Easter (Philippians 2:5-8)

So, like I said, we're going to be in Philippians chapter 2, starting in verse 5.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

If you have a handout Bible, that's page 1058 that we're going to be starting in.

We're going to jump around a little bit, but this is going to be our main text for this morning.

And this morning I really want to talk about, obviously, it's Easter, Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

But I really want to focus in on the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.

And I don't want to just talk about the sacrifice on the cross, but the other sacrifices that Jesus made so that he could call us his friends.

So this morning we're going to talk about what Jesus did for us.

Then we're going to talk about why he did it for us.

And then we're going to talk about what we should do with that information that we have.

So we're going to stand one more time for the reading of God's word.

And you may be asking why do we stand?

Because we think and we know that this is the living, breathing word of God.

So we stand out of respect for the authority that God has placed into this.

And I'm not going to lie, as a pastor, it's one last chance to get the blood flowing through your bodies before I bore you guys to death.

But we're going to read, um, starting in verse 5, and we're going to read through verse 8.

It says, Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.

And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

Let's pray.

Jesus, we are here to celebrate you this morning, to thank you for the sacrifice that you made for each one of us on the cross.

But I pray as we go through your word that you would teach us things that are new, and it wouldn't just become head knowledge, but it would become heart knowledge.

And that you would not allow us to leave here unchanged, but through your word, through the voice of your Holy Spirit, would you speak to us here this morning?

We pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So we're just going to start right there in verse 5.

It says, Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.

God gave us an example in Jesus Christ as he walked on this earth 2,000 years ago.

And here is Paul.

He's the author of the book of Philippians.

He's writing it to the church in Philippi.

And here's Paul telling them to adopt that same attitude of Christ.

To follow his example in attitude.

So that begs the question: what was Christ's attitude while he was here on earth?

He was a humble servant.

I challenge you to read through your Bibles and look at everything that mentions Jesus and find one selfish act.

Because there aren't any.

Everything he did while he was on this earth was an act of service for each one of us.

Can you believe that?

That the God of the universe stepped down from his heavenly throne to serve us.

The God that's so powerful that he spoke the universe into existence.

He looked down on his creation and he said, I want to humble myself to take on their very human nature.

He said, I want to be born of a woman to a humble house in a humble community to learn a trade, to minister to the poor, to be tempted and accused and tried, and then die a humiliating death on a cross so that I can serve these people that have rejected me.

Jesus loves us so much, he came to live a whole life of sacrifice.

It wasn't just the sacrifice on the cross.

His whole life coming was a sacrifice for us.

So what Paul is saying to the Philippians here in this verse is adopt that same attitude as Jesus Christ.

Adopt that same attitude of a humble servant.

Let's look at verse 6.

It says, who, so he's speaking of Jesus, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Basically, Jesus was in the outward form of God with all of his glory and all of his beauty before he came to earth.

But he did not hold on to that glory and that beauty.

Now he didn't stop being God.

While being fully God, he also took on the nature of man.

He emptied himself of the godly glory and beauty to come and to walk among us.

So still being equal with God, he chose to deny certain rights and to deny certain privileges that he had for a time to be with us, to take on our likeness.

Because if Jesus would have kept his godly beauty and come to earth, everyone that laid eyes on him would have died.

Do you guys remember back in the Old Testament, the story of Moses, he actually asked God, Can I see you?

And God says, No, you'll die.

It's too much for a human to take in to look upon the full beauty and glory of God.

So Jesus sacrifices that beauty and glory so that he could call us his friends.

Look at verse 7 with me.

It says, Instead, again speaking of Jesus, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.

So all the things that we just talked about.

And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

Are you seeing the sacrifices that Jesus made for us before he even approached the cross?

Setting down his godly glory to serve the people that he created.

And then at the end of verse 8, we see the ultimate sacrifice.

A brutal death on a cross.

Romans 6.23 says this.

It says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see, sin harms us.

And it leads us to spiritual death.

Which is why God hates sin so much.

In the Clark Biblical commentary, it says this, and I want to read it to you.

It says, even the death of the cross shows that there is no limit to what God will do to demonstrate his love and saving power to a man.

This was and forever will be the ultimate.

What must sin have been in the sight of God when it requires such humiliation in Jesus Christ to make an atonement for it and undo its influence and undo its evil?

So we talked a little bit about this last Sunday.

That sin, which is rebellion, which is defiance against God, it harms us.

God didn't put rules and laws in the Bible to hold us back or to steal our joy.

I'm going to say that again.

God didn't put rules and laws in the Bible to hold us back or to steal our joy.

He gave us those things to protect us.

Just like any loving parent gives their children guidelines to protect them.

And to teach their kids not to chase a ball into a street.

To teach their kids to not accept every friend request that they get online from strangers.

You know, when I was nine, my family got a four-wheeler.

And it was one of those big old Polaris ranch four-wheelers.

It was the one, uh it was the first one that we had as a family.

And I remember being so excited about getting that huge four-wheeler, and I was just nine years old.

And my dad gave me one rule.

He told me that I couldn't take it out of first gear.

I had to keep it in first gear as I was getting used to it and everything.

And if you're not familiar with four-wheelers, that means I wasn't going faster than maybe like five to eight miles an hour.

Just kind of putting along on that thing on that thing.

And I hated that rule.

I felt like he was holding me back.

I wanted to do donuts in figure eights.

I wanted to drift those back tires.

I wanted to go off a jumps.

I had plans for that thing.

But I g I want to ask you, why didn't my dad give me that rule?

He gave me that rule because he knew better than I did when I was nine, right?

Who would have thought?

You know, I have a son that's eight going on nine.

I really understand that rule really well right now.

He gave me that rule because he cared enough about me to allow me, to not allow me to go down a road that could lead to death.

God's heart, our heavenly father's heart, is the same.

Sin is rebellion against God.

It's taking that four-wheeler and saying, I don't care what my dad says, I know better.

I'm throwing it into high gear and I'm riding off into the sunset.

It's saying, I'm not gonna let my father spoil my fun by making me keep this thing in first gear.

But you know what?

Eventually that rule was lifted as I grew bigger and had better judgment.

Because my dad wasn't trying to spoil my fun, he was trying to protect me from the things I could have done to myself.

All that to say is sin harms us.

And as we just read, the wages or the cost of our sin will eventually lead us to spiritual death.

If you're a sinner, you're heading to death.

And here's news for us all we are all sinners.

So the question is, what do we do about that?

Well, I want you to look at verse 8 again, where it says, He, referring to Jesus, humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

That death that Jesus died on the cross, that was the death that each one of us was heading toward.

That death was the cost of our sin.

So Jesus, the humble servant, stepped in and said, I'll take their place.

I'll pay the cost of their sin.

The one man, remember we said fully God, fully man, that was completely sinless, facing every temptation we ever will, chose to die in our place, and he did.

And here's the good news the story doesn't stop there.

The reason we're here this morning is because the story doesn't stop there, right?

Three days later, after Jesus' brutal crucifixion, the death on the cross, Jesus was raised from the dead.

Proving two things.

One, that he was God, but two, that he had defeated death.

That this physical and spiritual death had no power over him, or now over his followers either.

1 Corinthians 15, 55, it's one of my favorite Easter verses, and I want to read it to you.

It says, Where death is your victory, where death is your sting.

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God gives us the victory.

We can't earn it.

It's a free gift.

And that's what set Christianity apart from every other religion.

That we don't have to earn our way to God's approval.

But in Christ, God is well pleased with us, and it's a free gift that we can accept.

Galatians 2.20 says this.

It says, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

If you're in Christ, if you're following him, you're allowing him to live in and through you, you have been crucified with Christ.

And you are now one with him, and he lives in you.

Now look back again at verse 8 in our text here this morning.

It says, Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

The humble servant, Jesus, died for you.

Died for each one of us.

Now that's the what in what Jesus did for us.

Now we're gonna look at the why.

So now I want you to grab your Bibles and I want you to turn back to the Gospel of John, chapter 15, starting in verse 12.

John 15 · chapter mention

If you have the handout Bibles, that's page 973 that you're gonna find it in there.

And this is Jesus talking to his disciples, the ones that he's been training all this time.

And he's talking to them the night before his crucifixion.

So look at John chapter 15, starting in verse 12.

John 15 · chapter mention

And this is Jesus speaking, like I said, to his disciples.

He says, This I command, love one another as I have loved you.

How did he love?

As a humble servant, right?

No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.

So there's two amazing things happening here.

Jesus is referring to his own death that hasn't happened yet.

Still a day away.

And he's letting the disciples know ahead of time that his death is going to be an act of love for them and toward them.

But the second amazing thing that happens is Jesus calls us his friends.

Can you believe that?

Jesus calls his disciples and he makes that same offer to us.

He calls us his friends.

I don't know about you, but that's not an inclination that I would naturally lead toward.

That the most powerful God, the God of the universe, desires a friendship with me.

Yet he welcomes us into this friendship with him.

He wants to talk with us.

He wants to spend time with us, like any other friend.

He desires us.

He desires you.

And when we reject him, Scripture tells us that he's actually jealous for us.

He's not jealous of us.

That's a misconception, common misconception.

He's jealous for us when we refuse the friendship that he's offering and trying to engage with us.

Because he wants to be near us.

In verse 13, he says, There's no greater love that can be shown than to lay down one's life for his friends.

Because once you give your life, there's nothing left to give, right?

And it doesn't matter how much you've pushed him away or how much you've rebelled, he still wants you and still desires to be in a relationship with you.

He's already loved you with perfect love when he took our place on the cross.

But we have to accept that love.

You know, well, let's just do a little demonstration here.

Who here likes coffee?

Most of you.

Who here is brave enough to actually walk up here?

That likes coffee?

Anybody?

Okay, I have a$10 to Starbucks gift card.

Okay, this is perfect.

This is mine.

But this is my gift to you.

There you go.

Absolutely.

Enjoy that.

Hope you enjoy that.

What w at what point did that gift card go from being mine to being his?

When he reached out and took it, right?

He could have said, Oh, you know what?

I'm really not into their coffee and turned around and walked the other way, right?

But he reached out and he actually took that free gift that I just gave to him.

Jesus is holding out the free gift of salvation to us and saying, I got this for you.

I did this for you because I love you so much.

Will you now just reach out and take it?

I love you.

It's yours.

Just take it.

It's a free gift.

And then Jesus goes on in verse 14, and he says, You are my friends.

It's gonna take a little turn here.

You're my friends if you do what I command you.

At first glance, this verse is kind of hard to swallow.

I'll admit it.

You can be my friends if you do what I say.

Isn't that what it kind of sounds like?

But remember, we already talked about this.

God's commands are for what?

They're for our own benefit, right?

We look at this verse and think, you know, this kind of sounds authoritarian.

Well, if serving a God that loves me perfectly holds perfect wisdom and counsel, that wants, not only wants, but knows what's best for me.

If that sounds authoritarian, man, sign me up.

Authority is only bad when it's corrupt and when it's selfish.

But authority in God's way is perfect and is for our own benefit.

Jesus is the humble servant that laid down his life for you and for me and is calling us and inviting us to be his friends.

When we're in a relationship like that on an earthly setting, where somebody's just laying down their life for you on a daily basis, man, you're gonna want to do anything for that person to express that love back to them.

We do anything to please them, and that's that's what Jesus is saying here in this verse.

Jesus is offering his disciples and us here today perfect love and friendship, perfect counsel for everyday life, fulfillment and purpose in our life, forgiveness from our rebellion against God.

And he's offering us a hope and an eternal future in his glory.

Pastor Damien Kyle puts it this way: He said, God's blessing and favor is a waterfall, and what he's asking us to do is to be obedient to stand under it.

It's a gusher, it's a never-ending supply of God's blessing and favor.

But sometimes we can stand only feet away from that waterfall and say, God, why am I not experiencing your blessing and your favor in this time?

And God says, Well, you know, just step a little bit closer.

What do we do?

Don't tell me what to do.

I'm an independent thinker.

And God says, Yeah, but I really do know what's best.

Take a step closer.

My blessings land here, and you're standing here.

Just take a step closer into where my blessings land.

Here's another example.

You know, there's been multiple times where parents will come in for counseling, and I'll hear some version of this story.

Their 20-year-old child had been in and out of drug use for years.

They've been out on the streets, and now they're back and they're looking for help.

The problem is that they don't want help with their addiction.

They just want a place to stay and some money and a roof over their head because they've become homeless.

And the parent comes to me and they'll say, What do we do?

We so badly want to help them, but we don't want to enable them to go further down the path that they're on.

We want to help with the root cause.

We want to help with the addiction.

But all they want is our stuff.

They want our money, they want our shelter, care, protection, clean clothes, a shower.

And we love them too much to enable them to head down a path that will ultimately lead to their death.

And they'll come to me and they'll say, What do we do?

You know, I've seen people sink their whole life savings into trying to get a relative clean.

I've seen people go into debt trying to help a relative get clean.

But if you ever want to see the true love of a parent, watch them as their child chooses a path that's leading to death.

They will do anything for that child.

And the thing is, what good parent wouldn't want to help their child that had fallen on rough times?

They'd give anything to help their child.

But the thing is, these parents know how to help their child better than their child knows how to help themselves.

And they'll say, You know, do what we ask.

Go to rehab.

Drop the things that are killing you and this destructive lifestyle.

And I'll give you anything.

And I'll do anything to rescue you.

God looked down on humanity and said, I'll do anything to save them from the path that they're headed down.

I'll even sacrifice myself if it means saving them.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

So that we can become the sons and daughters of God, that we can become friends with Jesus.

So Jesus, being fully God and fully man, came and was obedient to death, even to death on a cross to die for his friends.

But like I said earlier, it didn't end there.

Jesus didn't stay on that cross.

He didn't stay in that tomb.

He was placed in that tomb after the cross, but he did not stay there.

Three days later he was resurrected from the dead to prove that death had no hold on him, and sin and death had been defeated.

Not just for him, but for his followers as well.

Because of his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, and kept in heaven for you.

That new birth, that living hope, we just sang about that, is because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The new birth is a spiritual birth that's being talked about here.

God says, I'll give you a fresh start.

Where the old failures are forgotten.

You can now take on the righteousness of Jesus Christ to be your own and be born into the family of God with no history of past offenses.

Now, it doesn't mean that your life gets easy and all your problems go away.

We still have a broken world that we're living in.

We still have consequences from our pasts, our past decisions, our past sins.

But Jesus is spiritually offering a new beginning.

This body will still pass away, but our spirit will live forever in a perfect inheritance in heaven, where pain and suffering will be no more.

Jesus is saying, take part in this death and burial, and I will give you resurrected life.

Jesus is holding out this free gift and saying, Will you take it?

It's what's best for you.

Trust me.

I know.

He's saying, just take a step closer.

Just take a step closer.

Now I want to close with this.

It's a quote from a book called In the Grip of Grace by Brian Chappell.

It's a story that he tells within that book.

Northwest Airlines Flight 225 crashed just after takeoff from Detroit on August 16th, 1987, killing 155 people.

Only one person survived.

Cecilia, a four-year-old from Tempe, Arizona.

When rescuers found Cecilia, they did not believe she had been on the plane.

They thought she had been a passenger in one of the cars on the highway onto which the airliner crashed.

But when the passenger list was checked, there was Cecilia's name.

Cecilia survived because as the plane was falling, Cecilia's mother, Paula, unbuckled her own seatbelt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecilia, and would not let her go.

Nothing could separate that child from her mother's love.

Neither tragedy nor fall nor the flames that followed.

Such is the love of our Savior for us.

He left heaven, lowered himself to us, and covered us with the sacrifice of his own body to save us.

And if you're here this morning and you want to accept that free gift of salvation, just tell Jesus that you receive it.

Tell him that you receive the forgiveness of sin.

That you receive the death that he died for you on the cross.

And that you receive the eternal life, the incorruptible inheritance of glory with him for all of eternity.

Tell him that you're ready to listen to his direction, knowing that it's what's best for you in the first place.

And I just ask you if you are going to accept that free gift of salvation, if you're going to reach out and take that gift here this morning, that you would just come and talk to me or any servant that's here.

We would love to celebrate with you and help welcome you into the kingdom of God.

And we'd love to give you some advice and some resources on some first steps to take.

But it's just a matter of reaching out and taking that free gift of Jesus.

And if you do that, please come tell us.

We'd love to celebrate with you.

If that's you this morning, the Bible tells us that celebrate there's a celebration in heaven for you right now, if that's you.

But just take that free gift, we pray.

Would you please pray with me?

Lord, again, we're here for you, for your glory.

We thank you for that free gift.

Lord, it wasn't free for Jesus.

It wasn't free for you.

That was a true sacrifice, but it's free to us.

And we thank you so much for that free gift of salvation that you are reaching out and trying to hand to each one of us.

Lord, I pray that we would each take it gladly, just knowing that you know what's best and you desire what's best for us for now and through all eternity.

God, we love you so much, and we just want to continue to celebrate that amazing love that was poured out through your blood on the cross for us.

And we thank you that the story didn't end there.

But there was a resurrection on the third day.

And now we have that same resurrected life that you have offered each one of us.

Thank you so much for all that you've done for us.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.