The eternal Son of God emptied Himself of His heavenly glory to take on Divine identity and reputation. This is called His “kenosis” – His self-emptying of His status and reputation! On taking on humanity He established a model of how a human being can relate to the Father establishing a new model for people to know God as Father. Through Christ’s perfect obedience and sacrificial death, He dealt with the human failure of original sin. He opened the door for believers to share in His own relationship with the Father. When we receive Jesus as Saviour, we receive both the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, who teaches our hearts to cry “Father” and enables us to pray with the confidence of beloved children. This intimate relationship with God as Father represents the heart of New Covenant Christian experience and surpasses what was possible under the Old Covenant. Summing up: by His need to cry “My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?” which is a cry of a human under Divine punishment for our sins, He has enabled us to share His privilege of calling the Father as “Our Father”.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] In the last couple of years we’ve been dipping into what is called the, in the Gospel of Matthew and also in Luke, what is called the Sermon on the Mount. People sometimes ask, where does it finish? It’s actually pretty hard to spot the exact finish, but part of the reason is that Jesus came as a person who had to cover from two sides as it were, in many different respects, one, he came from heaven, he’s the second person of the trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, he’s eternal God. And yet the task that in the wisdom of our God, Father, Son and Spirit, the decision had been taken that he would be the one who’d come to earth and take on humanity and become the God-man.

[00:00:59] And the purpose was that he would experience life in the human sphere and succeed in keeping the requisites of God, and he would be someone who, just the opposite of Adam and Eve, would not sin, but would remain sinless. And the purpose of his remaining sinless was that he might qualify to pay the price for those of us as humans who have sinned. And the record of the scriptures is that’s the rest of us. We’ve all become a part of a fallen race, the human race, if you like. And so we don’t qualify to be a sacrifice for sins, but Jesus came taking on humanity that he might be that one. So having kept the law, having lived under the Old Covenant, which is the Old Testament

[00:01:58] teachers, the law of Moses and God’s arrangement through the temple worship and the sacrifices there that there be offerings that could be made. But Jesus, having kept all of that in the perfection of his human life, enabled only because he’s the God-man, we failed, a lot of us, for all have sinned in a fallen short of the glory of God, is the statement of the Bible. But Jesus qualified and went to the cross there to bear our sins and to suffer under the punishment for our sins in order that we might be brought back to God. And the message about this one, the eternal Son of God, who comes to earth and takes on the scriptures, that message is the gospel. And how one responds to the gospel, whether one ignores it, whether one accepts it, whether

[00:03:03] one obeys it, the Book of Acts says that a great number of the priests were obedient to the Word of God, obedient to the gospel, obedient to the message. They became Christians. And Jesus, in his coming to earth, had this dual role of living under the old. He was born under the law, the law of Moses, the Old Covenant. But he was also here to introduce the new. And the new, particularly, was going to feature the power and the work of the Holy Spirit from heaven sent upon a human in order that the will of heaven might be done on earth through that servant of heaven by virtue of the Holy Spirit’s leadership, which was going to be Jesus, who would do the leading by the fact that the Holy Spirit would come on him.

[00:04:03] And most of us, I’m sure, have remembered some teaching of Jesus’ baptism. And how, as he was either surfacing out from under the water or as he was mounting the bank, we don’t know exactly, but as he came up from that, the Holy Spirit descended from heaven, seen by those watching, it says like a dove. He wasn’t a dove coming down to get on Jesus, it was his descent, it was like a dove. He was hiding and resting on him like doves do. So that it was visible that he was now the anointed one, and the word for anointed means Christophe. Christophe means anointed one. He was the anointed one to be what God was planning, and that is a kingdom where God

[00:04:51] rules from heaven, but through a man, anointed of the Spirit, to hear the lead of heaven. and so the kingdom we’re talking about has sort of originated in heaven and sometimes it’s called the kingdom of heaven but sometimes it’s called the kingdom of God but it’s a kingdom that’s on earth you know what is sourced from heaven it’s the kingdom that Jesus has come to be the ruler of for all time but it’s starting on earth in the ministry of this one who come down and so he’s called the Christ. The word Christ Christos means anointed one. Anointed to be the king in the kingdom of God which is on earth but sourced from heaven, empowered by the Holy Spirit, led from heaven through that Holy Spirit and exactly what Jesus had to do. So I was just saying that he had a role that included

[00:05:51] two things. One, to come under the Old Covenant and be obedient to it. Two, to listen to the Father above, to do the things the Father led him to do and to start this kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God by his being the Christ. And so he is Jesus, the God Jesus, who’s also the man Jesus. And in his humanity and going to the cross as I’ve been rehearsing he cried out, My God, my God, that’s the cry of a human. My God, my God, how you have forsaken me or why have you forsaken me? Because in those moments he was bearing our sins and fulfilling that for which he’d come. To execute our salvation, to do our salvation, to provide our salvation, and it having being finished he then said on the cross, paying our price, Father Into Your Hands, I commend my spirit, and the Father looked

[00:06:54] after him down in the place of the dead which is Hades.” Some people think he went to hell, he went to Hades, and there was a part of hell that was for the dead who would end up in hell, but he was in the part of Hades, so I said that not very very carefully, but he was in the part of Hades which is for those who were to eventually be saved out of Hades. Jesus there described that spot as paradise when he said to the thief on the cross, this day you’ll be with me in paradise. It was actually in Hades but the better part thereof where people were the ones who are yet to be saved or that is delivered into heaven. Now all of this is what Jesus did and in his teaching through the Sermon on the Mount he was teaching things that were true from the Old Testament perspective. In recent weeks I’ve been laboring to bring out the fact that through the Old Testament

[00:07:57] we certainly learn that God is wanting us to grow and to learn how to live an upright life, an upright life. There are lots of promises that talk about how God will help those who make it their deal to try and be upright. That’s the Old Covenant and what you’ll find here in this final chapter 7, some people think the Old Testament theme in the Sermon on the Mount finishes at the end of chapter 6 is very hard to say. I would also say chapter 7 is a part of the Sermon on the Mount but it does have a concluding thing and in that verse we’ve got on the screen verse 12. This is the law and the prophets. The Old Testament is summed up by what Moses delivered, the law and the prophets is the ministry of the Christians who came around and they are added to what we now have as the Old Testament. Sometimes people add more to the Old Testament called the book of Psalms and Proverbs, the

[00:09:10] wisdom literature but different times in the Old Testament history the term of the Old Testament might be just referred to as the law or the term of the Old Testament might be referred to as the law and the prophets and other times the law the prophets and the writings. But basically it’s talking about all that which was to do with the Old Covenant and the temple worship, and that which was in all preparation for when Jesus would come and introduce the New Covenant by his death and resurrection. And that was the moment people could become Christians. The first people becoming Christians were actually Jews mostly. I mean Jews by religion for some of them came from other races but had been converted to be Jews by religion. And present in the city Jerusalem had what was called the Day of Pentecost. And on the Day of Pentecost the first truly Christian sermon

[00:10:10] was given by Peter in which he called Jews who probably were heading to salvation by being Jews. But he called on them to respond to what is now the achievement of Jesus’ ministry and his death and resurrection, and the offer of forgiveness of sins that now has attached to that forgiveness, the gift, the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the Gospel includes not only about Jesus and how he came and lived and died and rose again and went back to heaven. The Gospel includes also that there is offered for those who will come and receive that forgiveness of sins, who will not only get the forgiveness of it but will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the permanent indwelling of God’s Spirit in them. And that was the first time such an offering was made that you could go up and get it right on the spot because previously when Jesus had talked about it it would then

[00:11:08] have to be said by the Gospel writer, I’m thinking of John chapter 7, this spake he of the Holy Spirit that those who believed in him were yet to receive because the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. That happened after his resurrection and going to heaven and him being given to make his name, by the way the name he got as a human, Jesus, to have the rank and the power of the highest name. The name Jesus has become the name under which the Gospel is announced, the kingdom is led and salvation is received. You can’t really be saved anymore. In the Old Testament time some of my head for eventually being forgiven in heaven because they’ve achieved doing whatever God had revealed to them thus far back then, like there’s lots of stories of people so. But now the once this moment came of the day of Pentecost in order for you to be a person who gets into

[00:12:12] God’s good books you have to come via a knowledge of what Jesus did on the cross and how he gave that cry, my God, my God, how you have forsaken me because he was being forsaken for your sins, that you could be received, that you could be forgiven. Then he goes to heaven as accepted into heaven and because you’ve become attached to him spiritually by coming to Jesus, because you’ve allowed him to become your Saviour, this one who’s the God-man has gone back to heaven. Now it’s interesting how the Scriptures use a little word about him coming down and it’s a word people don’t really understand and it’s a word that we get the idea of him abandoning a part of his heritage or abandoning a part of his authority. Perhaps no, not authority, but abandoning maybe his reputation. In the book of Philippians it says that he left his, oh you’re very good, thank you, I have this

[00:13:28] mind amongst you, I’ll just read it, in Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 to 10 it says which was yours in Christ Jesus, it was in Christ Jesus first but it’s a mindset that you can have when come to Jesus. In Jesus was his mindset, this one who though he was in the form of God, it doesn’t mean just appearance, but it means the very being of God and people could see that. If they saw Jesus in the eternity past, they probably dropped dead, they would be people greatly challenged by the form that the appearance he had but it was the very being of God Jesus was. did not count equality with God a thing to be hung onto or grasped but emptied himself and that word emptied himself has given rise to a theological term called the kenosis it’s just the Greek word coming from kenno and it’s there with the little extra parts on it to put it into a past tense that he did as an

[00:14:31] action he emptied himself in taking on the form of a servants what’s the servant bit you haven’t understood jesus save yourhood if you haven’t understood that jesus became a servant now it’s not just that he was a nicey nicey person and washed people’s feet and did things and yeah that’s all true of what he did do but the servant is a servant of the father and rather their the co-equal members of the Trinity of God, the Father, God, the Son, and God the Holy Spirit he took on a humanity and related to the Father as a human relates to the Father God. Which is why in the cross he said, My God, My God! It’s why everything that Jesus did he explained to those who are listening and His disciples who are learning from Him, that he doesn’t do

[00:15:23] anything except of what he sees the Father do, that all the works that he’s doing are not his, they’re the works of the Father from heaven through him via the Holy Spirit on him, him doing those works as a part of being the Christ. He took on him the form of a servant and he had to empty himself of the rights or the privileges. I don’t know what word to use but the initiative that he would have to do it all on his own decision. No, he didn’t do anything on his own decision, he did what the Father let him do do. Not that he was any less a God but that in the God had they chosen that he would go through this self-emptying and it’s called this kenosis because it comes from the Greek word get not o. and it means to empty yourself, it actually needs a bit

[00:16:17] more interpretation to know why he’s emptying himself of, he didn’t emptying himself of his dearly, he always was God and the Son of God. He empties Himself of his reputation, and of having that ability to flick his fingers and give the commands and do everything. He had the power to do the lot, but he emptied himself of that role that he would play, if he were the second person of the Trinity only, but he came down and took on humanity and lived as a human was, which is why the devil could tempt him, turn these stones into bread because he’s hungry and he doesn’t take the temptation to turn them into bread. He could afflict his fingers and done it. But Jesus took on the form of a servant, a servant of God above, to set up a relationship between humanity and heaven, or man and the Father. And He prayed to the Father and examples

[00:17:18] of His prayers that you find in the Gospels are so beautiful as Well, it’s so beautiful as He prays to the Father. And He prays for help always when He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane and He’s having temptations and testings about going to the cross as such a formidable thing for Him to step into, to go to, that He prays and says, Lord is it possible that this cup could pass from me but not my will but yours be done, there it is, not my will but yours be done. There are two persons in conversation and the one on earth in his humanity suffering because of what he’s about to go into, who says eventually, not my will, but yours be done.’ Now, you see it. Our salvation is how this second person of the trinity, this son of God of eternity, emptied himself and took on humanity to walk under the father in a relationship of a human to God, in a relationship of son to father

[00:18:20] and all of this was deliberately done for your purpose, for your sakes because that which Jesus set up between a son and father he’s going to eventually invite us to come into and through him we find ourselves with the father to and we find ourselves able to say Father, Father God that’s something that’s new that Jesus gave to the worship of the Bible there is the Fatherhood recognize in the Old Testament in part in times but as a major thing it’s the New Testament thing that’s given that’s available to you and to me when we come and take Jesus Christ, the Saviour, as our Saviour, where we receive the forgiveness of sins and let the Holy Spirit come and fill our person. In that moment we get allowed into a relationship that He has with the Father. And we get to be sons and daughters of God,

[00:19:19] just as He, we’re still not the eternal leader of the whole universe. I mean, I’m not saying that we become gods. Some people would word it that way, but no, we don’t become gods, but we become welcomed into the relationship that the Son has with the Father. And there’s nothing more wonderful in Christianity but that it introduces people to the possibility of being able to pray our Father who is in heaven. And that special prayer, some of you have heard me say this before, but there was a time when the daughter of Karl Marx was at a party and there was a Christian person there who got the chance to be talking to her and somewhere along the line she heard a Christian prayer which was like our Father who is in heaven. And she explained to this Christian witness person that she wished that she could get into that fatherhood. I forget her exact words, but she’d never actually heard it said that we could have God as Father. Are you

[00:20:44] listening to me? It’s what Jesus came to achieve for you and for me and by our receiving Him as personal Saviour, He takes us far further along than what the Old Testament and Old Covenant could do. It did a good job pointing out that we need to learn how best we can, walk uprightly, providing something to be done when we keep failing because the Old Testament is written about the event of the fall of the human race and the subsequent necessity that we always will have to have something done about our sin, hence the temple and all the sacrifices etc. But the New Covenant is how we can be taken into something that’s new in which we become like sons with the Father God. In Jesus’ example, prayer, our Father who is in heaven, is an example of what His gospel, what His contribution further than just a summary of the Old Covenant times and teachings leads us into. Now part of what’s here in our passage, and I knew by choosing Matthew 7 that I’d not be

[00:21:58] able to bring out everything that’s in there, it’s so loaded with goodies, spiritual things to be said, but just to pick a few, but I just want you to notice that that verse that we were on before, which was in the verse that finishes the chapter, when Jesus had finished these sayings, verse 27, 28, and he began talking there, for he was finishing these sayings and the people there began to become astounded at him. They’re astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. Now this is a fascinating verse to finish, what is the section I think, I pick this is the end of that sermon on the Mount. But as Jesus finishes off and it says about him having authority and not like the scribes. Now you need to understand something, that the scribes were the official persons who said what was to be done and what was to be understood, they were the interpreters of the Old Testament. And they were recognises the

[00:23:18] people with the authority to say what it means. Jesus had lots of arguments with them because their interpretation wasn’t that accurate. But they were people who tried to have authority. And when it says Jesus was one who spoke with authority, not as the scribes, it really raises, couldn’t as me, how was Jesus authoritative if he was out authorizing, if you like, the people who were meant to be the big authorities? Now the answer is that the scribes only had the authority of a scripture, which was true, but their interpretation, which may be of color. And also all their motives were such as that they had reasons for getting people following them. They were very human in their authority. But when Jesus spoke, he didn’t have to do anything but just speak. And people somehow recognized in Jesus and his just speaking the very essence of the authority that they had come to know as in when God speaks. And anybody who studies the

[00:24:29] Bible at depth and gives themselves to come to God and say, Lord, speak to me through this, comes to a reverence of the Bible. I want to tell you that you’re not much of a Christian at all, if you don’t trust the Bible. Because there’s something that happens when you read the Word of God and give yourself to it. You come to recognize that authority. And the scribes had the role of interpreting it, but when Jesus spoke his very speaking, was the authority, I’m sure that people in reading the Bible had recognized before Jesus, is indeed the Word of God. The Bible calls him. He is the one behind the scriptures who makes its authority. And when you give yourself to the scriptures and you let yourself sit under it, you’re actually putting yourself under the authority of Jesus. He’s always been the one behind the writing of the scriptures. He’s the one who is the reason why it is authoritative. He is in the essence, the

[00:25:41] authority that the scriptures have always had. Not because he somehow got and gained it, but because he always wasn’t. That’s why John’s gospel begins in the beginning, was the Word and the Word was as in, wasing, wasing, wasing, you know, it’s in that imperfect tense that it’s on continuous beingness. In the beginning was the Word and it’s Jesus. And he was with God, that’s the Father, and he was God, meaning he’s divine. And these early statements of John’s gospel picture Jesus as the one who’s always been there and when the Father wanted to express himself he did it through his son, which is why he’s the one who came into the world. The book of Hebrews talks about through many different ways and through the prophets God has spoken to our fathers but now in these last days

[00:26:38] he’s spoken through his son. Because that’s the raw. That’s the deepest. That’s the very essence of the speaking of the Father is through his son Jesus. And this Jesus’ come down to earth and taken on humanity in a moment of taking away the the appearance of who he is, taking away the authority in terms of respect or reputation. One version says about he left the authority behind, but it’s the very same word, ken-o-o, but ken-o-o is in the negative of getting rid of the authority or getting rid of the form. But if you turn it around and want to say the reverse, you say ple-o-o. I’ve been talking to you right at the beginning about the ken-osis of Jesus, and that’s his leaving behind, his reputation. Coming to earth and just being a baby, he couldn’t have picked a more dramatic opposite way to arrive. He didn’t come with any trumpets blasting, he

[00:27:43] didn’t come with great ceremonies and everybody cheering, it wasn’t like Prince Charles, thatGodoa, going back a while, who were being correlated and everyone cheering when he came Australia with Lady Diana at first, all the crowds of Australia were so there in great numbers and cheering, and that’s because they were the Royal Highnesses, but when Jesus came, he came as a baby born in a manger with animals, looking in his face, perhaps I don’t know what happened there in the manger thing. There’s Jesus, leaving behind his reputation, and one verse that says this, I didn’t give this to you, this will test him, John chapter 1, and if you look up please for me, verse 22, normally I give them the verses beforehand and they do it very well, there you go, that was quick, verse 22, so they said to him, who are you?

[00:28:50] We need to give an answer to those who sent us, these are some of the authorities who are meant to have authority, and part of the job they had was to tell the crowds, yes, this is from God, this is a true prophet, no this bloke’s not, they were meant to make those decisions. We need to give an answer to those who sent us, what do you say about yourself? We need to give an answer to those who sent us, what do you say about yourself. Is there a next verse? There we go. Okay, he said, verse 23, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Now that’s John the Baptist. Have you got chapter 1? Is it my mistake? It looks like it is. Alright, I’ll tell you what my Bible read and it might be that I read the wrong verse.

[00:29:44] But it says in verse 22, and I’ll just check what chapter it is, chapter 1, but ah, I know what we’ve done. Matthew I’m talking about and you’ve got John. And that’s probably my mistake too. Don’t blame him. Let’s see if he can find Matthew 1, verses 22 and 23. And it’s just talking about something of Jesus and the roller came and it says, and this took place to fulfil. Now the little Greek word fulfil is the same one but put into the positive instead of the negative. The word I’m talking about is where we talked about he emptied himself to take on humanity and came as a servant. That’s the word emptying, pleurosis. That’s the word kenosis.

[00:30:38] But if you change the empty part and put a filling up part, you get pleurosis. And the pleurosis word is the word underpinning. This took place to fulfil, make, come into visibility, make happen and be demonstrated. What the Lord had spoken by the prophet and the prophet had said, Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which that means God with us. He’s going to be a God with you. And it fulfilled it when Jesus was born. Probably you would have heard if you were there, you would hear this little baby crying against the backdrop of the sheep noises and the cattle noises and the other noises, a little baby crying.

[00:31:33] But actually what’s happening, and this is what we remember at Christmas, is at that moment that it’s fulfilling Emmanuel, which means God is with us. So though he is baby Jesus and he’s human, he’s also God Jesus. He’s also God, the very God, and his purpose is to become the saviour of the world. And there’s the word, now you know something about Greek, you know this word pleurosis that’s used here to mean fulfil. If you do look it up in the Greek, there’ll be other little ending parts that depend on what role in the sentence it’s playing, but it’s the word pleurosis. It’s just the positive instead of the other one, which is kenosis. Anyway, this is what is the closure of the Sermon on the Mount,

[00:32:32] of moving from Jesus, adding to an enlightening commenting on the old covenant to Jesus and his role to actually be the bottom, the middle of the new covenant, and the setting up of the opportunity of people to know Father God. When you go home today, look up this passage in Matthew, Matthew 7, one to the end, just the whole chapter of Matthew, and what you’ll find is that it’s got this business about the old covenant, you know, being fulfilled by Jesus coming, but then it’s got about prayer. And all I want you to notice is that one of the chief things about the prayer is that Jesus is saying how you get your prayers answered by recognising that God is your Father.

[00:33:23] It’s because the Son and Father thing that he came with always has and now has expressed it in his humanity, has made it open to you and me to be sons and daughters of God and to relate to the Father in a way that never was possible the same manner before. And one of the beautiful things that happens when someone becomes a Christian and they discover Jesus as their Saviour, they usually don’t really know all about it, they just know little snippets of understanding, but they gradually begin to realise that if they try praying and they don’t know what to say, what you do is you say,

[00:34:10] Father, Father, and something in your heart, it’s not something, it’s the Holy Spirit, he will help your heart to know how to say Father, because you’ve received Jesus as your Saviour and the forgiveness of sins came also with the gift of the Holy Spirit and that Holy Spirit will teach you inside that you and the Father have got a thing going, because he loves his Son and just as the Father said of Jesus where Jesus was obedient and got baptised and the voice cried out, it was the voice from heaven,

[00:34:49] this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And when God sees you having come to Jesus as Saviour, he sees someone who’s the apple of his eye, he sees someone who’s the child for him, Father God, to care for, he sees a relationship that you may only just be discovering that he’s going to fan and help you to grow in. And one of the greatest joys of being a Christian is to suddenly realise you’ve got someone very powerful on your side and he keeps turning up and doing things, you wonder how did that happen, it’s the Father.

[00:35:34] Have you ever watched a Father or a new little baby? And how proud they are, how glad they are, how much they want to help if the little one has got issues or problems. Well you have a Father who’s been watching you and wants you to run to him if you’ve got a problem, to pray to him when you want to express the problem, to rest in him and know that he’s there because there’s started something where you and the Father have got a thing going, that it’s something started through Jesus,

[00:36:15] sharing with you his relationship to the father and that is the outcome of coming to the gospel, responding to the gospel. It’s one of the most beautiful things of being a Christian is suddenly realizing you thought you were doing it all on your own and suddenly things happen. You say, how did that occur? It’s because the father is looking after his son. Believe in it, trust in it and if you read this passage when you get home when it tells you why God will answer your prayers, how much more shall a father so forth it says and you’ll see it is based on us taking up the new relationship that Jesus has achieved for us in our coming to him as Savior and Lord and it is that we have a father who’s going to care for us. Let me close in a word of prayer. Oh father, it’s very hard to talk about these things without the depth of them really

[00:37:28] really melting me inside, warming me inside, thrilling me to know father you’ve had my steps that you’ve been watching. You’ve had them all the time. You take care of my ways. You sorrow if I don’t follow them properly. You want me to know of the love that you have for me and to help me to grow love for you. Please keep working on me that that love shall increase. Please help these people to know how to go deep in the love of the father. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.