The King Who Emptied Himself: Living out Christ’s Humility - Phil 2:5-8

What a great opportunity we have to be grateful for the love that Christ graciously

demonstrated for us on the cross. Good morning.

My name is Pastor Simon Flynn, and here at Dillingham Moravian Church,

we delight in making disciples for Christ as we learn God's Word with you.

In September 2015, President Obama came to Dillingham, Alaska.

And whatever we think of a president's politics, when a president goes someplace,

he goes in style and in pomp.

When the president came to Dillingham, he flew in on Air Force One.

He was driven and surrounded by Secret Service and Marines and dignitaries.

The president was met by our region's leaders and was treated with honor.

And there was photo shoots with Him and was treated to the best that our town had to offer.

Yet when the King of glory, the Lord of the universe, came to earth,

He came in an entirely different manner. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for the truth of Your Word,

the truth that teaches us who you are and who your son Jesus Christ is and what

he has done for us on the cross and how he has humbled himself,

all the way to the cross.

Help us, O Lord, today to grasp just how much you love us and to grasp and understand

and apply your humility to us so that we can serve like you do.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

Turn with me this morning to Philippians 2, verses 5-8.

Philippians 2:5–8

Philippians 2, verses 5-8.

Philippians 2:5–8

Where Paul wrote, Have this way of thinking in yourselves, which also was in Christ Jesus,

who although existing in the form of God did not regard equality with God a

thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a slave,

by being made in the likeness of men,

being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient

to the point of death, even death across.

Here at Dillingham Moravian Church, in our preaching series, we have been going

through Paul's letter to the Philippians.

Today in Philippians 2, verses 5-8, I want to bring to your attention three

Philippians 2:5–8

main principles of this passage.

The first principle that I want you to see is that as Christians,

we are to think the same way as Christ does.

As Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, General Dwight D.

Eisenhower, who later became the President of the United States,

frequently visited field hospitals,

famously discarding formal military protocol to sit on the floor and share jokes

with the men and connect directly with wounded troops and to learn their names to boost morale.

The General realized the power of humility and connection in leadership.

Similarly, Christ lowered himself and physically came down to our level,

showing us that serving others fosters true understanding and compassion.

Paul wrote in verse 5, Have this way of thinking in yourself,

which was also in Christ Jesus.

To understand what Paul was explaining to the Philippians in this verse,

we need to understand the basic principles of inductive Bible study.

One of the main principles is that to understand the meaning of a verse,

we first look to the verse before it to get the context, and then and around the target verse.

And thus, for us to get an understanding of this context, we need to look at

Philippians 2, verses 1-4.

Philippians 2:1–4

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation

of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,

make my joy complete by being of the same mind,

maintaining the same love, united in Spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard

one another is more important than yourselves.

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Paul was teaching the Philippian congregation that God in Christ had lavished

his church with his love, affection, and compassion through Christ's loving

sacrificial death on the cross.

The Holy Spirit showered believers with fellowship and unity with God.

Christians are then called to respond to Christ by loving each other with the

same love and affection and same unity as Christ has loved them with.

And to live with this love, Christians must lower themselves in their own perspective

and raise others up as more important than themselves.

Now, I'm going to take God here to be the first and most important other to

value more than ourselves.

We are to raise God up as our ultimate treasure and in God to consider ourselves

as of lesser importance than others, especially other Christians.

And now we come to where Paul wrote that we are to have the same attitude in

ourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Paul in Philippians 2, verses 5-7 commanded,

Philippians 2:5–7

Have this attitude in yourself, which was also in Christ Jesus,

who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God

a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant,

being made in the likeness of men.

The reason why Jesus was able to

sacrifice so much was because he humbled or lowered himself in his own perspective

so that the Father was and is everything that Jesus and we as miserable human

beings would be more important or more valuable to Christ than he was to himself.

So, how do we as Christians sacrificially obey Christ as Christ obeyed His Father?

We can do this by lowering ourselves in our own viewpoint and raise God in Jesus

Christ as our greatest love and delight.

Then as we stay and bask in the love of Christ, we then share His love to others

as we consider ourselves as lesser importance than the ones we are called to serve.

However, as we've learned last week, the only way that we can have the power

from God to joyfully view others as being more valuable than ourselves and to

love them sacrificially like Christ loved us is by actively and intentionally

staying in or basking in God's presence.

This concept of staying in reminds me of a dog who could go anywhere in the

big yard but chooses to stay where the patch of sun is and bask in its warmth.

We as Christians are to bask in the warmth of God's love.

We stay in God's presence by reading and learning from God's Word,

continually praying, rejoicing, and thanking God in every circumstance.

We continually bask in God's presence as we intentionally, with ardent, passionate joy, pray.

Believe that Christ loves us, and trust in His gracious love.

We then pursue God joyfully as we learn God's Word and obey the commands and

principles and truth contained in it.

Paul went on to explain the second main principle that God is teaching in our passage.

And that principle is that we know our identity in Christ as we prize God above all.

Paul continued in Philippians 2, verses 6-7 to say.

Philippians 2:6–7

Who, although he existed in the form of God, meaning Jesus existed in the form

of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but emptied himself by taking the form of a slave by being made in the likeness of men.

Since this is such an important passage doctrinally, I decided to look up the

works of the big guns, John MacArthur and Moody Bible college.

This is what MacArthur wrote. The usual Greek word for being is not used here.

Instead, Paul chose another term that stresses the essence of a person's nature,

his continuous state or condition.

Paul also could have chosen one of two Greek words for form,

but he chose the one that specifically denotes the essential,

unchanging character of something, what it is in and of itself,

meaning that Jesus existed in the essential, unchanging nature as Almighty God.

The second word I want you to see here is the word grasped.

The Greek word is translated robbery because it originally meant a thing seized by robbery.

It eventually came to mean anything that was clutched, embraced, or prized.

And thus, it is sometimes translated as grasped or held on to.

Moody Bible Commentary teaches that Jesus took on the form of a bondservant.

That is, emptying happens by taking on a new role. And as MacArthur taught,

this was self-renunciation, not emptying himself of deity, nor an exchange of deity for humanity.

You see, this is super important. Christ in His nature as God Almighty never changed.

Even though Jesus was in reality God, He did not prize or treasure His power

and authority and riches.

Since Christ did not emotionally hold on to that part of his godhood,

he was able to let it go, becoming human as well as God in the degradation of

being born in an animal's feeding trough.

That's what a manger is, in a stable filled with manure and animals and then

growing up in Judea as a slave in captivity to Rome and eventually being tortured,

dying on the cross, and still know exactly who he was.

Jesus did not need all the trappings

of power and authority and wealth of God to know that he was God.

Jesus was secure in who he was as God and as the Son of God, one with his Father.

This is a super important truth for us as Christians who are also human.

Like Christ, we as Christians are called to imitate our Lord.

And one of the greatest ways we are called to imitate him is to have the same attitude as he did,

specifically to relinquish our rights, privileges, and comforts and controls

so that we can serve others like Christ served us.

But the huge question is, how do we do this? We do this in two ways,

according to this passage.

First off, by not prizing or treasuring power, authority, money,

or possessions, or our rights to have what we want, or even our right to be able to live.

We are to prize Christ as our greatest desire and treasure above all.

Secondly, we can relinquish our rights, our privileges, comforts,

and control by being secure in our identity as a child of God bought by the blood of Christ.

Growing up in the background that I did and eventually becoming an alcoholic

and drug addict before I was saved,

I understand just how hard it is to be secure in your own identity,

let alone being secure in Christ.

Most places you look today on the internet, on social media and even in books

and TV, we are barraged with the model of be yourself or you are worth it. Believe in yourself.

Yet this is the exact opposite of the example of our creator God, Jesus Christ.

We, you and I as Christ believers, are to prize Christ as our greatest treasure,

not ourselves, so that we can sacrifice

our own rights and our wants and desires for the needs of others.

This kind of sacrifice is completely counter-cultural and so counter-human in

our fallen state that the only way for us to live with this kind of abandon

is for us to continually be surrendering to the work of the Holy Spirit so that

He can give us the power to live humbly like Christ did.

So far, we have learned from God through Paul that Jesus Christ,

who although was and is God, did not prize the power and authority of God for himself.

And as a result of such humility, Jesus was able to put aside his privileges

as God for a time, and then Christ humbly obeyed his Father to save us.

According to one article, Air Florida Flight 90 had just taken off from the

Washington National Airport on January 13,

1982, when the plane stalled and crashed into the 14th Street Bridge before

plunging through the ice and into the Potomac River.

Everyone on board, apart from six passengers, was killed, and a helicopter promptly

flew in to rescue the survivors.

And as the rescue crew airlifted the survivors out of the water one by one,

they noticed that one man, Arlen Williams, kept on handing the life ring they

were luring to the other passengers, rather than choosing to save himself.

He managed to save everyone else in the water, but perished himself just as

the rescue helicopter was coming back for him one final time.

In Philippians 2, Paul wrote, Being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself by being or becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

Paul started off in verse 8 with being found in appearance as a man.

MacArthur's comment was helpful in understanding that Paul, or what Paul, meant here.

Christ's humanity is described from the viewpoint of those who saw him.

Paul is implying that although he outwardly looked like a man,

there was much more to him, meaning his deity, than many people recognize naturally.

Meaning that from the perspective of humans, Jesus was a man,

mortal flesh, that went hungry. and thirsty, who could be hurt and killed.

He was even tempted by sin.

But as we know, he could not sin. Jesus was completely human in every way except

for sin, yet he was also completely God.

And as the everlasting God and completely human, Jesus humbled himself,

meaning that he lowered himself in his own estimation and considered his father

and the father's commands as more important, more noble, more right than himself.

In treasuring his father, Jesus valued us as human beings more than himself,

knowing that the only way to save us from the righteous wrath of God was for him,

the only human that was completely without sin, as God.

To be sacrificially murdered on that cross to pay for the blood debt that humanity

should have paid but couldn't.

And thus, out of His overwhelming love for His Father and for our desperate need,

Jesus obeyed the Father and allowed Himself to be crucified on the cross by

the Jews and the Romans on that evil instrument of shame, torture, and death.

Jesus obeyed His Father because He loved His Father, and in His Father's love,

Jesus loved us more than Himself.

I don't think there is any truth more awful and yet more wonderful than the

atonement of Christ Jesus.

For us as Christians, this has to lead us to repentance for our sins.

Thanksgiving for God's gracious and marvelous mercy, obedience to Christ as we abide in His love.

And if you are here in person listening to this message or listening through other mediums,

I encourage you to strongly surrender to the Holy Spirit working your life so

that you can recognize that you are indeed a sinner before the righteous and

only God of the universe.

I plead with you to repent of your sins and turn away from them and put your

trust in Jesus Christ as your only Lord and Savior.

In trusting Christ, please follow him and obey his word.

And the promise is that if you put your faith and trust in Christ Jesus as your

Lord, you will be saved from the horrifying but just wrath of God.

You will be made children of God, loved by the Lord God himself.

Please don't let a moment go by without making a decision for Christ.

Because this is the greatest and most important decision you will make in your entire life.

And it will change everything. God will make you into a new person spiritually

transformed and removed from Satan's kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Jesus

Christ as a crown prince or a crown princess of Almighty God.

There are three key truths for you to take away from Philippians 2, verses 5-8.

Philippians 2:5–8

One, as Christians, we can sacrificially obey Christ as Christ obeyed His Father

by lowering ourselves in our own viewpoint and raising God in Christ Jesus as

our greatest love and delight.

Secondly, we as Christians can relinquish our rights, privileges,

comforts, and control so that we can serve others like Christ served us by A,

not prizing earthly things, but by prizing Christ above all.

And B, by being secure in our identity as a child of God and a slave of Christ

bought by the blood of Christ.

Lastly, the atonement of Christ

Jesus through His obedience to the Father has led us and should, must,

Lead us to repentance for our sins, thanksgiving for God's gracious and marvelous

mercy, and obedience to Christ as we imitate our Lord.

You see, to love God and others like Christ did, God in Christ must be our greatest desire.

He must be our ultimate value.

As human beings, we do what we value. If we value it or treasure it, we will pursue it.

And thus, I encourage each one of you who are listening that you read God's

word, learn about God's love for us in Christ, to believe in Christ's love and trust his love.

And then as you trust in Christ's love, go and obey what he has commanded you to do in his word.

Let us all think deeply today about just how great a cost Christ's obedience

to the Father took, and just how much love He had for us, for His Father,

to accomplish His great task on our behalf.

Let's pray. O Heavenly Father, we are so grateful.

Grateful to be able to come into Your presence, to be able to pray to You,

to be able to stay in your love, to be loved by you and be a child of God,

elected and chosen by you,

to be chosen so that we can go to heaven one day when we die,

that we are your beloved citizens of your kingdom.

And all of that, Father, has come because of your son's obedience to you through

his sacrificial death on the cross.

And we are so grateful.

Thank you so much, Lord.

And Lord, as we go on to our day, wherever we are, may we meditate upon what

Christ has done for us and trust in his love.

And in that love, may we go out and obey your word.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this blessing from Romans 15, verse 13.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,

so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. Amen.

Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you all.