Untitled Sermon

It's the book of Philippians chapter 2. If you don't have a Bible, there should be one in your pew.

Oh, okay, Connie's mom is in room 209 up in the hospital. Pat Jordan, if anybody knows her and would like to see her, go up and pray with her. It would be a blessing. Philippians chapter 2. You don't have a Bible, as I started to say. There should be one in your pew, and you're welcome to it. You're welcome to take it with you. If you don't have your own Bible, it's yours, please.

I'm going to read the first 11 verses again. This is where we are in our study in Philippians. So follow along, if you would, as I read. If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose, and do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

But in humility, consider others better than yourself. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.

And therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Amen. Remember our theme for studying the book of Philippians is learning to rejoice in the Lord. It's the message that Paul is really trying to teach us as we read through Philippians.

In chapter 1, we've seen that we are to learn to rejoice in the opportunities that God gives us to serve Christ. And I won't go into all of that this morning. But we come into chapter 2, and the theme of chapter 2 is rejoicing through having the mind of Christ. Rejoicing through having the mind of Christ. And last week we looked at the first four verses in chapter 2

and mentioned... What I mentioned this morning before we came to the Lord's table concerning doing the right things with the right motives. Having the right motives so that the actions that we do are correct and our attitudes then will be right. Because if we can do the right thing, you can come to church. You can come to fellowship and sit here and not want to be here.

And it profits you nothing. You don't get points in heaven for Sunday school attendance. It doesn't make any difference. You can do the right thing for the wrong motive, for the wrong reason, and it becomes ritual. Which finally develops into idolatry. And so we've got a lot of idolatrous Christians or those who claim to be Christian who are doing the right things,

a lot of the right actions, but with the wrong motives and the wrong attitudes. And it's profitless. It profits nothing. And so we saw in the first four verses the right motives. Verse 1, and this is all in the emphatic. In the Greek, he's not asking a question with the idea of is this true or is it not? He's emphasizing it as a question. And so you could actually read it

since you have encouragement from being united with Christ. And since you have comfort in his love, and since you have fellowship with the Spirit, and since you have tenderness and compassion, since you have those things in Christ, and we developed these last week, then you have the right motives. Those are the motives for whatever you do now in your Christian walk. Your actions are then found in verse 2.

He says, therefore, be like-minded. And we talked last week about that means minding the one thing or having the one purpose at heart. If all of these things are true in verse 1, then the actions, the actions that flow out of us as a result should be verse 2. That we're minding the same thing, that we have this one thing in mind, and that is that we have the same love or this continuous love that flows from God through us to one another.

If we're really born again, if we really understand and know the encouragement of Christ, the fellowship with his Spirit, the comfort of, or fellowship of his love, the comfort of his Spirit, and the tenderness and mercies of Christ, if we really know those things, then we will have the same focus, the same mind about us. Now, coming to Kansas, I learned a phrase that I hadn't heard a lot in Colorado. Now I hear it all over. But that's, somebody says, well, if you had a mind to do it, you'd get it done.

Or somebody else will say, well, if you had half a mind, or if I had half a mind, I'm thinking, well, what's the matter with you? You only have half a mind. You don't even have half a mind. You're not even half wet. But what it means is if my focus were such, if I had a mind to do something, if I had to focus, I'd do this. If I focused on this, I could accomplish it.

And that's what this is talking about. Be minding the same thing. Have this same focus that this love continue to flow among us. And the rest of these just flow out of that. Being one in spirit. As this love flows, we are one in spirit. Literally single soul. In other words, no ulterior motives. I am not going to minister to you to seek to get something from you.

I am not loving you with hoping you're going to do the same for me. I'm just doing this because that's, because of my motives. Because I have encouragement in being united with Christ. I know the comfort of his love. I know the fellowship of his spirit. I know the tenderness and mercies that he's given me. So I can love you and not expect anything in return.

Single soul purpose. Just to love because that's what he wants me to do. And then again, it says being one in purpose. That's the same as the first in verse two. Just having the same mind. Minding the one thing. And that produces the proper attitudes. Verses three and four. Verse three, that we begin to see the importance of others. We begin to see the importance of others.

Christianity is not memorizing Bible verses, singing hymns and songs, Sunday school attendance, home fellowship attendance, bake sales, ice cream socials. That is not Christianity. If you love me, Jesus said, you will keep my command. A new command I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you. That's Christianity. That's what Christianity is all about.

Being others centered, being focused on ministering to one another, seeking to build each other up in the faith. That's what Christianity is all about. And so the right actions then foster the right attitudes, which verse three is seeing the importance of others. That we do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. That we, again, don't do anything for our own gain.

And I told first services, and I'll emphasize it again. This does not come naturally. You and I will read this today and think that's right. That's what needs to happen. It will not come naturally. It is a struggle. Because we, we fight our flesh, which doesn't want to do anything unless it benefits us. Can you give so-and-so a ride? Well, I don't know. What's it going to cost me?

How much out of my way do I have to go? Do I get some compensation for it? And you and I really, we don't do much of anything unless it profits us something. We do very little sacrificially. In other words, where it costs us something to do it because our human nature is self-centered, self-interested and wants to profit itself. So it does not see others as more important than ourselves unless it benefits us.

And yet we're to see others as more important than ourselves. To do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. But in humility, it says consider others better than yourselves. Again, that's not natural. And we'll see that as we get into it. It's a struggle. You and I measure out daily value in others and we'll do things based on how we perceive value in others.

And that's wrong. And it's a struggle. And so just affirming that these verses are right and correct does absolutely nothing for us unless we seek to yield ourselves to Christ and do them, be obedient to his commands. Secondly, verse four, we're to show interest in others. Not only is the right attitude seeing the importance of others, but verse four, show interest in others.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Seeing not only just what they're interested in, but seeking to build them up, seeking to be there to encourage and to minister where you find the need as you are seeing the interests of others. That's the right attitude. Now, he goes on to say, verse five, your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.

Or if you're reading King James, it says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. This is a command. It's not a suggestion. It's an imperative. It's a command. Do this. This mind must be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That's why we've titled this section, having the mind of Christ, rejoicing by having the mind of Christ. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.

He's not starting something new here. So don't get lost in that. He's continuing on with the same thought. We have to do the right things with the right motives and the right attitudes, which is always others centered, to bless others, to build them up in their faith, to help them see Jesus and to grow in Jesus and to be grounded in his word more and more and more, to be interested in others, to not do anything selfishly or with a vain conceit, for a vain emptiness.

It's going to benefit me, but always showing interest in others. That's what we're to do. Then he goes into verse five, showing us the example. And the example is Christ and what Jesus has already done for us. Now, this is where it gets heavier because he tells us to have the same mind. Let this mind to be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And you go, how can I do that?

I mean, he's God, you know, how do I have this thing? Well, the phrase literally is the same as back up in verse two, which is minding the one thing. Be like minded with Christ. Mind the same thing. Put your mind to, if I had a mind to, okay, well, this is your mind to, this is your focus. Let your focus, your mindset, your attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus, verse six,

who being in very nature, God. Now you got to hang on to verses three and four to understand the rest of this. So we're dragging verses three and four along. Actually, we're dragging verses 27 through 30 out of chapter one along with us, but we'll get to that in a minute. Just drag verses three and four along here, okay? To be interested in others and to be seeing the importance of others

because that's where we're coming from. Verse six, who being in very nature, God. Now follow me and I'll tie all this together in a minute. The word nature, there is a word morphe in the Greek, which means essence or nature or substance. The word being, who being in very nature, the word being means to exist. It literally means always existing and still existing

in that form at the present moment. That's what it means in the Greek. So let me translate this in a way that we could literally translate it from the Greek. Jesus exists. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who exists, has always existed, and will continue to exist in the very form, nature, and essence of God. In other words, he is God.

He's not a created being. He's not a created being who is a God. He is God. His morphe, his very essence is God, the same as God the Father, in essence and character and nature. And he's always been that way, and he continues to exist that way right now, and he will always continue to exist that way. Those are the tenses in the Greek. And our attitude is to be the same as his.

Now, why is he talking like this? I'll get to that in the middle part of verse six. Who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Stop there. He was equal to God in his very essence and his form and his character and his nature. He is God. Equal there, the word equal comes from the root word isos, which means the same in substance, size, the same in number, or the same in quality.

It's, again, emphasizing the fact of his equality with God. He's not lesser than. In the beginning was the Word, John said in John 1, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. There's no definite article in the Greek. The Word was and is and continues to be God. And the Word became flesh, John 1, 14, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father,

full of grace and truth. He's equal. Again, he's emphasizing this, and he says, but that he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. The word grasped there in the Greek means to seize or to carry off by force. It's a word that's used of robbers. If somebody breaks in to steal something, that's the word that's used. They grabbed it by force and they yanked it away.

It's used of robbers and thieves, those who came to kill and to steal and to destroy, who Jesus described as Satan, your enemy, the devil. Does not come in through the gate, but seeks to climb over the wall. He comes to kill and to steal. And to destroy. Lucifer was in the presence of God as the anointed cherub that covers, the Bible tells us. He was there in front of the glory of God

and not so much as a protection, as some kind of an agent, I believe, of its distribution. How can you protect God? Who could protect God? You can't build a building to put him in. David found that out. Solomon found that out. You can't, who am I, build this magnificent structure and God says, hey, the heavens, my throne, the earth is my footstool, and you build a house for me to live in?

How can an angel protect the glory of God? It wasn't so much I think that he protected it as he dispensed it. His body, remember, we've gone through that before in our study of angels and all, we went through Revelation, was filled with timbrels and all, like musical instruments. And the glory of God must have come through him somehow and dispensed itself to encourage the worship and praise of the angelic realm.

He was there in the midst of that glory and somehow being there like that, he thought, I will ascend to the throne of the most high. I will become like God. And so Lucifer, sought to grasp that, sought to steal it away, sought to somehow usurp God, to move him out of heaven and to take his throne. Now that was just his thinking, saying that, and God, of course, booted him out of heaven.

But Satan wanted to grasp it. Jesus is that. Jesus is all of that. He is all of the essence and the nature and the glory of God. And he did not seek to hang on to that. Now, why in the world is Paul bringing all this up right now? Why is Paul using this as an example of how we are to consider others as more important than ourselves? How we are to be more interested in others' interests

rather than our own? Why is he saying all this right now? Let me try and identify that. What's the number one reason, if you're honest with yourself, what's the number one reason you had for not coming to Christ until you did? What's the number one thing in your own mind, if you're honest with yourself, as you look back at the time before you accepted Christ,

and maybe you're here this morning and you haven't accepted Christ, and I'll tell you the one reason why, you're hesitant. But if you're honest with yourself and you think back about the time before you came to Christ, or if you're here and you haven't accepted Christ yet, you're just kind of here with somebody. The one reason that's holding you back from accepting Christ is what you perceive you have to give up before you... Before I came to Christ, I was thinking about all the things I have to give up on all my friends, because all my friends don't know Him, you know, and they all party, and I don't want to lose all my friends, or, you know, you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or whatever, and you hang around with this group,

and, well, I've got to give up my smoking or my drinking or my chewing. All these things would go through the list of everything you think, and you think you've got to give up, and you finally come to the point where someday something's happened, and there's been some illness or some accident, and you're brought to your knees, and you go, okay, Lord, I'm yours, you know, come into my life, save me. I believe Jesus died on the cross for me, and I lay my life at your feet. And you come to that point, and you give your life to Christ, or really you're asking Him to come into yours and cleanse you based on the shed blood of His Son, and He comes in, and then you begin to grow, but you're having problems in your growth and in your walk,

and what's the number one reason that you have problems with your spiritual growth? It's the same reason you had the problems before you came to Christ. You came to a point where you were willing to give up X to ask Him into your heart, but now, you know, leave this stuff alone. You're in there, you're there, that's fine, and I'll follow you, but don't ask me to tell people about Jesus, you know?

Don't ask me to give up Friday nights with the guys. Don't ask me to give up my family or this house that I've taken so long to save up for and finally build. Don't ask me to give up that. Don't ask me to go over to Africa. Don't ask, you know, it's something that we perceive has value, and we don't want to give it up. Okay, let's go back to the text. Jesus, the very essence and nature and quality of God,

always existed in that form, didn't see it as something to hang onto, but when the Father said, we gotta redeem Him, Jesus said, whatever's necessary, see? Whatever's necessary, and humility, considering others more important, and He's the God. The universe, considering others more important than Himself. Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ. You see, whatever it is you think is important

doesn't amount to a hill of beans as to what He had to give up. What did He have, what did He have to give up? Absolutely everything for you and me. Whatever's necessary, whatever's necessary, so that in humility, I can consider others as better than myself. And so, in these next few verses, verses six through eight, it's all we're gonna cover today, we'll see seven steps down, actually,

that Jesus came down in His humiliation. But one thing we'll see then in verses nine through 11 are seven steps back up in His exaltation. And there's one thing I wanna encourage you with this morning. Whether you are a believer sitting here and you're having struggles in your walk, or whether you're somebody who's sitting here and you're doing the right thing for the wrong motive, and you're just here, but you've never surrendered your heart to Jesus Christ, let me tell you this morning, you will never, ever, ever give up anything for Him that He will not give you back in more, ever.

You cannot give up enough that He will not give you back in more, ever. You cannot give up enough that He will not give back in more, ever. So we'll see the seven steps here to Jesus' humiliation in these verses. Seven steps down, verses six through eight, because this is the mind that we're to have. We're to mind the same thing. First downward step that Jesus took is that,

look at verse six. Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. So He's given it all up. He was laying it aside. His first downward step was He left heaven's glory. He left heaven's glory. He was He was God. He didn't have to strive for that position, you know? He didn't have to contend for that. You got heavyweight champions down here,

and every so often they gotta contend, you know, for that. Gotta have some contenders here, you know? Gotta fight for the title, gotta keep the belt and all that stuff. So we'll get some challengers during the year, and I gotta fight my three fights during the year and get my $50 million and I'm okay. He didn't have to contend for it. It wasn't anything that was challenged now.

Wasn't anything that He had to fight for. He was God. He was the radiant glory of God. You read in the Old Testament about this. The Shekinah glory of God in the glory filled the temple. You read in Revelation about the glory of the throne. Around the throne, we see the throne room in chapter four of Revelation. He is that. All of that radiant glory of God.

That's the Son Himself. And He left that. And one of the things I want you to see is that He didn't leave reluctantly. He didn't leave reluctantly. It wasn't the Father and the Son. God the Father saying, well, you're gonna have to go down there and do it. And Jesus going, oh, all right. I guess if I have to do that, I'll go down there and do it, you know. He didn't do that reluctantly.

It was a willing sacrifice. How could He do that? How could He do that? It's because of the love of the Father. I mean, Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are all one. The triunity of God. I don't wanna get into that real deep today. But Jesus was able to surrender Himself and be obedient in this to step out and down to leave heaven's glory because He trusted the Father's love for Him.

He trusted the Father. And when you and I don't, when we're holding on to something that we don't wanna give up, when God says this is what I wanna do and you go, no, what we're literally saying is, I don't think you love me enough. I really don't trust in your love. You see, there's been those times that I've laid my heart out there and it's been smashed before and I don't wanna do that again.

So I'm not gonna do that right now. And we're really saying, I don't think you love me enough or I'm really not sure if you really love me or you just want me to get out there and squash me like an ant. Jesus' first downward step, He knew the Father's love so He was able to leave heaven's glory because He wanted what the Father wanted. He wanted to accomplish what the Father wanted to accomplish.

His second downward step, verse seven. Let me read verse six into that. Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, verse seven, but made Himself nothing. Let's stop right there. His second step down, He made Himself nothing. Eskenoson in the Greek. Literally, it's from the root word keno which literally means He emptied Himself.

And if you're reading one of the translations, it'll say that. He emptied Himself. He made Himself nothing. From the word keno, it's where we get what's called in theology, the kenosis theory. The kenosis theory. The emptying of Christ and it's a theory that debates, well, of what did Jesus empty Himself? What did Jesus literally empty out of Himself to make this downward step?

Now, we've talked about the Gnostics before. The Gnostics are simply a group of people that were identified from the Greek word genosis or gnosis and they were, which means knowledge. And they were this little group of individuals who favored knowledge, who emphasized knowledge and you couldn't know anything unless you were part of this group, unless you were part of this clique. And so the Gnostics had this heresy that they developed around the first century that said the kenosis, the emptying of Christ, literally meant that He emptied Himself of His deity, that He laid His total deity aside.

And so when He came to the earth, He came to the earth as just a total human being. And then when He was baptized, the Christ came upon Him and then He died on the cross, He surrendered the Christ-ness, back up to the Father and died simply as a human being so that He lived and died as solely and totally a human being. And the Christ-ness then becomes some essence, some authority or some power or something that can be transmitted to others. And so down through history, you have various cults that have developed as a result of that kind of theory and wanting to tap into the Christ-ness or the Christ consciousness, the Sun, Moon, Young Moon and the Moonies.

Moon said and stated and believed that He was the Christ because he believed that the Christ had come upon Him for this day and age and others as well. The idea, the concept of being little gods or the Christ-ness in you, this force that you tie into is not new age and the idea that it's new, it's back from Gnostic heresy back in the first century, that you tap into this force, this Christ-ness, but it has no biblical substantiation. There's no way to substantiate that from scripture. You can flip over to Colossians chapter two, just in the next book over in chapter two.

And Colossians chapter two, verse nine says that in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Christ, in His flesh and body was the fullness of the Godhead. So when Jesus was here, He was 100% human, absolutely. But He was 100% God. You see, if I take part of me out, I'm only 50% and I'll say, and that's the concept some people identify Jesus as, but not the scriptures.

The scriptures say, in Him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He was fully God and fully man. It's a union that theologians call the hypostatic union. It's something that's hard to explain. How can you be 100% and 100% and not be 200%? Jesus was 100% man, fully capable of experiencing our feelings and our thoughts and our pressures and our trials and our anxious moments and our joys.

He understood those. Because He was fully human. And yet at the same time, He was fully God. He did not lay aside His deity when He stepped out of heaven. He was fully God even in the womb. Now that's a thought. When He was in Mary's womb, He was fully God. And John the Baptist who was in Elizabeth's womb knew that. And when he heard in Elizabeth's womb Mary's voice,

he jumped inside of Elizabeth because he knew that here he was in the presence of God Almighty in Mary's womb. At any point in Mary's womb, He could have burped us out of existence. He is fully God. No, He emptied Himself. I believe, if you look at the Scriptures, the closest we can get to this is He emptied Himself of His glory. You see, He was the radiant glory, the full expression of God.

He's the Word. And in that was the full radiance of the glory of God. And somehow He laid aside His glory, still maintaining His deity, but He laid aside His glory. McGee and some of the other theologians say that He also laid aside the prerogatives of His deity. He laid aside the prerogatives of His deity. In other words, He limited Himself. He limited Himself.

They say, well, He did miracles and all of this stuff. He said, everything I do is only what I see my Father do. The things I speak are only what I hear my Father saying. He limited Himself to be obedient to the Father, and God worked through Him. God the Father worked through Him. Yeah, people have a tough one with Matthew 24, Matthew 25, and the Olivet Discourse,

and Jesus coming again, and He's telling the disciples, nobody knows the day or the hour of my coming, not the angels, not even the Son of Man. He's saying, I don't even know. And people say, well, see, He's not God. No, He's God. But in His, He's God. In His humanness, He limited Himself to not allowing that part of His Godhood overshadow the requirements of His humanity at that time.

Did He know it? Did He, I mean, He was God, absolutely. But He limited Himself. That's a part of His glorified state. When He comes again, He set that aside. When He came, I can't understand. I can't explain it all. All I know is in John 17, 5, when Jesus is praying His high priestly prayer, and He's praying for us that we might be one as He is one, that we might be in Him as He is in the Father,

and the Father is in Him and all. One of the first things He prays in John 17, 5 is, Father, restore unto me the glory that I had with You. He doesn't say, restore unto me the deity. You know, give me back Godhood. He says, restore unto me the glory. When He's on the Mount of Transfiguration, we call it the Mount of Transfiguration, they went up on the mountain and He was transfigured

before Peter, James, and John. How was He transfigured? It says, His raiment became white and shone like the sun. His glory was revealed. At that particular point, the glory came out. And He allowed that to come out. At that particular time, Peter, James, and John just went, wow, in the presence of the glory of God. He limited that. He laid that aside while He was here.

And so He empties Himself. Now, how does He do that? I have no idea. I just know that He did it. That's what it says. He didn't hang onto it. He emptied Himself. It was okay for Him to let go of that. Let me ask you this morning, what is it that's limiting you from experiencing the fullness of all that God has for you? What is it this morning that has you bound,

that's keeping you from saying yes to Jesus and either accepting Him or in growing with Him and going on to the next step? Because for whatever's necessary, that in humility He might consider us as more worthy than Himself, He laid that aside. He emptied Himself to come here. And that's the mind we're to have with one another. Well, He not only emptied Himself,

His third downward step in the middle of verse seven is, it says that He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. He took the form of a servant, His third downward step. He took the form of a servant. That word form is a word that means the same word morphe as we saw back up earlier, that He was in very nature. Verse six, He was in very nature, God.

He took the very nature of a servant, the word morphe. Again, it's in essence and in nature and in quality and in character. He didn't just look like a servant. It wasn't just the king coming, you know, the story of the two guys, the two boys that look alike. One's a king and one's a pauper. And they come in and they trade places and just put on different clothes.

And the king goes outside to experience what it's really like out in the village as a pauper. Only he was really fully the king. He couldn't be a pauper because he wasn't able to experience the real feelings of a pauper because he was just simply a king. Jesus didn't just come down and go through some actions. He became in very essence, again, in very nature, morphe.

He became a servant. So He knows what it's like. He feels what it's like. It's interesting, as you go through the Old Testament, you come across a passage in Isaiah chapter 11, verse 10. Don't turn to it right now, just write it down and turn to it later. But in Isaiah chapter 11, verse 10, Isaiah identifies the Messiah, who's coming, as being, the Messiah will come as,

oh, I can't remember now. He shall be in the line of Jesse after he will be established from the root of Jesse. The Messiah will be established from the root of Jesse. Now, who's Jesse? Well, Jesse was David's father. Well, I mean, if you're gonna make an impact and drop names, let's just say he's from the root of David, okay? David was a king. Messiah's gonna eventually assume David's throne,

which he'll sit on and reign forever from, according to the scriptures. So let's just, why not say he's from the root of David? But he says he's from the root of Jesse. Well, what was Jesse? Jesse was the least of all in his tribe. And he was a farmer and he was a peasant. And Jesus wanted to identify himself with the servants, with the lowest part of creation.

And so even in the prophecies concerning Messiah, He made sure that one of them said that he would be in the line of the root of Jesse, a servant, a peasant. Fourth downward step, moving quickly. Middle or towards the end of verse seven. Made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Fourth downward step, not only was he made in the form

or the nature or the essence of a servant, but in human likeness. He was made in the form of human likeness. That's a step down. Now I can, I like human likeness. I are one, you know? I can identify with human likeness. I like that. But let's say that God said to me, Okay, Mark, I want you to take a message to the slugs. You know what a slug is? Those things you get up in the morning

and you walk outside and there's those little slime trails across your porch or across your sidewalk walls. Or maybe you go out to get the paper, you know, barefooted and you're not really awake yet and you go, oh my. Those little slugs. Now, if God were to say, I want you to get a message to the slugs and I want you to make yourself in the form of a slug. Well, that's the idea.

The God of the universe, the glory and radiant glory of God in human likeness. I mean, He, the Creator is now making Himself His creation. This is where He steps out of eternity and into His finite existence. He comes into the form of human likeness and not only part of His creation, but a fallen creation. A creation that's given itself over to sin. It's the slugs of creation that Jesus became like.

It was a step down in His humility. Now, how do I relate to that? You and I, in our own spheres of existence, have our slugs and you know who they are. You and I feel free to associate with this group of people, but these people over here that we're around, whether it's at work or whether it's at school or whether it's in church, are the slugs, you know? I mean, I'll say hi to them,

but I don't want to say more than hi to them. Well, guess what? We're to have the same mind as Christ, who didn't think being equal with God was anything to grasp, but made Himself nothing and took on the form of a servant and was found in human likeness. God's sending you and me to the slugs. There's no more divisions. There's no more walls of partition. There's no more, us's are better.

There's no more them's. There's no Gnostics. I mean, there's the Gnosticism that's around, but there's no better group than another. God's sending us to the slugs in our spheres of existence and saying, consider them more important than yourself. Be interested in them. Love them with the love that I've loved you with because you're already established. You're already established in unity with Christ.

You already are comforted by His love. You already know the fellowship of His Spirit. You already know His tenderness and mercies. They don't, so love them just like He loved you when He took on the form of human likeness. Fifth downward step in His humiliation is in verse eight. And being found in appearance as a man, it says He humbled Himself. His fifth downward step was that He humbled Himself.

Now, have you ever been in a humiliating circumstance? If I give you a minute, you could probably come up with one. I said something first service and I said, has this ever happened to you? And somebody said, no. And I said, well, bless you, my son, it will. You know those circumstances. You know, when you first were dating, those of you that are married, when you first come into a dating relationship

and you go to meet the parents, you know, you want to put on the best. You want to look the best. You want to come in and not trip over anything. You just want to look the best. And you sit down at the table and you want to have your manners and you're looking down going out in, out in. Bork's out here, this is salad. This is, you know, whatever, pork from the outside in.

And they serve you spaghetti and you go, how do I eat spaghetti nicely? You know, and so you're trying and you stick it in your mouth and a part of it drops out on you and you reach down to get it and you hit the plate and you dump the whole thing in your lap, you know. That's a humiliating circumstance. And that's when I asked first service, I said, anybody ever been in one of those situations and one guy was bold enough to say, nope.

And I said, well, you will be. Now, those are things that happen to us that can humiliate us. But if they were on, you know, if this was a list, you probably wouldn't pick that humiliating experience. Jesus did. Jesus didn't have a humiliating experience happen to him. He humbled himself. He chose the experience. He chose to be humble, to limit himself, to become a slug.

J. Vernon McGee in his commentary says, quote, what is the one thing that can characterize the mind of Christ? Humility. You and I cannot be humble. We cannot be meek. Our human nature is not that way. None of us wants to be offended. None of us wants to be ignored or dishonored. But he chose that. I mean, my efforts during the day are to try not to do something stupid or humiliating.

Jesus chose to be humiliated for our sakes. That's his fifth step down. We're to have the same mind in us. We're to have the same mind that says, Lord, even if I have to be humiliated, I want to humble myself before you, Lord. Use me. If you want to humiliate me in this situation, use me. I want to be that. And when you, listen, when Peter says, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord

and he will lift you up, it implies that if you don't, under the mighty hand of God, that he will. Now, if and when he does, use that circumstance. Go back to chapter 1. Use that circumstance as an opportunity to serve him and rejoice in that opportunity. Because chances are, God has done that in your life, not only to humble you and bring you down, but to give you an opportunity to share with somebody else,

to give you an opportunity to react as a Christian and not as a heathen, to rejoice in the Lord in the midst of that humiliating circumstance. The sixth downward step is in the middle of verse 8. Not only did he humble himself, it says, and he became obedient unto death. His sixth downward step towards humiliation was he became obedient unto death. The word obedient there is from the Greek word

meaning to hear or to listen. It's coupled with a preposition under. It means literally to listen under. And it has the idea of one who is listening and following from the authority of another. Jesus said, again, the things that I do are only things that I see my Father in heaven doing. The things that I'm speaking are only things that the Father speaks, that I hear the Father speaks.

And so here he became obedient, not only to leave his robes in glory, not only to become a servant, not only to become a slug in human form, but to be humiliated and to choose it and to be obedient even unto death. There were a funeral and people are standing there and they're looking at the casket, and then the casket and they go, doesn't he look natural? I hope not. I hope they didn't look that way when they were alive, you know, because they're dead.

And that's not a natural state. God didn't create us initially to die. We chose to sin and its consequence was death. So death was not the natural created state that God intended for us. Death is not natural. It's the result of sin. Nobody chooses literally to die. Wanting to die is not natural. We have the desire to live. But Jesus gave himself up willingly.

He became obedient. He listened under to the point of even death. And God said, the cross. And Jesus said, yes, Father, I have to die. If the Lord doesn't come back at the rapture soon while I'm still living, I'm gonna have to die. And I don't want to. Jesus didn't have to die, but he wanted to for you and me. It's a step down in his humiliation. He asks us simply to live for him, to die to self.

Very few of us will have to die a martyr's death. Unless things really come down fast here. And we get nuked or we get, you know, the whole system flips over before the Lord comes back and we're gonna be sent to concentration camps and all that stuff that, you know, we hear on one side, who knows? I don't know. But very few of us will probably have to die a martyr's death like that.

But he asks us to die to self. He asks us to live for him, seeing others as being more important. And here's the extreme example of Christ who was obedient even unto death. And he says to you, go love that slug over there in your sphere of existence. And he wants you to simply live for him. Simply say, yes, Father, and go. Same mind as Christ. Seventh, the final downward step is at the end of verse eight.

Being found in appearances of man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Now, not only death, not only was he obedient unto death, but he was obedient unto the death of the cross. The basest, most pitiful, most torturous, most abhorred form of death known to man. It was illegal for Roman citizens to be crucified. That's why Paul,

the apostle, was beheaded. It was unlawful for him to be hung on a cross because he was a Roman citizen. Beheading was much more humane. It was swift, but the crucifixion, if you've not ever read the medical account of the crucifixion, you need to find one and read what happened to Jesus physically when he was whipped and his flesh was torn and his muscles were severed in his sides and in his back from the whipping.

And he literally almost bled to death on the way to the cross. And then he was nailed to the cross and the nails pierced right below the wrist, right in below the hand. And they severed the tendons in the wrist. And so his hands would have drawn up and the pain would have shot through his upper half of his body. He could not have even have gripped anything because his hands would become then just distorted

and he couldn't even move his fingers. And they would put the nails through the same type of area in his feet and they would twist the feet so that it would be painful for him to be down on him. But he'd have to push up on him to get a breath of air because his lungs would be collapsing down on his diaphragm and he'd have to push up to get air. And he did that for hours.

Hours while he hung on that cross for you and me. Even the death of the cross. Now you see, you can picture Christ, you know, our idea is dying in a hospital room, looking out on the sunset, you know, beautiful. Doctors around, nice sterile environment, white, germs away. And we just, people down there smell a fragrance of flowers around us, you know, and we just kind of drift off into that death-like state.

Now Jesus, humiliated, naked, you know, you see, you can't literally show the pictures of him as he was, but he was naked, stripped bare. He didn't have a little cloth hanging over him. He was naked during the midst of all of that and they taunted him, they threw insults at him and they spit on him in the midst of that. And he's God, you know. Somebody kind of walks by and brushes you

and you're ready to, yeah, come here. This is God and somebody's spitting on you and you know you could go, you know. But he submitted himself even under the death of the cross because that's what was necessary. Verses 27 through 30, chapter one. Whatever's necessary, Lord. Whatever's necessary, do it, okay? I want you to, in humility, consider others. Do it better than yourself.

I want you to not look under your own needs, but look under the needs of others. And this is how you do it because this is how Jesus did it. Let's stand together. Now maybe there are those of you here who have never asked Jesus into your heart and you're going through the right actions but with the wrong motives. You're here today, but you've never surrendered your heart

to Jesus Christ. Well, now's an opportunity for you to do that. There's no big aisle to walk or no specific prayer that you pray. You just go, Lord, Jesus, yes, me, no. I believe what you say in your word. I want you to come into my life. Forgive me of my sins based upon the shed blood of your Son on the cross. Save me, Lord, from my sin. And he'll do that.

Or maybe in your Christian walk, you've come to that point of not growing and just as we've shared this morning, the Lord's brought something to your heart that you don't want to give up. You don't want to give up because maybe he'll have you do something horrendous and your mind is going wild with what that could be. He wants you to just lift it to him and say, yes, Lord, whatever's necessary, I want to have the mind of Christ. I want to let that mind be in me which is also in Christ.

Though he was equal with God, didn't think it was something that needed to be grasped, but made himself nothing and became a servant and was found in the form of a man of humankind and made himself humble and was obedient, even unto death, even the death of the cross. Lord, that's what you want from us, just for us to see that you love us enough that as your Son entrusted himself to your love, we can too, we can too. The exaltation comes after the humiliation, after we've humbled ourselves. Peter says, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.

Lord, we ask this to do that, Lord, I pray. In the time that we have left, until Jesus comes for us one way or another, we ask it in his precious name, amen.