first place to potentially undergo decay and would have had he stayed there. So he must be buried. And then he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures. That's what this day is supposed to be about. He was raised on the third day. According to the scriptures, the scriptures declared that he would be. They had to be fulfilled, and they were fulfilled when he rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. It wasn't three full days in the grave. He was there part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday, but that covers a three-day span. He arose and he appeared to many chosen witnesses, and then he ascended to heaven to sit down with the right hand of God the Father. And from there, he is ruling as head of his church, he's head of this church, he's head of all true churches, and he's also ruler over all the rulers of the world. And he's working all things according to his will, and he's bringing all things according to his purpose to a perfect fulfillment. including all the evil things that happen in this world. We serve a risen Savior, not a dead martyr. There have been many Christian martyrs throughout the centuries. Polycarp, Justin, Justin Martyr, they called him. William Tyndale, Jan Hus, and many others have died for the faith. But though we may admire them, we don't worship them. None of them has been raised. None of them is the Lord. None of them is the Savior. Their bodies are still in the grave somewhere, I assume, disintegrating. He, Jesus Christ, is our risen and exalted Savior. He is on the throne as the head of his church, ruling and reigning. These are the basic elements of the gospel, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You must believe the gospel to be saved. Not only the facts of it, that it happened, the demons believe that, but you must repent of your sin and your self-trust and turn to Christ trusting in him and putting your faith in him and your confidence in him. You must look to him for righteousness, not to your own self-righteousness. What I want to now consider is Christ's humility in these things, as well as the perfect life of obedience to the law that he lived. So in the series that we're going through on pride, we're looking at the ugliness of pride. And I've really only gotten started in that sense two weeks in. So we haven't gotten that deep, really, into the ugliness of pride. We've seen that God hates pride. We've seen that God hates the proud. And we've also seen, through the example of Herod, that God crushes the proud. One matter that I briefly touched on was the fact that pride is the sin beneath all sin. Every sin that we commit, you can trace it to pride. There's pride underneath it, feeding it. It was pride that caused the devil to be evicted from heaven. and those who went with him. It was pride that caused Adam and Eve to respond to this temptation that the devil laid before them. Oh, no, no, it's not that you'll die. It's just that God doesn't want you to be like him. And somehow pride emerged within them. And therefore they took of the fruit. Why? Because of pride. Because they wanted to be like God. Because they thought their position was insufficient. Pick any sin you want, name it. And I think we can show that in some way or another, it exists because of pride and selfishness. But Jesus Christ is no ordinary man, is he? He was a man that was free of pride and selfishness, free of it. Though he was God in human flesh, he was characterized by humility. Our pride is what makes us so ugly and so unpersonable, impersonal, so insufferable, so unsociable. But Christ's humility is part of what makes him so beautiful, so attractive, so winsome. Let's direct our attention now to Philippians chapter two, verses three through 11, which speaks of the humility of Jesus Christ. Starts out with an exhortation to us in verse three. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped and clutched at. but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also 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 is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So we are there commanded to do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, not one thing. There's not the slightest excuse or allowance made for it. It's not that we should limit our selfishness. Indulge it a little, but just don't let it get out of hand. No, nothing is to be done in selfishness or empty conceit. I challenge you to go 24 hours wherein you do nothing from selfishness. Just try it. I don't think you can pull it off. I don't think I can. We're too fouled up. It's too much a part of us. It's like breathing. We're doing it and we don't even know we're doing it. It's like a fish being bothered by how wet he is. But Jesus Christ is not warped. He was and is pure, holy, blameless, and undefiled. And the contrast in verse three there is humility. Do nothing from selfish ambition or selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind. There's the opposite, the contrast. With humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. There's another virtue that is contrary to our human nature, something we can't do apart from grace. But it's not contrary to Christ's nature. It's natural for us to think we're more important than everyone else is. That's easy. But we are commanded to regard others as more important than ourselves. Verse four, do not look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. In other words, verse five, be like Christ. Have this attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Christ had a certain attitude. You know, we talk about, you've got a bad attitude. Christ had a good attitude. And it was an attitude of humility and selflessness. Those two things go together just as pride and selfishness go together. We are to have the attitude that was in Christ, the attitude of humility and selflessness that is evident in Christ's life, death, burial, and resurrection. So let's look first at his humility in his life. The very decision that he made as the divine son of God to become a man was an act of humility, wasn't it? He didn't need to become man for any personal reasons. He had no needs. He was clothed in an incomprehensible glory already. He didn't need to come down here to fulfill something in himself. He came down out of grace, not looking for fulfillment. Yes, all mankind would perish in hell if he didn't come down and go to the cross and suffer in our place. But we dare not say that he couldn't continue in a state of perfect happiness unless hell-deserving sinners were up there in heaven with him, that he couldn't continue in the happiness and joy he'd always known. unless sinners were delivered from the justice they deserved. I mean, think about it. Will Christ be miserable throughout eternity, though there will be multitudes in hell? No. Well, if he can manage that, what's a few more million in hell? My point is, it wasn't need on his part. He became a man freely. There was no moral obligation to do so. No necessity on his part. For us to be saved, yes, there was a necessity that he become a man, but the necessity is for us, not for him. He became a man for our benefit, and that was an act of selflessness on his part, wherein he put the interests of others, ours, above his own. in one sense. He then showed great humility in the chosen circumstances of his birth and upbringing. He was born to poor parents, not royalty. He was born under circumstances that made it look like his mother was guilty of fornication, possibly Joseph as well, like they couldn't wait. But when you think about it, how else could it be that he would be born of a virgin? If he had been born to those who had already been married, that is, with the marriage consummated, not just engaged, then it would be assumed and said that there was nothing miraculous about his birth. He's just the child of Joseph and Mary. I know they concocted this great story about, you know, she was a virgin, but now. So he's born under that sort of shadow. He's born in a little out-of-the-way town called Bethlehem, born in a stable, laid in a feeding trough, because there's no room for him at the inn. All the fanfare surrounding his birth was rather private in nature, the angels appearing to a few select individuals. and shepherds and so forth saying glory to God in the highest, just appeared to a few shepherds to say that, the visit of the Magi, all relatively private. Those things weren't said or done before a great audience, a great stadium full of people or anything like that. And that was deliberate. It was a manifestation of Christ's humility. He was raised in Nazareth, a town that was the butt of jokes. Can anything good come from there? That's where he was raised. That's not an accident. Jesus demonstrated his humility in the quiet way in which he apparently lived his life for 30 years. The only thing we know of him past his birth The age where he's approximately two years old when the Magi come and visit him. The incident when he's 12 years old and he's in the temple amazing the teachers there by his insightful questions and comments. Other than that, we hear of almost nothing about him or from him for 30 years. He just quietly lived his life apparently without drawing any particular attention to himself. Yet during that time, he was fulfilling daily what was required of him by way of duty, obeying the law of God to the fullest, not only going 24 hours where he did nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but 48 and 72 and day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. The great lawgiver was born under the law. putting himself under its authority in order to keep and fulfill what was required of man. He came as the second Adam to do what Adam had failed to do. Think of it like this. Some of you here are adults. Being adults, you are not bound by the same rules that your children are under, even your own children. If you want to stay up past your bedtime, you can do that, right? You may not want to, but you can. If you want to drink a soda before bed, you can do that. If you want to drink 10 sodas throughout the day, you could. If you want to eat a whole bag of chocolates, but you tell your kids not to do, you could. Those rules aren't for you. Therefore, you're children. You don't need the rules because you already practice self-control, right? And try to keep such things in balance. But you put yourself often under the same rules. And in doing so, it's an act of humility. You live by certain restraints that aren't designed for you. You're going from the position of authority over the rules as the rule giver and putting yourself under them. And that's what Christ did when he was born under the law, keeping a whole bunch of laws that weren't made for him. They were made for sinners. Any purification ceremony that he went through isn't for him, but he goes through them anyway. Think of all the ceremonial laws, the rituals, the abstinence, the purifications, don't eat this, don't touch that. That's not for him. That's for sinners. And yet he abided by all of them, completely fulfilling everything required of him regarding the sacrifice of animals, even though he doesn't need sacrifice for his sake. He is the sacrifice. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And here he is fulfilling the annual feast requirements and you shall not come empty handed. He had to do those things because he was born under the law and he's fulfilling what is required of others. And he's got to get an A plus on this for us. Christ humbled himself by taking on the weakness of human flesh, becoming a human baby who needed to be held and carried and nursed and dressed. Imagine that. He who had never slept became a man who needed to sleep at night. He became a creature who would experience fatigue and hunger and thirst. Those are weaknesses. And he became a man who then experienced those real weaknesses. Every act of obedience to the law of God by Christ was an act of humility. Just as pride is the sin beneath all our sins, so humility is the virtue beneath all our obedience. When we obey God, we are saying, my life is yours to command. My will It's not my own, not my will, but your will be done. That is the spirit of obedience. It's humility. Jesus said of himself, I do, I always do the things that are pleasing to him. His humility with respect to the law is most especially manifested in his obedience to the second table of the law, the last six commandments pertaining to love of neighbor and duty to man. Christ being subject to his parents in the fifth commandment, obeying what they said to do, though he was over them in dignity and majesty. He always fulfilled the sixth commandment, you shall not murder, which we know includes avoiding the things hateful. That means he always did what was truly loving towards all human beings, even when that meant speaking rather harshly to some of them. His righteous anger and zeal in the temple as he cleansed it out and dumped the tables of the money changers over that was actually good for those people, though they didn't like it. can do good for someone, and they don't recognize it as such, but it was good for them. It was a fulfillment of love your neighbor as yourself, and more importantly, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The Pharisees and all his enemies, the only enemies of Christ, spoke to him with such insolence would never have been able to do that if he had revealed himself in his heavenly glory. See what happens to people when he shows up in his glory. They faint and fall on the ground. Get a little glimpse of that when they come to arrest him and he just says, I am he. And they fall on the ground. They could do that anytime you want. It was an act of humility that he didn't do it all the time. He cloaked his glory behind human flesh. And so they felt quite brave in challenging him because it was cloaked. And it was humility that made him endure that position. Jesus fulfilled the seventh commandment. You shall not commit adultery, which includes all sexual sin. He was a man, a real man, mind you. Let's not forget that. We see that he experienced the weaknesses of creatureliness and of humanity. We know that he was tempted in all manner as we are, yet without sin. That's what Hebrews teaches us. He had male hormones because he was a real man, a real male. He went through puberty as a teen, presumably, just like all other young people do. Being attracted to a beautiful woman is not sinful. It is the way men are made. It is sin when it becomes lust. But Jesus denied himself not only the sinful pleasures of lust and fornication and adultery and pornography, but also the lawful pleasure of having a wife. He denied himself that. For Jesus, the singleness was very practical, to be sure, but it was also an act of humility and self-denial. For Jesus to have been married would have been a constriction on his extensive ministry, his constant traveling, and his giving himself entirely to both his disciples and the crowds of needy people. He denied himself the pleasure of marriage because he put the interests of others above his own. He kept the Eighth and the Tenth Commandments, stealing and coveting. Those were acts of humility. He chose to be poor. He put himself in a position where he would have to be provided for by others. What? The great provider of all things has got to be provided for. They take up offerings for him. They keep a money bag because they're recipients of donations to the ministry. The son of God is receiving donations. He who can simply say, is there a few fish and some bread there, and then feed 5,000 men, which means a whole bunch of thousands, many thousands more. But he didn't do that. He received gifts. One who created all things and owned all things can't steal, in one sense. Everything belongs to you. So how can you steal when you own everything already? But he didn't make use of his rights to all things. He did not lord his ownership over all things with respect to anyone and treated each person as a steward of private property. He had an attitude of humility as he kept the ninth commandment not to bear false witness. He always told the truth even when doing so came at a great cost to himself. He considered the truth more important than his own popularity. Humility. And in addition to these things, we see a remarkable modesty in the way in which he performed many of his miracles, doing them out of the way, sometimes doing them in private, telling people to go out of the room, telling people not to speak of this. Though he was a king, he did not spend his time with the elite and the upper class. He did not mount a throne on earth. He did not raise an army. He did not walk around in royal robes. with a crown on his head. He chose largely uneducated men as his disciples to consort with and to teach. He constantly interacted with and spent his time with the weak, the needy, the poor, the outcasts. His humble life of obedience was a perfect score. He left nothing undone. He lived the life we should live. He fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law in our place, obtaining a gift of righteousness that he gives to all who come to him, who call upon him. He was not only humble in life, but also in death. He subjected himself to all manner of disrespect and abuse. He subjected his ear to the revilers. He gave his cheek to the smiters. His face to the spitters. He gave his back to the whip and his beard to the people who pluck it out. He gave his head to a crown of thorns, his hands and feet to nails, and his body to the agony of the cross. He gave up his whole person to the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And though the weight of that swallowed him up in the garden, of Gethsemane. Though he asked for the cup to be removed, he humbly subjected himself to the Father's will. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he was cursed and blasphemed, he returned a blessing, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Though they challenged him to come down off the cross and prove But he was who he said he was. To prove his great power, he chose humility and humiliation instead. Though he could have called down 12 legions of angels at his disposal to take care of his enemies rather quickly, he did not do so. He rejected those shows of force. He was humble and lowly of heart. He was crucified between 2 thieves making him look like just another one. By the company that he was keeping. In Isaiah 53, it says, surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. In other words, it would appear to men as though he's nothing but another criminal and troublemaker, hanging on a cross, reaping what he had sowed. And it was an act of humility on his part to subject himself to that, to the appearance of things. Was Christ's burial an act of humility? Yes, because death and burial is for sinners. The wages of sin is death. Death was imposed by the triune God, the eternal son of God being included in that trinity as a punishment for sin. And yet here is Christ being subjected to the very consequence that he imposed. The life giver, the one who upholds all things by the word of his power, he is lying in a grave? What's he doing there? He's lying there in humility. What about his resurrection? Surely, that's not humility. That's his exaltation, which came after all his humility, right? Yes, that's true. It was. And as our Philippians 2 text says in verses 9 through 11, for this reason also, 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. So yes, the resurrection is the beginning of his exaltation, followed by his ascension and rule, followed by his second coming and glorious return. his position as judge on judgment day. Yet there is still humility shown in his resurrection. First, he rose not in front of a multitude of people, but in front of just a few chosen witnesses. He was raised in front of just the terrified guards. They're the only ones that saw it. Then when he appeared, he appeared to the lowly, to his disciples. If you had rose from the dead, if you had risen from the dead, wouldn't you want to appear in front of all kinds of people to show them? He didn't. He appeared before 500, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. Other than that, just a few. It would be fun, I would think, to crash a whole bunch of parties after he had been raised from the dead. Be fun to go visit Pilate, wouldn't it? Herod, the chief priest. Hey, guys, remember me? But we don't see him doing that. We don't see him showing up to gloat, to threaten, to scare people, and it would have, to mock them, to take revenge on them. He doesn't do it. He just shows up in a few places here and there over a 40-day period. He then ascends to heaven in front of a few disciples. And throughout history since, and even until now, he is largely concealed in what he does. He does things in such a way that people can easily attribute it to other things. Chance, natural causes, would have happened anyway. His second coming is referred to as his revealing, the revelation of Jesus Christ, meaning he's not revealed, he's still concealed in many ways, and that is still an aspect of his humility. So from the beginning to the end, from his incarnation, the decision to come here in the first place, to become a man, his incarnation, the circumstances of it, his life, His crucifixion and death, his burial, and his resurrection, his ascension, and now his intercession. He's proven himself to be humble and lowly of heart, not proud and arrogant and conceited. So how then shall we respond to this man? Shall we walk in pride? When Christ died to pay the penalty of our pride? Shall we adopt a haughty look on our face when Christ never looked that way? Shall we be conceited and arrogant and expect to be served when Christ humbled himself to become a servant? If you are still in your sins this day and you're not born again, think about this. Will you cling to your pride? and your selfish way of life, when one infinitely greater than you and far more important humbled himself and became a servant and died for proud sinners, why not forsake your pride? Why not humble yourself and surrender your life to him? God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Let's pray. Father, we give you thanks for our savior. As the hymn says, hallelujah, what a savior. We thank you for our humble king who mounted himself on a donkey and rode into town. Not like other kings would, We thank you that from first to last, he lived a life of perfect obedience to you, humbled himself to become a man, fulfilling the law in our place, suffering in our place, and is risen. Thank you for the risen Savior. Thank you that he is there beside you at the right hand, even now. Thank you that he is the head of his own church. Enable us, Lord, to serve Him and live for Him and love Him. In Jesus' name, amen.