to be seated. Well, we are turning then to Philippians chapter two, which is a passage containing in a short space, a sum of great things. We have in the verses that have been read, a sum of practical Christianity, as well as a sum of doctrinal Christianity. And the bottom line, and indeed the last part of the eight verses we take as our text this morning, comes to these words there in verse 8, even the death of the cross. The kind of death that Jesus died is there and in those words highlighted and drawn forth for our attention. Our purpose today is to remember the death of the Savior, His sin-bearing death. And so our text brings it right before our attention. And notice the position then of what is said regarding the death of the cross. It is underscoring and undergirding the whole totality of practical Christianity and it is the bottom line of doctrinal Christianity as well. We are accustomed to seeing many places in the Bible where we are first told doctrine, and then we are told the practice and the application, and that's the big pattern of the book of Romans, for instance. And actually, in our text, we have the opposite pattern. We have here four verses that set forth practical Christianity. What are the duties of the Christian life? And then we come to one of the great statements of doctrine, the humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ in His incarnation and in His obedience unto death. And the passage before us is rightly famous because of exactly that second thing, this wonderful summary of the incarnation and humiliation and obedience unto death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to preach that this morning, but I also don't want it to be detached from the context that God's given it to us in. So the bottom line of practical Christianity is the death of Jesus on the cross, and the bottom line of doctrinal Christianity is the same. Let's consider these in turn. First of all, we have a small sum of practical Christianity there in verses one through four, which the sum of Christian duty is love. Notice the way in which God comes to those professing the name of Christ to exhort us unto our duty. It is by way of appeal. Since the duty of the Christian is love, it is loving appeals, for the most part, that move the Christian unto his duty. God appeals to you today, Christian, in the name of love unto the performance of your duty. Four things are mentioned there in verse 1. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, think of the Savior that we remember today, His death. Has the death of Christ and the living intercession of Christ ever consoled your soul or held you up when you're bruised and weighted with a sense of your own iniquity? If there's been any such thing for you, then God pleads with you and appeals to you today. If there is any comfort of love, If the love of God demonstrated in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, if that's ever meant anything to you, then God appeals to you. He appeals to you by love. And He says, that crusty part of your heart, open it up. Those doors that swing slowly on rusty hinges, Think about, have you ever been comforted by the love of God in Christ? If any fellowship of the Spirit, if the Spirit of God has ever come and taken the great things of the love of God and the death of Christ and applied them effectually unto your heart and made them real and present and living in your soul, if you've ever experienced that, then God is appealing to you today. If any bowels and mercies, if you've ever known what it is to be dealt with by God, not according to strict rigor, but according to compassion and bowels of mercies, then God is calling to you today. And He's saying, open your heart, open your compassions, open your bowels. All of this comes, this loving appeal comes from a loving pastor. If there's been any of these things, fulfill ye my joy. This is something the Lord brings to us at times. If you have any attachment to the man through whom God has brought His word to you, then make him joyful. Open your ears. Listen. Look how God comes by way of appeals. Because this is the way God mainly draws the Christian to his duty, it shows us what need we have of the sacrament, isn't it? That's the occasion before us today. In order to be moved unto Christian duty, We need the Word, but then God's given us something more too, which is the sacrament. We need to look by faith upon Christ broken, bruised for our iniquities, weighted as it were a cart under a heavy load. We need to look upon the dying love of Jesus Christ. We need to be softened and moved. in order to do anything in the Christian life. In practical Christianity, we're shown how it is that God moves His saints. We're also told what are the duties of the Christian life. The sum of it is love, but there are three particulars that are opened up here. The Christian in his duty is to be moved by appeals of love unto unity, humility, and unselfishness. To be moved by appeals of love unto unity. There in verse 2, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind." Now this is a tremendously high call to unity, isn't it? Like-minded and of one accord. God appeals to you that you would, as it were, move like one body moved and animated by one Spirit, that we would be like yoke fellows pulling together in the same direction with the same priorities, striving together to magnify the name of Christ. God appeals to you by love. that you should be like-minded, that we should strive even in matters of judgment and opinion and so forth and the way that something is said and what is prioritized. We have a duty to strive towards seeing eye to eye. crucifying that which is just me and my opinion and my preference, working towards it in the bonds of love, having the same love, because love binds us together. Even when initially we don't see eye to eye on something, there's love in the one bosom, love in the other. It draws the two together so that we seek more and more to be in step. God by love, He calls you unto unity. God by love, He calls you unto humility. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory. The claims that the Lord is making here are, wow, they're quite sweeping, aren't they? Nothing, let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, getting even at the motivations. What if we do formally the right thing? But what if we do it because we have become hot and heated And we do the right thing through strife. And we're not animated by love, but something else. What about seeking our own glory? Doing the right thing to be seen of men, to seem better than someone else. God even gets down here to us and talks to us about our thoughts. in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves." This is not an impossible or unattainable standard in this life by the grace of God. When Paul spoke, he said, I'm less than the least of all saints. and he wasn't faking it or making things up. That's what he actually thought. God calls us to that kind of lowliness. He calls you by love, that little rising thought in your mind to think, you know, this puts me above this other person. He calls you to cut that off. And when you think of your brother, to look on his good side and to think about all the ways that he excels you and where you have something about him to emulate and the ways that you've seen him sin or whatever, to forgive him and to bury it in the sea of forgetfulness and to actually come to think sincerely in your mind, I'm the least. The rest in the body are better than me. God by love calls you to humility. and God by love appeals to you to be unselfish. Verse four, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others, to not even very exactly or curiously or scrupulously look into and watch over our own things, to live with self-forgetfulness, to live as if we didn't have a self, and that everything that we have is for the benefit of our brother? Indeed, this underscores the others, doesn't it? How can we attain unto unity or unto humility except by a spirit of self-sacrifice and self-denial and selflessness? This is what God, by love, calls you unto. So the sum of practical Christianity, particularly as it relates now to one another, is as I've been saying to you. This is how our passage begins. So practical Christianity is a high and lofty thing. There is in practical Christianity that which far excels anything that flesh and blood can produce. Where does it come from? Where can we go in order to be able to enter into the practice of Christianity? Well, then we're immediately told. We're told about the sum of doctrinal Christianity in verses 5 through 8, and yes, also it continues thereafter regarding the exaltation of Christ. But our focus today is on the death of Christ. I want to speak then about the humiliation of Christ held forth in these verses. which is all headed, as I was pointing out to you, to this point, the death of the cross. The greatest point of His humiliation is the death of the cross. Let's consider then three things from these verses about doctrinal Christianity. First of all, consider the person who died. The person who died. If we're going to come all the way through to verse 8 and understand the impact of the words, even the death of the cross, we need to understand who it is that died. We're told in unmistakable terms here about Christ's divine person. In verse 6, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." The form of God, he says. This is attributing divine essence. unto Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There's two reasons for that. One is because later on we have the phrase, the form of a servant. And Jesus did not simply take on the outward appearance of a servant, but he actually took on a servile nature, namely a human nature. Another reason why this means the essence of God, it's because we look in our Old Testaments and we see God appeared at Sinai, but they didn't see any form at Mount Sinai. So actually God doesn't have a... We cannot draw a picture of God. He is Spirit. We cannot define and pin Him down within certain limits. And when it comes to created things, we could speak about the form of something, right? If you have a sword, so the material the sword is made out of is steel, but then that steel is in a certain form. There are characteristics that are given to that steel so that it then has the form of a sword. the defining characteristics that point out the essence of something. That's the form of it. But with God, He's uncreated. So the illustration that I've used is puny and tiny. We need to think about the God who's uncreated and what is the thing that defines God but His own essence. So saying that He being in the form of God is to say that Christ is God. that he is essentially God. And what is more, it's pointed out to us that there's, well, there's a distinction in persons in the Godhead. So there's the person we're talking about who is in the form of God, and yet he's distinct from another person who's here given the name God, and this is the person of the Father, and he is equal. to God the Father because he thought it not robbery to be equal with God. He wasn't intruding or grasping at something that didn't belong to him to be from all eternity equal in power and glory with the Father. Not so, but he is by essence equal with God. And we're anchored to the rock of Christ's deity at the beginning here, because we're told that being in the form of God, he did things. Being in the form of God, he made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant. So who is the person who does those things? The one who is being in the form of God. We're told that He was made in the likeness of men, but the person who was so made was all along being in the form of God. So Christ, He is God in His person, and that matters. In fact, we cannot understand the death of the cross without this affirmation, because how is it that He was able to sustain the death of the cross with all that that meant? As we'll come to see, it meant the wrath and curse of God. It would have been impossible for a mere creature to sustain the wrath and curse of God without being annihilated. but He by almighty divine strength was able to bear up under the infinite weight of the wrath of God. It matters who He is because this means that the death of the cross was of infinite value because of who it is that went all the way to the death of the cross. In the death of the cross, there was a debasing of the glory of Jesus Christ. And you, by your sin, you dishonored God. In order for a payment to be made for sin, there had to be one who is God, who was put to dishonor. This is the exalted starting point, the divine person of Christ. But the person who died, being in the form of God, he did not remain only God, but he became man. We're told also about this, Christ's assumption of our nature. We're told that He took upon Him the form of a servant, that is, a serving nature, and man was made as a servant. He acted, Christ acted in the incarnation. He took our nature to himself. And then it's described a different way. And was made in the likeness of men. So human nature, that's a created nature, right? And Christ, well, His body was formed of Mary's substance, a created nature that was made, but yet He acted and took it to Himself. And this was a voluntary veiling of His glory. We're told that in this, He made Himself of no reputation. And yes, it's true, Greek word here has to do with emptying. And so one might come along and tell you, no, this could be rendered, he emptied himself. Well, we'd have to say that that would, you know, we have to grant the point there, but what did he empty himself of? Not deity, perish the thought, not divine attributes, perish the thought. Remember everything that we've seen here. It's that he being in the form of God did these things, took the form of a servant and so forth. So in what sense was he emptied? That namely of manifested glory. And so our translation is pointing us in the right direction. Made Himself of no reputation, through retaining divine attributes, an unimpaired deity, yet His glory was veiled, and it shone not forth, and as to the perception of men, He... well, what happened? Verse 8 happened, "...being found in fashion as a man." So those who met our Lord Jesus, they took Him for just an ordinary man, no halo over His head, subject to being tired and weary and hungry and so forth. So the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ is real. And it shows love, doesn't it? In order to draw near unto us, He voluntarily veiled the shining forth of His glory. So just think about what trouble you and I might have in letting even a single thing that we have done go unknown and unnoticed. Well, here is one who is God, who made himself of no reputation and did so in order that he might have ability to suffer and to undergo the death of the cross. So in doctrinal Christianity, we need this doctrine. Why does this matter, you might ask? Well, we should have a bent in our heart that says, on the one hand, you know, if God reveals something to us in His Word, that makes it matter. And we need to understand it for that reason. And that's sufficient in one sense. But here's another thing. There's no such thing as real practical Christianity like we've been talking about, unless we understand the things I'm setting forth. We have to meditate, think, and believingly receive these high and lofty doctrines, or else we will have no practical Christianity. So the person who died, the God-man died. Another thing we're told is the nature of his death. Not only the person who died, But the nature of his death, as I highlighted, he took upon him the form of a servant. And man has a serving nature. Man is made to receive commandments from God and to obey God. Angels also have a serving nature, but a higher and more lofty one. He took the form of a servant. Why? In order to fulfill the work that the Father had given unto Him. In John's Gospel, we find Him speaking about being sent and so on, and doing the work that the Father had given unto Him. So the divine nature is not capable of obedience. It is a human nature that's capable of obedience. And so He took our nature in order that He might be in a position to obey and to fulfill the work that the Father had given to Him. And He has done so, and He has received reward from the Father for finishing, completing the work of service that God gave to Him. We see that in Isaiah 53, because He poured out His soul unto death and was numbered with the transgressors, God gave Him a portion with the great. We see it here in Philippians 2, because He took this form of a servant, and in the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him." So he took the form of a servant. So pause and think about this. It was actually the pleasure of the Lord. that the Father sent the Son to do this work that was given to Him in order to redeem sinners. We ought not to suspect the person of the Father and think there's less love in the Father. Not so. He came taking the form of a servant in order to do the Father's good pleasure in redeeming sinners. Also we're told, well, the nature of his death, what is it? It was a serving death. Yes, an obedient death. We're told there in verse eight, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death. Obedient unto death. That is obedient all the way to death and including death. because he went through all his life as a work of obedience. We speak of his active obedience and his passive obedience. But these two, while distinct, and we should distinguish them in our minds, were seamlessly joined together. So in active obedience, he kept all the commandments of God. In his passive obedience, he suffered the punishments deserved by his sinful people. But the more he went on and on in active obedience, pressing on towards the cross, the more and more sufferings came upon him. And the cross itself, His obedience surpassed itself. His death itself, we're told that He yielded up the ghost in His dying. He was passive because He was suffering, but He was active because He yielded up the ghost. Obedient all the way to death. He's the priest. Not only is Jesus the sacrifice, which He certainly is, but He's also the priest who offered Himself. And this means that Christ has the obedience that you need. He has everything you need. He has a perfect righteousness to give you. He wrought out in His life, all the way unto death, perfect obedience to God's commandments to have that righteousness to give to you. Receive by faith His righteousness. A passive obedience, bearing the penalty of God in order to free you from damnation, if you will, but trust upon Him. The nature of His death, it was an obedient death. Finally, and a matter of importance for us this morning, is the manner of His death. We've considered the person who died, the nature of His death, but also the manner of His death. Notice how the apostle highlights this. He became obedient unto death, and then He has something more to say, even the death of the cross. That as if it were not sufficient simply to say, that Christ died, but it was necessary to point out how He died. And we come today to remember how He died. We are to stir up our memory and our affectionate meditation upon the sufferings and the actual dying of Christ, to consider the costliness of it to Him, the circumstances, the blessed benefits that He purchased, And in fact, nothing else really will unpin the deepest recesses of the heart and make them flow out in love. Nothing but the cross is enough to work practical Christianity of the kind that we've highlighted already this morning. Even the death of the cross Consider the manner of the Savior's death. In our larger catechism, we have a summary of the teaching of Scripture. He laid down His life in offering for sin, enduring the painful, shameful, and cursed death of the cross. It is like a compact exposition of this phrase of Scripture. Even the death of the cross. What's being highlighted? What's special about the death of the cross? That it was painful, shameful, and cursed. And that's the teaching of Scripture. what I've quoted to you is a summary of the Bible's teaching about the cross. Consider that Christ died even the painful death. of the cross. Some deaths are relatively painless. Asaph speaks of the wicked, and he says there are no bands in their death, but not Christ's death. Crucifixion is a notoriously painful way of dying. The apostle Peter spoke about the painfulness of Christ's death. almost in passing, but he spoke to it in Acts 2.24. Speaking about the resurrection, he says, having loosed the pains of death. So now Christ is risen, He's freed from the pains of death, but what's the implication? His death had pains. In fact, the word that's used describes birth pangs, pangs of pain, seizing upon Him in His death. That's the teaching of Scripture, and it's a suitable meditation for us. Christ died the painful death of the cross There were pains in his body. I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the beard. All my bones are out of joint. They pierced my hands and my feet. Every part of his body was crowned with thorns. They drove down the crown of thorns upon His head. He endured extreme thirst. He endured a lingering death upon the cross. He suffered pain in His body. Your body has committed sin against God. There's no redemption for you except there be provided a Savior who suffered in the body. He suffered painfully in His soul, immediately. He felt pain in His soul. The body and the soul have sympathy one with another. The one is pain, the other is pain. He experienced that, no doubt, but also immediately in His soul. We read the words, He shall see of the travail of His soul. because the delight and comfort and joy of his soul was communion with God. And then suddenly he was exposed to God, an angry judge coming upon him to smite his soul, inward stabbing and piercing and pain. Why? Because he was charged with each of the sins of each of his people. Christ's death was a suffering death. Is that not a mystery? He who being in the form of God, he who is as God impassible, incapable of suffering and change, he took the form of a servant in order to suffer the utmost of pain. He spoke about the suffering of the cross. He predicted it to His disciples, that the Son of Man must suffer many things. And why is that? It's because it's the death that you deserve. The Bible speaks about those who, through love of money, they pierce themselves through with many sorrows. It speaks about hell as a place of torment in a flame. Christ died a painful death. That means don't ever think lightly of hell, because hell is a place of suffering. If it were not necessary for Christ to suffer, then would God have subjected him to it? It means also this, the sympathy of Christ is perfect. God sets before you a Savior who experienced pains, the painful death of the cross. And you, believer, you caused His pains. But yet what is amazing is that He now stands ready to pity you in your pains. We have not in a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Your pains move Him to help you. rather than to despise you or cast you off. He died a painful death. Ought we not then to be conformed unto him? Paul aspired to know the fellowship of his sufferings. It's an honor, as we were reading about Epaphroditus, who was sick. His life was at risk for the work of the Lord. Why was Epaphroditus willing to endure pain? It is because he was being conformed to the Savior who died, even the painful death of the cross. The painful death of the cross, also the shameful death of the cross. The cross was too shameful even to mention in Roman society. And Scripture tells us about the shamefulness that Christ experienced. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. We're told that for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame. Pain is the opposite of comfort. Shame is the opposite of honor and dignity. Why did Christ endure the shameful death of the cross? It's because we dishonored God by sin. And in order for there to be pardon, there must be a dishonoring of a person who is God. So think of it this way, every one of your sins is like a spitting in the face of God, if it were possible. Now sin cannot diminish God and His essence, of course not. It cannot diminish His glorious attributes. But sin does the utmost that a creature is capable of to darken the manifested glory of God in the world and to cast reproach and shame on the name of God. You have spit in the face of God. God took a face in order that it might be spat upon and that he might be dishonored and subjected to shame in order to free you from the shameful, disgraceful thing that is sin. He endured spitting He endured nakedness. They took his clothes and divided his garments amongst them. Accusation and jeering. Shame is a passion of the soul that causes it to shrink away under the consciousness of dishonor. Christ had shame heaped upon him. He felt the shame heaped upon him. It was due to him, not because he had any of that shameful thing, which is sin, but because he from all eternity had undertaken to take upon the shameful sins of his people. And yet we're told that he despised the shame. He set his mind against it. He set before himself the promised joy and overcame the shame that was heaped upon him. He did not rise up in retaliation. He was not lashing out in wrath to clear himself. He did not sink under the tremendous weight of shame and disgrace for the sins of His people. He did not shrink back so as to leave His work undone. He set His mind against that shame and overcame it. And therefore now He has the highest honor due to Him. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive blessing and honor and glory and power. He endured even the shameful death of the cross. Therefore now let Him be praised. Is there anyone here who could withhold praise from Jesus Christ? Who could be silent? and indifferent. He endured even the shameful death of the cross. And that means that there is but one way for you to approach God with boldness and with acceptance. Either you, at the last day, will be shrinking away from God in everlasting shame, or else you will be standing boldly before God with every bit of shame removed and taken away from you. Think about those drastic alternatives. Sin is a very shameful thing. so that the Son of God was spat upon, crucified naked, falsely accused, and jeered at. Either you will stand before God in your shameful sins, and you'll have nothing to say, you'll be speechless, you will shrink away from the presence of God and your conscience will testify, I deserve shame. Either that or else you'll stand before God in Christ and nothing will be able to make you ashamed. Those darkest, deepest blots of sin If they were laid upon your soul, they would make your soul shrink away, but they won't do so because they've already been born away by Christ. He endured the shameful death of the cross. If you're still today in your sins, and cross over unto Christ. He's already done the work. He's already endured that shameful death of the cross. Therefore, come unto Him. Put off that shameful thing, which is sin. Endure reproach for Christ. Well, then Christ died even the shameful death of the cross. And here's a third thing. When here the scripture tells us that He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, it means also that He died a cursed death. Now this, there's a difference here, because the Romans designed the cross to be a painful death. And they designed the cross to be a shameful death. But it is God who made the cross a cursed death. We should be conformed to Christ. We should endure pain and reproach for Him. But we are never anywhere in the Bible called to bear the curse. Rather, we're called to flee from under the curse and to receive the blessing. Christ stands alone in bearing the curse. He does not call His people to do so, but His death It was a cursed death, Galatians 3.13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. That was part of the judicial law. It was the way that criminals were punished. Notorious criminals could be punished by being hanged on a tree under the law of Moses. But that was in itself a type and shadow. It was pointing at something greater, even the curse of God. Because after all, it's possible for even judicial processes to miscarry and for someone to be punished civilly who before God wasn't actually guilty. But in this case, there's no mistake. There's no mere resemblance or type or shadow. Christ was put to death on a tree and he bore the curse of God himself. Think of how heavy and weighty the wrath and curse of God are. God cursed the serpents, and the serpent was crawling on his belly. And what is one of the great types of the Old Testament? To set forth Christ crucified, but a serpent on a pole. Christ was made a curse. God's wrath and curse were seen in the flood of Noah, deluge of water. And Christ called His death a baptism. He was deluged and inundated with the wrath of God. What about the burnt offering? on the altar, the sacrifice consumed in hot fire. And Christ said, my heart melts like wax in the midst of my bowels. Christ endured God's wrath and curse. It has the idea of substitution behind it. Christ taking the place of His people. wrapped up in their sins, answering for them the punishment due for them laid on Him. It has the idea of satisfaction, of the curse being totally exhausted and drunk down to the last drop. Just think how terrible the position of one outside of Jesus Christ today Because cursed is everyone that abideth not under everything written in the book of the law to do it. If you stand before God in your own doings, you are right now under the curse of God. The whole being of the infinite God is set against you. If any man believes not the Son, the wrath of God abides on him. Flee for safety unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, on the other hand, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the wrath and curse of God have nothing to do with you. Sometimes you think that they do, because you suffer. You bear afflictions. You think, God is against me. He's cursing me. No. It's hard. They're afflictions. You suffer, but it doesn't come from the curse of God. You're conformed to Christ in terms of the fact that you have to suffer, but you don't suffer under God's curse. That is completely borne away from you. You will never see it to all eternity, the curse of God. Therefore, bless God at all times, because whatever He's doing, He is doing in order to bless you. He's taken away the curse from you. Therefore, as a result, that you might have the Holy Spirit, the blessing promised unto Abraham, Therefore, expect the gift of the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. Nothing can hinder you, except unbelief, from receiving more of the Holy Spirit. Christ died even the cursed death of the cross. Well, we need the death of Christ. This is the bottom line. even the death of the cross. We need to know who it is that died. We need to know the nature of His death as obedience, and we need to know the manner of His death by the painful, shameful, cursed death of the cross. The great thing, the essential thing is looking unto Him the crucified Savior, and this, in turn, that is the fountain and the wellspring of all practical Christianity. May the Lord bless us to know these things, to prophesy.