Well, good morning. On special holidays, teachers who are doing a series like to somehow connect that holiday with whatever series you're doing. Sometimes in God's providence, it fits perfectly with what you're talking about. Sometimes you need to bend it a little bit to make it fit your topic. And sometimes you just can't make it work at all. You have to start from scratch. need a Mother's Day message or a Christmas message or a Labor Day message. I don't know. But this morning I was going to try to link the topics that I've been looking at with you for the last, oh boy, three months or so. The topic of heaven. The other night I was lying in bed awake at about one 30 in the morning because Jeremy had just gone down. I just put him down for a another stretch of a few hours before I woke up again, and thinking of passages that would link heaven and the time of Christmas, or if you like the theological term, the doctrine of the incarnation. I wanted to look at heaven from the perspective of Christmas, or vice versa, look at Christmas from the perspective of heaven. And I thought of a few different passages. Some of the Christmas passages that we're familiar with. Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1 verse 23. I think we know this verse well. Matthew is quoting Isaiah 7.14 and he says, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us. Now the passage in Isaiah 7.14 that prefigures Christ is a passage of encouragement to the nation of Judah. They were in danger of being invaded by the Assyrians and indeed the the northern kingdom of Israel was invaded by the Assyrians and taken into captivity, but God protected the southern kingdom of Judah for the sake of his servant David and his line. So that was an encouragement to them that God was with them in a particular way. And yet in Matthew, this God being with us is taken to a literal level, because God actually was with us in Christ on this earth. He wasn't just with us to look after us. He was with us in his own person, as Jesus himself was. Matthew Henry said, by the light of nature, we see God as a God above us. By the light of the law, we see him as a God against us. But by the light of the gospel, we see him as Emmanuel, God with us, in our own nature, and which is more in our interest. The name Jesus, which I think you know means Jehovah saves, requires that he first be Emmanuel, which means God with us. Jesus couldn't be the savior of us if he weren't also God himself with us. And so here in this verse, although it's not explicitly stated, we see heaven and the incarnation or Christmas linked. God himself, the eternal God, the second person of the Trinity, from the right hand of God came down from heaven to this earth as a human baby who grew and became a man in order that he might die for our sins. Let's look at another well-known Christmas passage, if you will, Luke chapter 2. We've read this a couple of times, I think, in past few weeks when we look at angels Luke 2 verses 18 to 15 or 8 to 15 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. And again, we see Christmas and heaven linked as the angels themselves bring their eternal praise of God out of the throne room of heaven to this group of lowly shepherds sitting in a field near Bethlehem. And they bring their heavenly song to earth. Another Christmas passage, which you don't hear right at Christmas time, is in the Gospel of John. It doesn't really discuss his birth in great detail like Matthew and Luke do, but we do see Christ coming to this earth in verse 14 of chapter 1, John 1 verse 14. and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." A very concise Christmas story, maybe the shortest Christmas story. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Christ took on this human form, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We see here again Christ coming to the earth, and we see this glory, the glory of heaven was brought to earth in the person of Christ, and while it was veiled for a time in his humanity, it was nonetheless visible, particularly to the Apostle John, who walked with him for those years. So we have in these incarnation stories, these Christmas stories, direct or indirect references to heaven as well. But let's look at a couple other passages that occurred to me that may not be immediately obvious. Look at Ephesians chapter 2. Sorry, Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. Let me read verses 7 to 10. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now this, he ascended, what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who ascended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things." This is not directly maybe obviously a Christmas passage, but you can see the incarnation in here. That is when Jesus took on humanity. I was interested in looking at this passage, not only because of what it says about Christ himself, but also because it can be kind of enigmatic as to what exactly Paul is talking about here. Look at verse 8. It says, He ascended on high. He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. If you have a King James or New King James, you'll see it says he led captivity captive. If you have a New American Standard, it said he led a host of captives, and the NIV said he led captives in his train. And the Greek word here is kind of an interesting one. It means someone who has been taken by the spear. That's what a captive is. You can picture in your mind somebody who's been captured by an enemy, and he's got a spear right in his back, pushing him along, saying, OK, here we go to the jail. And the term captivity, this noun, is sometimes used figuratively for prisoners of war. So while it's uncertain in a way who these captives are, it can mean one of two things. In fact, both are true in a sense of what Christ did on the cross. Some say that these captives that Christ is leading are captives that Christ himself has captured. Colossians 2.15, talking about Christ and His death and resurrection, says He's disarmed principalities and powers, and He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. These principalities and powers talk about demonic forces whom Christ conquered on the cross. And you see this public spectacle being made of them as they are prisoners of war. They would display these prisoners of war to the conquering peoples to hold them up to scorn and ridicule as prisoners. And so Jesus did that in his death and resurrection. So those might be the captives that Paul is referring to here. Another possibility is that these are captives who have been released. So these are the people of Christ who had been captive and had been released and were brought back to their city. So you can imagine a country or a city who had been in a war and they'd have prisoners taken and put into prisons. The general would go out and try to release them. When they released them, they would come back into their city with a great fanfare, like a ticker tape parade we might have today. And these prisoners of war would be greeted as heroes as they'd been released. So we know that we, as God's people, were held captive to our sins, but Christ has released us from that captivity, and so we are now part of his great procession. So we have a couple of different kinds of captives here. We have those whom Christ has captured, his enemies who he's captured, and there are also Christ's people that he has rescued from captivity and now has brought them with himself. These victorious kings and generals would hold this parade and they would often feature the prisoners of war they had captured and their own people who had been prisoners of war who would be released. that could return home in freedom. And also these kings or generals who had gotten the spoils of war would distribute them to their soldiers and to the people that they saw in their parade. And again we see that here in verse 8 in this interesting picture of what Christ has done. It says, He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. So you can picture this king handing out gifts of gold or other precious items to the people of his city or his country as he came back with the spoils of war. Christ has given gifts to us, not monetary gifts, but the gifts of the Spirit, which is the context here in Ephesians chapter 4. It's interesting that this verse that Paul quotes here is a quote from Psalm 68. And that psalm is a psalm talking about God as a conquering king. You may know the first verse, let God arise and let his enemies be scattered. And you see God coming in as a great king, as a general, as a soldier, scattering his enemies before him. But another interesting feature of this is that in Jewish thought over the years, this psalm was associated and even read at Pentecost. without any knowledge of what was to come in the future. But remember what happened in Christian history on the day of Pentecost, the first Pentecost after Christ was raised and ascended to heaven was the day that God came and actually gave these spiritual gifts to men. And so even in Jewish history, with no knowledge of what was to happen at Pentecost, and there was no There was no prophecy that God would give gifts at Pentecost. We knew that God would give gifts. He would give spiritual gifts, but not exactly the timing of it. But in this interesting historical coincidence from our perspective, the Jews had associated this Psalm 68 with Pentecost, and it was fulfilled in this way, Christ giving gifts to men on that very day. Now this term, lowest parts of the earth, in verse 9, there are different views about what that means. If you look at Psalm 63, verse 9, the term is linked with death. In Psalm 139, 15, it refers to the womb. You may be familiar with that verse that God has made us in the lower parts of the earth as a reference to his mother's womb. Isaiah 44 verse 23 talks about the lower parts of the earth in relation to the created earth, mountains, hills, trees. So we have this phrase used for death, used for the womb, and also used for the created earth itself. So some commentators link this lower parts of the earth in Ephesians 4.9 with with Christ's birth, with his appearing on the earth. Some would link it with his death, that is, he was buried in the earth for a time. Some would link it to when he actually visited Hades, the realm of evil spirits, and spoke to them, depending on how you interpret different passages. And some would connect this lower parts of the earth with his whole earthly ministry, including his birth, his death, and his resurrection. So it's interesting because you read these commentators and say, this lower parts of the earth certainly means this, or very probably means this. And they all say different things. So you've got to figure out where you're going to rest your probabilities with some of these commentators. And it's hard to say for sure. I'm leaning towards referring to the entirety of Christ becoming man, living and dying and being raised again, just as the writer of Hebrews says that he was made for a little while lower than the angels. And that little while refers to the time from the virgin conception all the way to his ascension. So Christ has ascended, verse 9, but he also descended into the lower parts of the earth. And here is the connection with the Christmas story, the incarnation, the appearance of God in a human child born on this day 2,000 years ago. note at the end of verse 10, he who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. So we see heaven at the beginning of the story when Christ descends into the lower parts of the earth and then at the end when he ascends far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And this this view of Christ seated above all the heavens at the right hand of God is literally in at least a dozen verses when I looked in the concordance last night. And I won't read all of them to you, but let me read a few passages that refer to Christ being exalted in heaven. Back even in Ephesians chapter one, verses 20 to 23. Paul here is speaking of God's mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him to behead over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Hebrews chapter 10. verses 12 and 13 but this man that is Christ after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down at the right hand of God from that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool 1st Peter 3 22 Peter speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. So again, we have a figure of Christ here as a conquering king, making these angels, authorities, and powers being subject to himself. So Christ comes out of a place of great glory, becomes a man, is for a little while lower than the angels. and after that has ascended to the right hand of God in power. Let's look at one other passage that connects the incarnation with heaven. Philippians chapter 2. By the way, I'm doing these passages at the risk of stepping on whatever Brian's going to talk about today. I know he's going to be talking from Hebrews chapter 1, but hopefully we won't copy too much. We haven't coordinated this at all, but hopefully whatever we say will reinforce each other. That means you have to pay attention both times though. Philippians chapter 2, this famous passage on the incarnation of Christ starting in verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Now at the risk of stepping too lightly over this passage, we want to look at it again from our perspective this morning, heaven linked with the incarnation, with Christmas. The context here, Paul isn't just rattling off a number of theological details, but just for the sake of a systematic theology, the context here is that he wants them to be humble as Christ is humble. And so he is showing how Christ himself is the greatest demonstration of humility that ever was. That's why he, earlier in the chapter, is talking about humility, being of the same mind in verse two, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself, verse three. And here's the example, verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Now we see humility everywhere in the Christmas story, don't we? You look at the circumstances, Of his birth, his parents were not of the nobility, although his parents on both sides, his earthly father, his adoptive father, and his birth mother were of the lineage of David. There was no king at that time from that lineage, and so they were just of a humble birth. He was born in an insignificant town. He was laid in an animal's feed trough. He wasn't put in a king's palace with great glory and honor. God, although we don't know exactly to whom God spoke on that first Christmas night, what the Bible tells us is that he gave his message to shepherds, which were about the lowest classes you could find. They weren't the high and exalted, respected ones. Yet God did make his birth known to some who recognized who he was, that is, the Magi. who were exalted and gave Christ gifts. Jesus himself grew up in Nazareth, which is a fairly despised community. Think in your mind, I won't name any places, lest I offend anybody, but think of places in your region that are sort of the lowest socioeconomic level, the place that everybody loves to make fun of, people from that place. That's the kind of place Nazareth was, the lowest, kind of region, the lowest kind of town that everybody scorned. That's where Jesus grew up. He resisted attempts to make him king. The people wanted him at least at one point to be their king, and he would not take that opportunity. Jesus himself associated with the lowly. He washed the disciples' feet. You can imagine in those days they didn't have shoes like we have. They wore sandals on the hot, dusty, unpaved roads. Very dirty, we'd call it disgusting kind of work. And yet Jesus himself put himself in the place of the lowliest slave to wash the disciples' feet. on the night in which he was betrayed. You might think Jesus said, you know what, this is the last night before I die. Can't I just get a little bit of exaltation here? Can't you throw me a party? Can't you just celebrate me for a while? But no, he took off his robe and washed the disciples' feet in great humility, even in this time when You would think on a human level, of all times, he could expect a little love from the disciples. He's showing love to them instead. And finally, Jesus submitted to death, although he was innocent of anything that was worthy of capital punishment. Let me read you a quote from C.S. Lewis in his book on miracles. He was a writer and a philosopher. He looks at the idea of miracles from a philosophical perspective. He was an agnostic for much of his life and gradually became convinced that the Christian story was true and that Christ himself was God. He talks about that miracle. In fact, he calls it the grand miracle. He says in his book called Miracles, the central miracle asserted by Christians is the incarnation. they say that God became man. Every other miracle prepares for this or exhibits this or results from this. Let me go on here. And he says, in the Christian story, God descends to re-ascend. And this echoes what we saw in Ephesians 4. He comes down, down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity, down to the very roots and seabed of the nature he has created. But he goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great, complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift. He must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders. Or one may think of a diver. first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in midair, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay, then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing that he went down to recover. He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light, Down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, he lost his color too. In this descent and reassent, everyone will recognize a familiar pattern, a thing written all over the world. It is the pattern of all vegetable life. It must belittle itself into something hard, small, and death-like. It must fall into the ground, thence the new life reascends. It is the pattern of all animal generation, too. There is descent from the full and perfect organisms into the spermatozoan and ovum, then the slow ascent to the perfect embryo, to the living conscious baby, and finally to the adult. So it is also in our moral and emotional life. The first innocent and spontaneous desires have to submit to the death-like process of control or total denial, but from that there is a reassent to fully formed character in which the strength of the original material all operates but in a new way. Death and rebirth, down to go up, it is a key principle. Through this bottleneck, this belittlement, the high road nearly always lies. The doctrine of the Incarnation, if accepted, puts this principle even more emphatically at the center. The pattern there is there in nature because it was there first in God. All the instances of it which I have mentioned turn out to be but transpositions of the divine theme into a minor key. I am not now referring simply to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The total pattern of which they are only the turning point is the real death and rebirth. For certainly no seed ever fell from so fair a tree into so dark and cold a soil as would furnish more than a faint analogy to this huge descent and re-ascension in which God dredged the salt and oozy bottom of creation. just a picture of what God did when he came to this earth. We tend to think of it, perhaps, as just no big deal. We do Christmas every year and get caught up in a lot of the other things surrounding Christmas and forget from what an exalted place Christ came to this sinful world, this, in C.S. Lewis's words, a slimy, oozing sort of world that you would certainly not you certainly wouldn't blame Christ if he chose not to do that, and yet he did it for our sakes. Let me briefly look at five ways in which Jesus emptied himself. We see here in verse seven of Philippians 2, in my translation it says that Jesus made himself of no reputation. That Greek word is literally a word that means to empty himself, and I think probably the New American Standard says that. There are five ways that John MacArthur says that Christ emptied himself. And yet, in doing this emptying, he never became anything less than God. First of all, he temporarily divested himself of his divine glory. That is, the glory that Christ had with God before the world was, was veiled for a time. People in the time of Christ, when he was on this earth, didn't see him walking around with a halo, like you see in a lot of pictures. In fact, I saw a picture recently, and we have one in our house, of baby Jesus is in his manger, and he's got a little halo around his head, just so you know exactly who he is. But there was no unearthly glow about that little child. Anybody seeing him without knowing the story would think he was just a regular baby. Secondly, Jesus emptied himself of independent divine authority. He had submitted himself to the will of the Father. Jesus said he didn't do anything of his own accord, but only what the Father told him to do. He also emptied himself of the voluntary exercise of some of his divine attributes. In his humanity, he was not everywhere present, although there are times when you get a glimpse of that. He didn't know everything, as he did in his deity. There are times people ask him questions and he didn't know the answer. He was veiled from that for a time. Christ also emptied himself of his eternal riches. 2 Corinthians 8-9 says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. Now, this is not saying that Jesus was materially poor, although he was at certain points in his life, perhaps. But he became spiritually poor in the way that he went from heaven with all the glories and riches of heaven. He came to this earth as a man. That is quite a change in position. You think of the richest man in the world becoming a penniless, a beggar. That's the sort of idea you see of when Christ comes to this earth from the glories of heaven to this lowly earth. And then finally, Jesus emptied himself temporarily of his unique, intimate, and face-to-face relationship with his Heavenly Father. And that was especially true on the cross when God the Father turned his back on his Son for a moment in time as the wrath of God poured upon him to take away the sins of the world. So in these ways, Jesus Christ emptied himself, came from heaven to this earth, and suffered these things at the hands of wicked sinners. And yet that's, of course, not the end of the story. We know that therefore, verse 9 of Philippians 2, God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Well, let's apply this very quickly because I know we're running late. First of all, this should be an encouragement to us to be humble. As Paul says in Philippians 2, Christ himself humbled himself. How can we do any less than that? A common theme in scripture is that you are humbled before you are exalted. If you exalt yourself, you will be humbled by God. Proverbs 29.23, a man's pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor. James 4.10, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you. And then Matthew 23.12 from Jesus' own lips, whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. And besides responding in humility, we also must respond in thanksgiving. Of course, 2 Corinthians 9.15, Paul says, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. That is the gift that we hope truly celebrate at Christmastime. The gift in that context is grace and salvation, but ultimately that gift is Christ himself. Paul says in Romans 8.32, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Christ is the fountain from which all of our heavenly blessings flow. Without Christ, there's no grace, there's no forgiveness, there's none of the gifts that we have. But with Christ, we have everything that God can grant to us. Well, we're over time, so let's pray. Father, we thank you for this Christmas story. We wouldn't want to be like the world in forgetting who is at the center of this wonderful, beautiful incarnation, to use a theological term, but to use the term that means so much to us, Emmanuel, God with us. Thank you that Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became this Jesus, became an embryo, grew into a little baby, was born that day so many years ago, became a little boy, grew to become a man, and eventually died on a cross for our sins. It was raised and now sits at your right hand. We thank you for that, for that truth that he did not regard equality with God, something to be held on to, but he gave that up for a time for our sakes. Thank you for that great gift, for that great grace. Give us humble hearts and give us thankful hearts this morning as we contemplate these things further in Jesus name. Amen.