Christmas is the time of year where we celebrate the incarnation of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the time of year when we celebrate that magnificent mystery of the eternal Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. John 1 14, Dave read most of that prologue in John chapter 1. It's the time when we celebrate God the Father giving the greatest gift he could ever give to sinful humanity, the gift of his son. Born as a helpless baby so that he could take upon himself the weakness and the infirmity of our humanity, so that he could live as a man and accomplish righteousness as a man in precisely the way that Adam failed and precisely the way you and I have failed to live righteously before God. And the Father sent Christ not only to live as a man but to die as a man and in his death to bear the full penalty of the wrath of God that was due to us because of our sin. The Lord Jesus Christ was born to die so that having paid the penalty for the sins of his people, he might rescue us from the condemnation that we rightly deserve. That is the meaning of Christmas, period. And that's what we celebrate when we remember the incarnation of Christ. And as I thought about a text for this evening's message, my mind was drawn to Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 8, what is perhaps the most detailed explanation in Scripture of the incarnation of Christ, of the mystery that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. perfectly, 100% God as though He were never man, and perfectly, 100% man as though He were never God, joined in perfect unity, yet without confusion, without separation, without distinction, without change. But what's interesting about this passage is that even though it contains that lofty theology, the theology that the church has confessed since the fourth century, It's not Paul's primary point to discuss the fine points of Christology, or the theology in the text is there to illustrate the humility that Paul calls the church to in the preceding verses. In chapter 1 verse 27 of the book of Philippians, Paul explains what it means for the church to live gospel-driven lives, to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. And he says in Philippians 1 27 that that chiefly involves being united with one another. If we are to stand firm against the opposition of a hostile culture, we must do so, he says, in one spirit. If we are to strive together for the faith of the gospel, we must do it in one mind. And so, the end of chapter one and then the beginning of chapter two, chapter two begins with this call to Christian unity. The text says, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind. And the key to experiencing that kind of unity is humility. See, disunity festers only so long as it is fed by selfishness, pride, and arrogance. But when the members of a congregation or of a family have a proper view of themselves in the light of God's holiness, all sense of entitlement, you know, that it's owed to me to be treated in a certain way, vanishes. Disunity simply cannot survive among a people that is permeated by the kind of self-forgetful humility that seeks its own happiness in the happiness of others. And so, Paul commands us in chapter 2, verse 3, to do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but in humility of mind, regard one another as more important than ourselves and yourselves. Not merely looking out for our own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. So you need to live gospel driven lives. That's going to mean being unified. That's going to mean being humble. And then in verses 5 to 11 of chapter two, Paul gives us a concrete example of that humility. And it's not just any example, but it's the ultimate model for Christian conduct, the supreme example of self-sacrificing humility. And you know what he turns to? You know what illustration he picks on to illustrate that truth? He picks the incarnation and gospel mission of the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 2.5, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. And so you see, friends, Christmas, the celebration of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't just a nice story that family and friends can unite around. For true believers in Jesus, Christmas has ethical implications. The truths of the incarnation of Christ are not just to make us smile and feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside and curl up next to the fire with apple cider. They are to have a visible impact on our lives. The incarnation of Christ is to make us a humble people. The whole point of Paul's explaining the fine points of Christ's pre-existence and incarnation in this text is to demonstrate the heights from which the Lord came and the depths to which he humbled himself in his birth, in his life, in his death, and in his service of others. so that we would have the clearest picture of his example to follow as we pursue humility and as we serve one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. So the call of Christmas is a call to humility. And then when we hear that call, we study the incarnation. And so, just briefly with you, I want to focus on three points in our time together this evening in Philippians 2, 5 to 8. I want to consider the Christ in whom we behold the supreme example of humility and meditate on number one, the glory He renounced. Number two, the rights he relinquished, and number three, the shame he embraced. The glory he renounced, the rights he relinquished, and the shame he embraced. Number one, the glory he renounced. And if you had your Bibles, you could look at your Bibles, but if you don't, you could just listen. In verse five, in the first part of verse six, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, And I'll stop there for now. Even before the baby Jesus was born in the manger, before the angelic announcements, before there's no room in the inn, Christ was existing in the form of God, the text says. Now, form of God, this doesn't mean that Jesus only seemed like God but wasn't God. The Greek word that's translated form is the word morphe which speaks of the outward manifestation that corresponds to the inward essence. It speaks about the external form that represents what is intrinsic and essential. And the New International Version actually brings out the sense best when it translates this phrase, Christ was being in very nature God. Christ was existing in the morphe of God because in His very essence, in His very being and nature, He was God. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, John 1.1. He was in the beginning. He existed in the beginning with God. Later on in Philippians 2.6, Paul says that Christ didn't regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. which means that before His incarnation in heaven, He did possess equality with the Father. And because the Scripture teaches only one God, then Christ must be Himself fully God, the second person of the eternal Trinity. Now, if the word morphe refers to the outward manifestation of the inner essence in nature, I ask you, what's the outward manifestation of the inner essence of deity, of God? Well, it's glory. When God manifests His presence among His people all over the Old Testament, we see that manifestation as what we call the Shekinah glory, whether it's the pillar of cloud or the pillar of fire or it's the smoke filling the temple or the tabernacle. Well, that very glory belongs to Jesus from all eternity. John 17, 5, Jesus praised, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was. He had glory with the Father before the world was. John 1, 14, again, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. I preached on this last Sunday evening and not too long before that here in Grace Life. In Isaiah chapter 6, the prophet says that he saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. And there the angel sang to the one on the throne, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And then, in John 12, when Jesus is here and performing miracles to everybody in Israel and nobody is believing him, John quotes Isaiah 6. The whole earth is full of his glory and he says, Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke of him in the context that him is Christ. Friends, this is the heavenly glory that your Savior renounced for you. Christ is not merely another man. Jesus is not just a good teacher or a great moral prophet. He is not merely godlike, nor is he a god among many gods. Jesus is not the first created being. He is not among the highest class of angels. Jesus Christ is God himself, God of very God. Before the world was, he was eternally existing in the very nature of God, in the very essence of God, and in the very glory of God. And it's from this magnificent height of heaven, of divine equality and divine glory, that the Son of God descended in humility in his incarnation. That's how far he had come. Calvin puts it perfectly, he says, since then the Son of God descended from so great a height, how unreasonable that we who are nothing should be lifted up with pride. If Christ can come from here, well we can come from here and go to there. That's the glory Christ renounced. Let's turn secondly then to the rights He relinquished. The rights He relinquished, verses 5 through 7. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus who, existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave and being made in the likeness of men. So, even though Christ was existing in the very nature and essence and glory of God, in equality with God the Father, ruling creation in majesty and receiving the worship of the saints and angels in heaven, he didn't regard that equality as something to cling to. Instead, he humbly accepted his mission of his incarnation, in which he would renounce the glories of heaven for a time, take on the nature of a human being, and live with all the restrictions of what it meant to be human, apart from sin. Though He had every right to continue in unlimited manifest power and authority in receiving the worship of the saints and angels, in participating in the glory of His Father in perfect face-to-face fellowship and communion and unity, He did not selfishly count those blessings to be slavishly held on to. but sacrificed them to become a man and accomplish salvation for sinners. He emptied himself, verse 7 says. A better translation might be he nullified himself or he made himself of no effect. The King James captures this well when it translates this verse, Christ made himself of no reputation. The NIV also gets the idea when it says he made himself nothing. And he did this, the text says, by taking the form of a slave and being made in the likeness of men. Christ made himself nothing by taking on a human nature in his incarnation. So this is an emptying by adding. This is a subtraction by addition. God the Son emptied himself by adding to his divine nature the very nature of a human being. And Scripture says that's taking the form of a slave. And you say, now, is that really slavery? I mean, becoming human, is that really slavery? I mean, I'm a human being. I don't feel like I'm enslaved. Well, we struggle to understand the gravity of this because humanity is all we know. But think of what Christ left. This is the creator of the universe. This is the possessor of divine glory and majesty. This is the one rightly worshiped by all the heavenly hosts. This is the Lord and the master taking the form of a slave. Friends, when we think about the rights Christ relinquished in the incarnation, we ought to be astonished by his humility. Christmas ought to be one big astonishment day by day. Think about how much you would love to throw off the weaknesses of your physical body. Even aside from the sinfulness of your flesh, just the pain and the infirmity that characterizes the finite, decaying beings like you and me. I don't like getting sick. I don't like getting sore after exercise. I don't like getting my waistline getting tighter and tighter with these pants, you know what I mean? Like, I don't like getting tired and feeling exhausted. I don't like aches and pains, and I'm sure you don't either. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be free of the infirmity of even non-sinful aspects of our humanity? But Jesus, free from that kind of weakness, free from that infirmity, free from that decay, contemplated the riches of his pre-incarnate glory, and he humbly chose to take on a human nature and the weakness of human flesh, to live and to die as the slave of all. In the language of Philippians 2, 3, and 4, he was doing nothing from selfishness, but was regarding others as more important than himself. He was not looking out merely for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. And in doing that, he models for us what we are now called to do. There's a lesson for us here. You know, sad as it is to admit it, the reality is that for many people, the holidays are not always a happy time. Perhaps people think back to a time when they enjoyed the holidays with their whole family. But now certain loved ones have moved away and others have passed away. And the holidays only remind us of how much we miss those people who were gone. For others, it can just be a time of severe stress, you know, trying to make all the dinner plans and the travel preparations and finish all the Christmas shopping. For others, it could just be that different people had different expectations as to what a holiday gathering was supposed to be like. For these people, holidays are special, and they have these high expectations, and it's supposed to go just right, and it doesn't go the way that I planned. You had your heart set on things a particular way, plans have changed, and you're disappointed. And all these scenarios and more can cause our tempers to shorten and our pride to go strong. and tension to rise up between us and those we love the most. But especially at this time of year, we need to, as verse 5 says, have this attitude in ourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. In the midst of a conflict with a brother or sister in Christ, or in the midst of a conflict with a family member, or even maybe a spouse, though we might be right about something, Though we might have a good case to make, and she was wrong and I was right, and he was wrong and I was right, we can think on the only one who ever had the right to assert his rights and didn't. And we can regard one another as more important than ourselves, as he did, and give preference to one another in honor, as he did, for the sake of true unity. Calvin again said, he, Jesus, gave up his right. All that is required of us is that we don't assume to ourselves a higher position than we ought. The question that we need to ask ourselves is that if God the Son has stooped this far, to what depths of humility will you refuse to stoop? Whose servant will you refuse to be? Well, we've seen then the glory He renounced and the rights He relinquished. Third, let's consider the shame that he embraced. Verse eight says, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. See, Jesus' humility didn't stop at his taking on a human nature, though that'd be enough in terms of a display of humility. He didn't just become a man. He became an obedient man. From all eternity, the Son was equal to the Father and the Spirit in glory and in majesty and authority. But in his incarnation, he now relates to the Father in terms of authority and submission. He repeatedly says things like, I don't seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me, John 5.30. I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, John 6.38. And ultimately, Christ's humble submission to the Father takes him to obedience, not just generally, but obedience to the point of death, the text says, to the laying down of his life. As I said before, Jesus was born to die. The point of his incarnation is his passion. Christmas is simply the introduction to Good Friday. The author of life humbly submits to death. The one who is without sin humbly submits to sin's curse. The one who has life within himself, the one who gives life to whomever he wishes, humbly releases his grip on life in submission to the Father and in love for those whom the Father had given him. Here is humility shining like the sun in its full strength. We sing it. Amazing love. How can it be that thou, my God, my God should die for me? The other gods ask their subjects to die for them. This God dies for us. But it doesn't stop even there. There are greater depths to plumb before the humiliation of the Son of God reaches rock bottom. He wasn't just obedient and he wasn't just obedient to the point of death. He was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And in that day, the cross meant one thing. It wasn't what you put around your neck. It wasn't what you embossed on your Bible cover. It wasn't what you touted as a symbol of solidarity with other Christians. It represented the most shameful and horrific kind of death. One commentator on the ancient world says, the cross displayed the lowest depths of human depravity and cruelty. It exhibited the most brutal form of sadistic torture and execution ever invented by malicious human minds. In crucifixion, metal spikes were driven through the victim's wrists and feet and he was left to hang naked and exposed sometimes for days. Because the body would be pulled down by gravity, the weight of a victim's own body would press against his lungs and the hyperextension of his chest muscles and arms here in the lungs made it difficult to breathe. Victims would gasp for air by kind of pulling themselves up by their feet and by their wrists. But when they would do that, the wounds in their wrists and feet would tear at the stakes that pierced them. And the flesh of their back, which was usually torn open from flogging, would grate against the jagged wood of the cross that he was hanging on. Eventually, when such a victim could no longer summon the strength to pull himself up further to breathe, he would die from suffocation under the weight of his own body. This was the most sadistically cruel, excruciatingly painful, and loathsomely degrading death that man could die. And there on Golgotha, 2,000 years ago, the innocent, holy, righteous Son of God died this death. God on a cross. Unthinkable. This was the highest of the high gone to the lowest of the low. And if he, the one who is worthy of all honor and all praise, could submit himself to that, can we continue in selfish ambition and empty conceit? Can we continue to bicker with one another and insist on our own rights? But I was right and she was wrong. No, it's just what's right is right now. If what's right is right, if that's the way that you would have God deal with you, you'd have been in hell already. And yet you are not. And so as recipients of the grace of that gospel, can we not bend the grace of that gospel out to one another? Can we not delight even eagerly to get under our brothers and sisters, to serve them? I'm the slave of all, I'd be happy to do that for you. If a man asks you to go with him a mile, walk with him a second mile. Can we who have been forgiven such a mountain of a debt withhold forgiveness of such a pittance? 10,000 talents we owed and we were forgiven and we would insist on 100 denarii? Can we do anything less than surrender all of our rights and lay down our lives in the sacrificial service of one another? A wise man once asked, how can anyone be arrogant when he stands beside the cross? If Christ can go from here all the way down to here, I can go from here to here. Yeah, it's a dissent. I'm going down. I'm being humbled. But in comparison to what he left and relinquished and renounced and the shame that he embraced, it's nothing. And if I could imitate my Savior, that would be wonderful. If I could throw glory onto him and his example and to the gospel by my behavior, I would love to do that. But as hard as it may be to believe, the shame and the pain of the cross was not the lowest depth to which the Son of God humbly submitted himself. The Old Testament said anyone who was hanged on a tree was accursed of God. Paul quotes this verse in Galatians 3.13. He says, For it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Now, worse than the pain and worse than the shame, the crucifixion also brought with it a divine curse. And this is rock bottom. We need to dwell long and hard this Christmas on what it meant for God the Son to be cursed by God the Father. He never deserved to know his father's wrath. He only deserved to know his father's delight and approval and welcoming smile. And there on Calvary, The Son of God was cut off from the apple of His eye, from the joy of His heart, fellowship with the Father. And He was innocent. And I can barely imagine the sense of bewilderment that the Son of God must have experienced when for the first time in all of eternity, He felt what it was to know His Father's displeasure. And no wonder he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I can barely handle that thought when I let my mind meditate there for too long, and we need to let our minds meditate there, because that was my alienation. That was my wrath. My sin did that to the Son of God. That was my frown from the Father. That was my cry of dereliction. And he cried it for me. And friend, if you haven't felt the pain of that thought in the depths of your soul and cried out with every fiber of your being for God to have mercy on you, I tell you that you sit here dead in your trespasses and sins. But I beg you to feel that pain now. Cry out now in repentance and faith and cast yourself upon the mercy of Christ. Turn from your sin. Abandon all your bad works. Abandon all your good works that you would rely on to get you to heaven because you think God is less holy than He is and you are more holy than you are. And beg for forgiveness on the basis of this death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust entirely in Him. in his righteousness alone for salvation. And if you do that, the Bible promises that you will be saved and it's free. You have to do nothing but receive it, to bow the knee and to turn from sin and self and to follow after him. And if you do that, his death will have become your death, his curse, your curse, his righteousness, your righteousness. Friends, if you're outside of Christ this evening, what in the world could stop you from seizing eternal life when it's at your fingertips? Trust in Christ, turn from sin, and be saved. And to my brothers and sisters who have laid hold of eternal life through faith in Christ, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. If He could come from the glories of heaven itself all the way down to the abject degradation of the cross and the wrath of God, surely we can humble ourselves to be servants of all. Surely we, mere creatures of the dust, can surrender our rights for the sake of maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The call of Christmas is the call to humility. And may it be that we answer that call by the grace of God. Pray with me. Oh, Father, would you make us a humble people? Would you bow us in humility before the cross of Christ, where we are all placed on a level, owers of an infinite debt, paid by the infinitely holy Son of God? I pray, Father, if there are any here who do not know You through Christ this evening, that You would open their eyes to the loveliness of Him, to the ugliness of their sin. Show them that sin can't satisfy, that Christ can satisfy more than anything, and that He stands yet willing to receive them if they would just turn and have Him. Father of work, the miracle of regeneration, in the hearts of those you mean to save, and in those whom you have saved, I pray that you would make us a humble people. I pray that as we meditate on Christmas in the next 23 days, that we would remember the incarnation of Christ and think upon the heights he left, the rights he relinquished, and the shame that he embraced, and that we would be eager to take that for our model as we seek to make much of the glory of the gospel and to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ, our family members, our friends, indeed all the world. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. For more information about the ministry of the Grace Life Pulpit, visit at www.thegracelifepulpit.com. Copyright by the Grace Life Pulpit All Rights Reserved.