The Cast of Christmas: Jesus

12/24/12 The Cast of Christmas: Jesus PHILIPPIANS 2:6-7
I. Introduction
A. Review
1. John's part was pointing to Jesus.
2. Joseph's part was as a facilitator of the birth of Jesus.
3. Simeon’s part was his old prophetic recognition of who Jesus was.
4. Herod’s part was his inability to thwart the purpose of God in sending Jesus
II. Read Philippians 2:6–7 (ESV) — Christ Jesus 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
III. Jesus’ equality with God: 2:6 He existed in the form of God, [having] equality with God
A. The story begins with Jesus as God (the Son) in heaven.
B. Equal with God! What an shocking statement! Just the saying of it is awesome. One of the most frequent sayings of the OT is that there is no one equal with God. He is the holy One, different from all the others. And yet now Paul comes along saying that there is one who is equal with God. It is shocking! (And it was shocking to the Jews.)
C. C.S. Lewis, Miracles: It’s main chapter is entitled The Grand Miracle. Let me read a little, p.131.
IV. Letting Go of Equality With God: 2:6-7a although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself
A. Paul says that though He was in very nature God, yet He did not cling to this state of being, but took on the form of a man (v.7).
B. This almost sounds like Jesus gave up His divinity in order to become a man. In other words, it could be taken to mean that when Jesus was a man He was not longer God. Indeed, some have actually argued that this is the case.
C. But can God choose not to be God? Can God stop being God? One of the characteristics of God is that He does not change. And if He never changes, He certainly can’t stop being God.
1. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Heb.13:8)
D. It is not that God the Son gave up His deity or even His glory as God. But He allowed His glory to be obscured, to be hidden, to be veiled in order that He might appear as a man.
1. By and large, when Jesus came as a man, He did not come radiating the glory of God.
2. He came looking rather like a mere man, even though He was far from a mere man. For the most part, His deity and His glory were veiled, for a time. This is what it means that Jesus, "although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself..."
3. Exception: the Transfiguration “he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” (Matt.17:2)
a. A partial glimpse of His glory: “no man can see God and live” (Exod.33:20)
V. Not Grasping Equality With God: 2:6 “although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped”
A. Adam, made in the image of God, succumbed to the serpent’s temptation. "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen.3:5)
1. Adam, regarding equality with God a thing to be grasped, ate the forbidden fruit.
2. He rejected his role as a bond-servant of God, refusing to humble himself under the authority of his Maker. For this reason, God severely humbled him, and his name has been associated with his rebellion ever since.
B. Jesus, on the other hand, existing in the form of God, did not succumb to Satan’s temptation.
1. He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself.
2. He accepted His role as a bond-servant of God, humbling Himself by becoming obedient. For this reason, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.
C. Adam, as man, tried to become God. Jesus, as God, became a man.
D. Here are set before us two men, representing two paths. One tries to save his life but loses it. One willingly loses His life and saves it.
E. These two paths lie before us as well. Which path will we choose?
VI. Born in the likeness of men
A. It was an enormous step of humility it was for God the Son to take on human flesh.
1. We think of Christ’s humiliation at the hands of the Jews and Romans as substantial: getting stripped and whipped and spat upon, getting mocked and crowned with thorns and unjustly charged with a crime, and finally nailed to a cross in public display.
2. But really the humiliation of the incarnation is even greater than this. The step from God-ness to humanness is far greater than the step from normal humanness to criminal crucifixion & mockery.
3. Jesus traveled a long distance from "equality with God" to "death on a cross," but by far the biggest step along the way was the step from Creator-ness to creature-ness. The distance from humanness to criminal is very finite. The distance from God-ness to humanness is infinite.
B. This is why Jesus had such a humble birth.
1. If there was ever royal treatment, He should have received it. If God comes in human flesh, it ought to be with glory and pomp.
2. And yet, there has hardly been a more inconspicuous birth, a more obscure birth than the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was born in a stable. And they laid Him in a feeding trough probably filled with hay. The highest One born in the lowest place!
3. No one was there except Mary and Joseph. There were no nurses and no doctors and no prayer chains and no neighbors or friends. No one else at the time even knew what was happening.
VII. So what was Jesus' part in the Christmas story?
A. On one level, it was everything - upholding the universe, creating his own mother, sending forth angels from heaven to the shepherds, arranging for Caesar Augustus to call for a census so that He might be born in Bethlehem.
B. On another level, it was nothing, nothing but to be Jesus, God the Son in human flesh.
C. Have you ever noticed that everyone else does things in the Christmas story: there is a lot of commotion, there are people prophesying, there are angels announcing, there are babies leaping for joy, there are stars shining, there are magi bringing gifts from afar, a lot of different means are being used to draw attention to Jesus, but Jesus Himself does nothing. He doesn't cry, He doesn't coo, He doesn't leap in His mother's womb. He just is. He is who He is.
D. He was born. And His birth doesn't tell us so much about what He did but about who He was. He was God born as a man. The Son of God born as a son of man.
E. Jesus did a lot of astonishing things: spoke to the storm, raised people from the dead, walked on water, turned water into wine, fed thousands of people miraculously, saw into people's hearts, was raised again from the dead.
1. But even more bewildering than what Jesus did is that the Son of God took on human flesh.
VIII. Why? Why did the Son of God become a son of man? Why did Jesus take this enormous step of humiliation by coming in human form? Why would God do such a strange and unthinkable thing as this? Why would He allow His all-glorious Son to be eternally subjected to human existence?
A. Jesus had everything. All glory and perfect happiness and exaltedness. He didn't need anything.
B. Why leave it for a life of humiliation and pain and sorrow and agony and weakness and distress and grief?
C. The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men could become the sons of God.
1. He was made like us so that we could be like Him.
2. He became one of us so we could become one of His.
3. "God and sinners reconciled!"
D. He came among us, He experienced our pain, He tasted our curse, He felt our humanity, He took upon Himself our sin, all in order to win us for Himself, to be His bride forever.
E. It was a step that had to be taken if man was to be saved.
1. Man’s sin could only be paid for by man’s blood, and so "the Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of man could become the sons of God."
2. It was His love for us and His desire for our salvation that compelled Him to become one of us.
F. What a melody of love is being sung here! The highest One took the lowest place in order that the lowest ones could be taken to the highest place!
IX. Conclusion
A. For those who know Him and love Him...
1. We have been given a precious, infinitely valuable, mind-boggling, unspeakable treasure. Let us treasure it. O come let us adore Him.
B. For those who know Him not: No matter how wonderful all this is, it doesn't do any good for you if you do not receive Christ, if you are not born again into Jesus Christ, if you have not come to Christ in faith, and grabbed hold of him, and embraced Him in love and received Him as Lord and Savior.
1. The only hope you have is for the righteousness of Christ to be counted for you, and for your sin to be counted for Him.
2. Without it the incarnation is useless for you.
a. 1Jn.5:12 "He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."
b. John 3:36 "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
3. John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”