Christ, though equal with Father God, willingly emptied Himself of all authority as His own to take on human form and the life of a servant, demonstrating the true nature of humility. In this role He has the authority of being the Christ, in submission to the Father’s will. The message calls believers to let Scripture interpret Scripture, to read commentaries carefully, and to recognise that God uses humility as the means of lifting His people in the right time. Christ’s descent from heaven to earth began as a self-chosen act of love, teaching that genuine greatness is found in surrender and obedience to God. Jesus as the eternal Son demonstrated how we should live out being the sons and daughters of God.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:01] What I wanted to speak on tonight is a bit of a smattering of things, but before I start I need to say that we have had last year a gathering on Thursday evenings called the Apologetics Club, or sometimes called the Theology Club, depending on how you interpret what went on in it. And it’s had just casual people coming along to join in the conversations and the discussion. And they are actually two different groups of people that I’ve had come along to these Thursday evenings, not always the same people. But interestingly, the two different groups, one are young adults, young people, and the other one, the older ones, older than me. And anyway, they asked me, and because we put it on every second Thursday, people are curious to know what for this year would be the Thursdays we choose.

[00:01:03] And so I listened to the people who have talked to me thus far, and they happen to be the older ones. And they’re people in their 80s, and they said they have something else they go to on one Thursday night and they alternate there. So they’ve given the choice of what Thursdays it will start up at for us and we’ll see who else comes. It started as an experimental thing and I guess it’ll continue, but it’s the idea of discussing things where people bring up different ideas as to how to interpret Christianity and how to interpret the Scriptures. Actually, when you’re a preacher, you’re faced with some of these challenges all the time to know from where to get your information and where do you have authorities that help you understand the Scriptures

[00:01:52] and if there’s a passage that is being difficult to understand, how do you deal with it? Now, one such passage that we can use as an illustration is in Philippians 2 and it’s a very famous passage because it’s talking about Christ and how his coming down to earth and taking on humanity entailed him giving up his position of authority in heaven and becoming a servant. And here it is on the screen as you see it now in Philippians 2, 5 to 11. I just want to make a couple of comments from this passage but also raise the issue tonight as to where you get your information when you’re faced with something you want to go deeper in. And one of the answers to that, of course, is to use the commentaries that are available provided you understand what a commentary is.

[00:02:45] It’s a human person’s writing up of their way of handling the text and bringing the best ideas to light in those books called commentaries. They’re not the Scriptures. They’re commentaries. They’re people’s ideas about the Scriptures. And I’ve got a few hints and statements to make tonight about the use of commentaries. But here we have Philippians 2, 5 to 11, and it’s a passage that is often described as talking about how Jesus let himself take a lower place. Have this mind among yourselves, the encouragement for us is to follow the example of Christ. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. And immediately we have meaning there that’s in our being associated with Christ, in our being connected to Christ, in our being indwelt by Christ.

[00:03:41] We have the possibility of having such a humble mind. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Don’t despair about yourself if you find that you’re not always able to be as the Bible encourages us to be because in having Christ, we have a resource to be more than what we ourselves could add up to. But this one Jesus who though he was in the form of God didn’t count equality with God a thing to be grasped. That little word there grasped is the idea not the picture of struggle, struggle, I can’t quite reach it but rather it is something to be grabbed and hung on to. Sometimes as children where there was often some very nice cookies or very nice lollies and I have to confess to being, when I was little, someone that grabbed as many as I could.

[00:04:38] And that idea of being grasping to get for yourself is being talked about here. So don’t count equality with God as a thing that you’re striving to attain. And Jesus had equality with the Father. Here’s the description the Bible gives us about Father, Son and Holy Spirit that they’re co-equal members of the Trinity. And eternity passed. The eternal Son, who never had come into existence because he was born into existence, as the eternal Son he always was. He does have a birth time when he’s born as human and he’s born into the world. Actually there’s a song about the baby Jesus that’s in the manger, Away in a Manger. That’s about Christ. I’ll see if I can remember it. Away in a Manger and those houses that go, the little boy, baby Jesus. And the way that the normal song, Away in a Manger, no place for his bed.

[00:05:51] How’s it go? Someone better help me here. Come on. Say it again. Yeah, that’s right. So here’s the baby Jesus. But then it goes on with the rhyming part, no crying he made. And I remember thinking to myself, well, he came from heaven to take on humanity and babies cry. I really said to myself, I disagree with that little song. And so when they’d sing it in Sunday school or whatever, I’d sing different about Away in a Manger and then I’d add, no crying he made. No, I wouldn’t do that. That’s what the song went. I’d say, some crying he made. And I’d be rebellious against the song because I think Jesus coming down to earth and taking on humanity meant that he took on the fullness of all that humanity brought to him. So he cried as a baby. Now, I can’t prove my swap of the wording,

[00:06:53] but that’s how I read this passage in Philippians about the fact that he was in the form of God. Now, anyway, in my library, I’ve got quite a number of different commentaries and there’s one here I’m holding it that I was going to show this morning but decided not to, but it’s by a person who’s written up a commentary in all the books of the scriptures, particularly all the New Testament books. And so there’s one on Matthew, one on Mark, one on Luke, one on John, and we’re going through the Gospel of Luke at the moment eventually to get into the Book of Acts. And this is going to be a great resource for me before I get my sermons together. And so I found myself looking it up. And what I’m looking up, though, was about this passage about Jesus coming down to earth and my wanting to not sing no crying he made.

[00:07:50] I wanted to sing some crying he made. And what does it mean for Jesus to take on humanity? So I was looking up in this and it’s from Luke and some of the early passages of Luke about Jesus. And I had something that really made me think. And I’ll read you just a couple of lines and I’m going to read a lot of this. But for by the grace of God resting upon him, Jesus, according to his human nature, was being gradually prepared for the task which the Father had assigned to him. His divine nature didn’t need any preparation, was not even able to experience it. Now, if you think on that, his divine nature always was. He didn’t have a beginning as the Son. He wasn’t born into the Trinity. He always was there. And the three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are three persons of the Trinity co-equal. So certainly it’s true

[00:08:54] to differentiate that if there’s some preparation being done to the baby Jesus, then in his humanity, yeah, he’ll need to do some crying and he’ll need to gradually prepare for the task which the Father had assigned to him. So it’s said. Only thing about this is that when I looked up Philippians 2, I suddenly realised something that was inconsistent with the commentary. Now, why am I telling you this tonight is to tell you don’t always follow the commentaries. We need a higher principle somehow to know when to realise there’s something being said that will have an element of truth but might also have an element of giving you a thought that’s not really what happens. And where that thought is going wrong in this commentary is the idea that he’s in heaven, he comes to earth and the statement that Philippians 2 is saying

[00:09:51] about him humbling himself and taking on a servant. He’s making it all happening once he’s on earth. I don’t doubt the experience on earth was a part of it but I think there was something of the humbling of himself in heaven before he came and certainly our passage gives you that idea. Let’s read a bit more. Though he wasn’t a form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be hung under, hung after, you know, grasped and hung on so you wouldn’t let it go. That’s actually the meaning of the word in original languages. It wasn’t so much that he was snapping after being something greater than he was. No, that’s not the description being said here. It’s saying that he had something and didn’t mind letting it go. Look at the next verse. But emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. So it is the Son in heaven

[00:10:48] who had it all, who emptied himself. And this description of the emptying himself by Jesus to come to earth is something that began before he left heaven and before he was born as a baby. He made a decision to humble himself and take a form of a servant. That’s what it says. And then being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, giving himself to what was required of him to die on the cross for our sins. And because of that willingness, the Father, and it says God, sometimes when the Bible says God, it means God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and sometimes it’s referring particularly to the Father in the Trinity, and I think this is one. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. Somehow or other, the one who was God and had all the honour

[00:11:54] of God, this one came to earth and humbled himself such that the Father has lifted and who it is that’s lifted is the Christ child now a man. This Christ child now a man has lifted to the highest place of heaven and bestowed on him a name, the name is Jesus, of ever greater than anything. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The one being confessed as Lord is the one that took on in his humility, humanity. And the God-man is the one that now is declared as Lord to the glory of God the Father. I don’t know whether you feel some of the weight of this passage of the emptying, the self-emptying of himself that Jesus went through to come to earth and he was in heaven a part of the Trinity. He was a part of all the decisions made and he took on to empty himself

[00:13:01] and so the actual emptying started in glory in heaven. Something to learn. Well, what I concluded is that this commentary had it wrong in the area where it’s getting some things right. You’ve got to be a bit cautious of commentaries. By the grace of God resting upon him, Jesus, and it’s using his human name, according to his human nature, was being gradually prepared for the task which the Father had assigned to him. His divine nature didn’t need any preparation. Well, that’s true enough. He was God and he didn’t need any preparation in the God part of what he was. But nonetheless, it was while he was in heaven that he decided to humble himself and do this. And anyway, there’s good things here in what is written and it’s made me think about all of this. So that little away in a manger, asleep in his bed,

[00:14:07] as it was it is, the little Lord Jesus, I sing no crying he makes. No, I don’t. I sing some crying he makes. Because when he came and took on being a baby, the truthful part of what the commentary is saying is that he needed from those early days to grow and to learn. And so we find in the Gospel of Luke, it starts with Jesus in the preparation stages of being a child and it’s got that storyline of the family going down to Jerusalem to be at the temple and Jesus with them. And he gets himself into the temple and because of who he is, he’s found some of the leaders of the Jewish nation who understand quite a lot from the Old Testament and he’s talking with them and they’re all amazed at how much he knows. And he forgets that he’s meant to go home with the rest of the family. This is very helpful for me

[00:15:03] because I’ve got my forgetful stage of life happening every now and then. But Jesus forgot to go back with the rest to Nazareth. And they’re looking for him amongst the others as they’re getting closer to home and they say, where’s Jesus? So his parents have to come back to the capital city and look for him and they found him in the temple. And his mother scolds him a bit like mothers do when they find you out for not having thought of their perspective. And Jesus replies, did you not know that I should be in my father’s house? There’s Jesus growing in his humanity, not always keeping in mind all the aspects of what’s going on and replying to his parents to give an explanation. So there’s an element of truth that’s here. I’m not dismissing some of it, by the way. I’m just telling you how the commentaries say

[00:16:02] are not always got the whole story clear. What do we learn from that? Well, what I’ve actually done with you this evening is that I’ve allowed one passage to interpret another. I’ve allowed this good principle that you can always bring the passage of the Bible to help each other out. And if there’s something you don’t understand about Jesus, did he humble himself only when he got to earth and grew up and knew he had to be humble? No. I think the humbling of himself started in glory in heaven before he came. And I know that by bringing this passage in the Philippians 2 alongside the historical records we have in Matthew, Mark and Luke and John. So the lesson we learn from it is to allow scripture to interpret scripture. And if you always keep that in mind,

[00:16:56] if you’re wondering exactly how to interpret something, then look for other scriptures. All right? You want me one more illustration of such? If you actually go to the passages being described in the beginning of the Gospels about Jesus and how he comes as a child and he grows up and exactly how John the Baptist has a ministry in calling the people to repentance and then introducing to them their Messiah. That’s a twofold ministry of John the Baptist. And suddenly you realise something. And that is that in the introductions of Jesus, John the Baptist also tells things about Jesus as to what he’s going to do. And John the Baptist makes some statements that you won’t really understand until you see that he’s looking ahead to how Jesus is going to become. And he talks about the glory of the Lord

[00:17:55] in those early passages. And I wondered how to interpret the glory of the Lord. Another of the commentaries I have is this one by, it’s a little one, he’s written bigger ones elsewhere, but this is by Leon Morris, who’s an Australian down in, well he’s passed away now, but he lived in Melbourne. And he describes about the initial storyline of Jesus coming and it’s really interesting because he gives a bit of a picture that you could miss. And I found this a real help to help me understand not so much the principle of letting one passage help you with another, but letting you realise that the background of any given passage involves languages. And where it is that John the Baptist is being quoted, it says the verse that this morning we had a sermon on, that verse that says about Jesus,

[00:18:49] that he’s someone in John the Baptist’s mouth as being the salvation of God and then it actually has John the Baptist quoting from Isaiah 40 and back in Isaiah 40 where it actually speaks it’s interesting because the thing that’s the Gospel of John and other spots in the New Testament quote in John putting into John the Baptist’s mouth uses the word in the old place back there to be glory, that this coming one is going to have a glory. But when you find the quote of him quoting that from Isaiah 40, the early verses there, you find that the word glory is translated in Luke’s statement of it as salvation. And he says in the verse I had this morning to speak from, which was in Luke chapter 3, about verse 6, it says that in him is the salvation of God and is seen in Jesus, the salvation of God.

[00:19:58] But actually the word that he quoted was the word that meant back there, glory. It’s not actually so distant, you know, glory and salvation because salvation is what Jesus brings when he comes again. And we finished this morning with that verse that talked about the fact that when we see him we shall be like him. and we’re going to be like him in his glory. And in Jesus being the saviour, he’s the person who in his person has all that salvation is and when he comes again, we’ll see him as he is. But the perception we have, this is this morning’s sermon, will be that we shall be like him in his glory. Salvation is glorious. and Jesus is the glorious salvation. John the Baptist had the picture and he introduced Jesus to the Jewish nation. Well, I don’t try tonight to bring all those ideas

[00:21:01] into sharp focus for you except to say that another scriptural principle is to let the Bible interpret the Bible. Compare one passage with another. Let Scripture interpret Scripture. But another one is to recognise that in the Old Testament the reason for there being this change of glory to salvation is because there were different manuscripts used, one which was in Hebrew and another which was in Greek. Greek and the Greek-y one is the one that gives the idea of salvation instead of the word glory. But both are from the same passage of Scriptures and so we know the equation is a proper one. And you can let the fact of your knowledge of the language of the passages also help you to get the interpretation right. Sometimes that is what the commentaries help you to do

[00:22:04] is to be aware of the language that is bringing the ideas so that you don’t make a mistake. I know there’s more I could say to make that clearer but just to bring that to your attention the commentaries can be very helpful one, because they tell us of the language that’s been used languages and also too, they help us to bring to bear an idea of the New Testament from what is said in the Old and somehow those connections can help us interpret and avoid making a mistaken interpretation. Well, that’s what I had to say but let’s go back to our passage that we had up on the screen for the start which is concerning the one about Jesus Christ or before you’ve got the Philippians 2 using to the glory of God the Father every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father

[00:23:00] the glory of Jesus brings glory to the Father but that’s the end of our passage that we had that the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and this is a very famous one and a passage about how Jesus humbled himself. What does the New Testament make of Jesus’ example of humbling himself? Well, what Philippians is saying to the Christians, that we are to follow suit from Jesus, not hang on to what we think are our rights or our greatest accolade or hang on to some position of being respected. Don’t be someone who grasps after or tries to hang on to something because you think you deserve it, but rather have the mind that Jesus had was happy to give himself to be humbled, to be understood less than perhaps what you actually are. Take on the very way that Jesus was. That’s what this passage in Hebrews is saying.

[00:24:08] And humble yourself. And one reason why we do that is because the passage uses Jesus as an illustration of what the Father did when Christ came and humbled himself. Because of that self-humbling, the Father then elevated him. But whom he elevated was not just the pre-incarnate Son of God who was a part of the Trinity. The one that he elevated is the one that chose to take on humanity in humility. And it’s the Christ Jesus in his humility that is lifted through his resurrection from the dead and through his ascension to heaven and through his coronation in heaven. He’s given the name. The name of God himself again. But he’s the man Christ Jesus, the God-man. He’s the one who’s humbled himself, who’s died for our sins, who’s been raised from the dead, who’s been lifted to heaven and has been made Lord of lords

[00:25:06] and King of kings. but now it is the one who is both God and man who is Lord of lords and King of kings. He’s been elevated by the Father and the encouragement for us is that when we bow ourselves not to be chasing our elevation but accepting a humility that God has allowed, God the Father has allowed, then you leave it in the Father’s hands to lift you and use you. And you know, being in church life, one of the features of being in church life is just how much God steps in to direct our paths. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths and in the directing of your paths what God directs you into is far greater than you could ever achieve on your own. And the message, the illustration,

[00:26:11] the example of Jesus and his self-humbling here in Philippians 2 gives us encouragement to follow suit. And that’s what the passage of the Bible is teaching us. Let’s have prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, I know this is a bit of a eagerly, eagerly message, but Lord, it’s the case that your word is so rich and so much deeper. Father, I would never have guessed the connection between that Old Testament, Isaiah 40, verse 3 or thereabouts, where it talks about the glory, the glory of God, the glory of the one that comes. And then we turn to the New Testament using the word salvation and how that brought to my mind that salvation is all in Christ and salvation is what he is in his totality and at the end of the age when he comes again and when he collects us to himself, our salvation will be made complete.

[00:27:18] And in that moment, Lord, it’s something to look forward to. When we see him, we’re going to be like him and we thank you for all that you’ve promised you’re going to do and salvation all in Jesus. But not only is it in Jesus, but he’s got it available to be in us as well. And we give you praise and thanks for that in his name. Amen.