Jesus, the Suffering Servant

Philippians 2:5-8

Let us hear God’s word together.
This is from Philippians chapter two, verses five through eight.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality
with God, a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking
the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and
being found in human form, he humbled himself. by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Let us
pray together. Our God and father, we pray now
that in these few moments that your word would be real to us
and that the call to unity and humility would not be academic. It would not be straight from
the Bible as it were and into our minds, but that it would
sink deeply into our hearts that in order to save us, Jesus left
heaven. He came to earth. He suffered
and he died for us. We think of that passage of scripture
where the apostle tells us greater love has no man than a man who
would lay down his life for others. Lord, what a way of humility.
We pray that by your spirit and through your word that we would
be humble, that we would serve others and that even we would
sacrifice things we love and hold dear and precious things
that are even high priorities, that we would sacrifice them.
for the sake of others, and that having loved you and loved our
neighbor, we might one day arrive in heaven and hear, well done,
good and faithful servant. This we ask for your help and
grace, and we pray it in Jesus’ name, amen. Here’s a pop quiz
for you. Who is the humblest person who
ever lived on the face of the earth? Now think for just a moment. Now, I bet if you asked most
modern people on the street, you had a video camera man behind
you and you had the microphone and maybe like Jesse Waters on
Fox News, you went out and interviewed people and quizzed them, probably
the most popular answer would be Mother Teresa. And there would
be good reason for that answer. She helped the poorest of poor
in India. She was a modern day servant
in such a way that because of modern media and news outlets
and the ability for her life to be made more public than any
other figure in human history, we would not be far off. But
you know, there’s a person. who really lived, a person who
is not a figment of our imagination, a person who is not made up,
but a person who is real, who was from heaven, who was very
God of very God, light of light, who was at the creation when
God formed it. As we said in our creed a few
moments ago, he formed it in the space of six days and all
very good. And that person is Jesus. is
the humblest person who ever lived. And our passage from Philippians
today tells us just that. Now, I want you to think for
a few moments about how you read Bible stories. When you read
a Bible story, and modern day preachers haven’t helped us too
much with this, but when we read a Bible story, the thing we like
to automatically do is put ourselves into one of the characters. We
want to say this character I can really identify with. And so,
for example, we hear a little sermon or a Bible teaching about
King David. King David was a shepherd boy.
And one day there was a giant who was attacking God’s army.
And that giant’s name was Goliath. He was big and nasty and mean
and scary and hairy. And he was, what, 12 feet tall
or 14 feet? We don’t know. His sword was
taller than anybody. And, you know, he could swing
it and kill eight people at one blow. And you know how the story
goes. Well, what does David do? He goes and selects his five
smooth stones. He goes and confronts Goliath,
and he whirls and swirls that slingshot, and that stone flies
and pops him in the head, whereas Helman isn’t protecting, and
he falls over dead, and David’s automatically the hero. Well,
what do we hear? What do we hear when we have
that verse applied to us? Well, we hear things like, you
gather your five smooth stones, and if you have these five can’t
even say it, five smooth stones, you can get through anything
in life. And those five smooth stones might be prayer and Bible
reading and what else is there, journaling, taking communion. I don’t know, we could make up
a list of five because you’ve got to have five smooth stones because David
had five smooth stones. And you see how it gets off the
beaten path really quick. And then the sermon or the teaching
goes on something like this. Who are the Goliaths in your
life? Well, I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t have any Goliaths
in my life. There are not any 12 foot Philistines in my life. Now there’s some pretty nasty
people who live around me and I’ve bumped into in life, but
I don’t have any Goliaths in my life and you don’t either.
But you get the point. What are the Goliaths in your
lives? You can overcome them with your five smooth stones of prayer
and what else? Well, you know what the point
of the story of David and Goliath is? The point of the story is
not you. And if you were to identify,
which you shouldn’t do, but if you were to identify with a person
in the story, guess what? You would be Goliath, because
guess what? Without Jesus, you’re an enemy of God. You hate God’s
people without Christ. You hate everything that God
loves and holds dearly. So the rule is, if there’s a
bad guy in the story, you’re it. If there’s a good guy in
the story, you’re not it. But that gets us off the beaten
path even a little bit more. The point of the story of David
and Goliath is this. God fights for his people and
he fights for his people through David, his Davidic messianic
king, who points us to a greater messianic king named Jesus, who
comes and fights. Well, I shouldn’t say it this
way, but the biggest Goliath, I just broke my own rule. And
who is that big Goliath? It’s Satan. And so you see how
in Bible stories we can turn a Bible story into a Be Like
Mike ethical sermon. Remember in the 1980s, who did
everybody want to be like? Michael Jordan. And so the same
sometimes in pastoral circles is we don’t preach Be Like Mike
sermons. Now, how did every little boy
shoot baskets back in the 1980s? He stuck his tongue out like
Michael Jordan and he shot like Michael Jordan. And what does
every young person who wants to be like Michael Jordan wear?
Number 23 shoes. I saw a grown man yesterday in
a full 23 outfit. But sometimes we preach be like
Mike sermons. Now, is there a place for that?
Yes. And today is just that, because
guess what Paul is going to say to the Philippians. He’s going
to say, you want the way of humility? Be like Jesus. Now, we all want
to be like Michael Jordan, greatest basketball player ever. Went
to the wrong school, but nevertheless, he turned out OK. But we want
to play basketball like Michael Jordan. But who wants to be like
Jesus when it comes to a passage like today’s? Who wants to leave
the riches of heaven? Who wants to suffer and die? And the Apostle Paul is going
to say to us, if you want the way of humility, you must be
like Jesus. In fact, in verse five, it says
these words have this mind among yourselves, which is yours also
in Christ. So you want to be humble. You
have the mind of Jesus. Well, how do we know the mind
of Jesus? Well, we have the mind of Jesus in verses six, seven,
And this passage is going to speak to us about the humility
of Jesus. And this is going to stretch
back to verse 27 of chapter one, where it says, live in a manner
worthy of the gospel. What’s one of the ways we can live in
a manner worthy of the gospel? We can be humble like Jesus.
This passage is going to tell us to consider others or last
week’s passage to one to four. Consider others better than yourselves. and count their needs as more
important than your own needs. Well, how do you do that? Well,
you do it through the humility of Jesus. So let’s look at his
humility in a couple of ways, and then let’s come back to our
humility. First thing we see, though, is Jesus’ heavenly humility. Look at verse six. Verse six
says, about the mind of Christ Jesus, Jesus who, though he was
in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to
be grasped. That’s a pretty weighty verse.
Now, just five months ago, we were making our way through the
Christmas story. Oh, we love the Christmas story, baby Jesus
in the manger, and Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem, and there’s
the donkey in the stable, and there’s what we imagine is the
innkeeper saying there’s no room in the inn, and we got the Christmas
story down pat. But do you ever wonder what was
Jesus doing before he was God incarnate. What was Jesus doing
before Bethlehem, before he was in Mary’s tummy? Before, as we
say in our creed, he was conceived by the Holy Ghost. What was Jesus
doing? Well, the Bible tells us that
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have
existed from eternity. They never have had a beginning
and they never have an end. But what were Jesus and God the
Father and God the Holy Spirit doing? They were doing what gods
do, just what they want. Now, we know from the scriptures
that there were things going on, there were divine councils,
there were plans and promises and covenants made, and we can
get ourselves in quick trouble if we’re not careful. But we
read passages, like in Colossians 1, where it says, Jesus, Jesus
is God. Jesus is the exact imprint of
God, the father, or in a book of Hebrews, it says he is the
radiance. He is the glory. He is the majesty
of almighty God. Our creeds, our scriptures, the
Bible teaches us that Jesus, before he was God incarnate,
before the son of God became man through birth, he was with
God. He was God himself. He was in
heaven. He had the form of God. He was
the glory of God. That’s literally what that means.
He was the radiance of almighty God. Jesus was God. Jesus was
at creation. Jesus was at the covenant of
redemption. Jesus was the wisdom. The book of Proverbs tells us
Jesus was wisdom and that wisdom is what created the world and
everything in it. So where was Jesus before his birth? He was in heaven. He was God. He was the second person of the
Trinity, full of majesty and glory and radiance. He was the
light of heaven itself and the pride of God the Father. And
we miss this because we don’t participate in the arts like
we used to. Just the other week, we went
over to the North Carolina Museum of Art and they had some Renaissance
art. And there was some weird stuff, I’ll have to tell you.
But there were lots of pictures of Jesus. And I know sometimes
we fuss and fume and say, that’s breaking the commandment of images
and all that. But in the artwork of the Renaissance, they taught
a lot about Jesus. Our ancient hymns, Even our modern
hymns, like today, we sang a hymn that was written in 1960. There
are continually good things being written. But our ancient hymns,
our ancient creeds, art from many centuries, it expresses
to us the full deity of Christ. And we miss that because why?
Because we only focus on the humanity of Jesus. Is the humanity
of Jesus a good thing to focus on? Yes, it is. But we need not
forget the deity of Christ. In fact, next passage. We come
to and Philippians is going to say Jesus is Yahweh. But, you
know, we get our little kids books and we have stacks of them
at home and Jesus looks like a Birkenstock wearing hippie
and other things. And we have this little picture
that it’s Jesus, meek and mild, the humble servant. And we forget
that he was God, that he is God, the second person of the Trinity,
and that his glory and majesty is equal with the Father, equal
with the Holy Spirit. But there is a humility in verse
six that we do not want to miss. And it says, though he was in
the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to
be grasped. And the next statement is going
to lead to the second point about humility. But before we get there,
we need to understand that Jesus in heaven, the second person
of the Trinity, equal with God, the radiance, the majesty of
heaven itself, did not consider this something to be grasped.
Now, what does that mean? Well, we would like to get an
award, wouldn’t we? Maybe win the lottery or become person
of the year, man of the year, mother of the year, whatever
it is, employee of the month, get a parking spot. We’d love
that. And we’d never want it taken away from us. But you see,
Jesus here was willing to have his glory and majesty removed. In order that he could come to
earth and save sinners, he thought it something not to be grasped. And so when we speak of the descent
of Jesus, the coming down of Jesus, Jesus, the God becoming
the God-man and coming to earth, we speak about his descent, his
humiliation, his coming down. We think of it as riches to rags. Now, we love rags to riches stories.
I mean, we love it when somebody from humble beginnings works
hard. They work their way up. They
find that capitalism actually is a wonderful thing. They work
hard, they labor hard, and they go from rags to riches. And their
story is a success story. They give motivational speeches.
They write a how-to book. And we all want to be like them.
But who wants to go from riches to rags? Who wants to go from
the highest of heavens to a Bethlehem stable? Well, we remember one
of the types, one of the pre examples of what Christ would
be like in Moses. The book of Hebrews tells us
that Moses would rather suffer the reproach of Christ than be
the prince of Egypt. And he left behind the riches
of Egypt, being Pharaoh’s child in order to identify with the
people of God. And he would rather suffer the
reproach of Christ and lead the people of God out of Egypt and
into the promised land. And friends, that’s what humility
looks like. Sometimes we may be in high and
exalted places and God may say to us, for you, it is riches
to rags. And that was Jesus’ mind. Now
think for just a moment about Jesus. Jesus is the second Adam.
What did the first Adam do? The first Adam failed. The first
Adam said, I will have what I will have. He was grasping for power. He was grasping for knowledge.
He was grasping for something in life. But not so Jesus. He emptied himself. And that
leads us to our second consideration of Jesus’ humility. First is
heavenly humility. Now is earthly humility. Look
at verse seven. Jesus made himself nothing, taking
the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men,
and being found in human form. Jesus was slowly, step by step,
lowering himself from the throne of heaven and becoming the dust
of the earth. And eventually, instead of sitting
on an earthly throne, he will be nailed to a cross. But his
earthly humility It speaks of Jesus emptying himself in two
ways. Now, some of you have bumped
into liberal 20th century theology. And you know, you bumped into
this, what’s called the kenosis theory is the Greek word in the
book of Philippians here in chapter two, verse seven, where it says
Jesus emptied himself, the kenosis. And people believe that when
Jesus became the God man, he actually left his Godness or
his deity behind. And the Bible does not teach
that. And the early church has affirmed what is good and right
and true and says, no, Jesus is God. He just took on the form
of man. He’s God, a man in two distinct natures, one person
forever and ever. And as the old Scottish people
say, the dust of the earth is now sitting on the throne of
heaven. But Jesus emptied himself. And so how did he empty himself?
Well, instead of speculating and becoming 20th century liberals,
which a lot of folks have chosen to do, do what we should do best
and go through verse seven. Verse seven, it says he made
himself nothing or he emptied himself. Well, how did he do
that? He did that in two ways. One is he took the form of a
servant. And second, he was born, he was born in our likeness.
He took the form of a human. He was born in the likeness of
men. So how did Jesus humiliate himself? How did he become humble
on earth? Well, he became He became a servant
and he became a man. Now, I’m told by some of the
folks who taught me at Reformed Theological Seminary down in
Charlotte that in the early days of Reformed Theological Seminary
in Jackson, when R.C. Sproul was a teacher there, that
in class he would ask lots of questions of his students. And
Sproul, I think, was, at that time, at least a cigar or cigarette
smoker. And he would pull out his lighter. And when he would
ask a question, he would light it. And he would remind them,
this was his way of joking, Heretics are burned at the stake. And
let me just tell you, when you get into the two natures of Jesus,
how is, how is he both God and man at the same time and without
mixing it and without whatever, you can become a heretic really
fast. And so I think of R.C. Sproul in my mind, getting out
his lighter and daring these students to become heretics.
It can get sticky fast, but what did Jesus do when he humbled
himself? He became a servant and he took on humanity. He considered his verse. 7 tells
us, he considered his equality with God nothing and he made
himself nothing. He took on the form of a servant
and he was born in the likeness of men. He was born like us. He was made like us. And that
had to take place in order, in order that when he died, a man
would die for the sins of mankind. Now think two ways about Jesus. One is being in the form of a
servant. Where did Jesus most graciously show himself a servant
before the cross? Well, it was about two nights
before the cross or one night. A Hebrew never washed the feet
of others. That was a servant’s job. But
as the disciples made provisions for the last supper in the upper
room, the Passover they were going to have, they did not make
provisions in this rented space, borrowed space for a foot washing.
And what do you know? They all start showing up to
dinner and Jesus takes a basin. And he takes a towel and he begins
to wash the feet of his disciples. Here is the servant of God in
his earthly humility, humbled himself. He took on the form
of a servant. This was the God who is majestic
and full of glory in heaven. He makes his descent to earth
to serve others. And he takes up the basin and
the towel. Now we think about Jesus’ human
experience. We think of Jesus as a little
baby. He didn’t cry. He didn’t fuss. He never got
an upset tummy because the milk was rotten. We think he never
really had messy diapers. He was a good little boy. He
didn’t give his mom a lick of trouble. No, Jesus was human without sin,
born of the Virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Ghost. But he lived
in human conditions like we do. He was made under the law. He
had to obey the law of God perfectly. but he was born in our likeness
because someone in our likeness had to obey God perfectly and
die for our sins. And so this speaks of the earthly
humility of Jesus. How about the ultimate humility
of Jesus? That’s the third way, the heavenly
humility, the earthly humility, but now the ultimate humility,
verse eight. It says, being found in human
form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross. Those are words which we could
pass over very quickly. That’s why we sang the old rugged
cross. It speaks of the emblem of shame and death. You see,
for a person to die on a cross in Roman culture was a humiliating
way of dying. It was a long and suffering way
of dying. To be lethally injected in today’s
terms is a little clean. Maybe you go back some decades
to the electric chair or some decades before that to the old
rope and hanging or the firing squad. But this was not something
to brag about. And so we see Jesus’ ultimate
humility. And we think it begins at the
cross, but it backs up the night before he’s praying in the garden.
And that’s after he’s been sold out by Judas. And he’s praying
in the garden, tells his disciples, pray with me, watch and pray.
They can’t do it, they sleep. And Jesus sweats droplets of
blood. His body is literally pushing
blood through the capillaries and out his sweat canals, as
it were. And he says to the father, if
it be your will, take this cup, let it pass from me. And it says,
angels come and tend to Jesus there in the garden. He’s in
anguish. He is sorrowful unto death. He who knew no sin was
going to be made sin that next day for us. Ultimate humility. And then at the cross, oh, we
think of the nails and how miserable, or the beatings or the crown
of thorns, how awful that would be. But you know what the worst
of it? My God. My God, why have you forsaken
me? The God who he had rich fellowship with and glory is God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit together enjoyed rich
fellowship and unity together in heaven. He turned his back
on his own son and he poured out all his wrath on him for
us. That cup was the worst. But here is Jesus, the form of
a servant, the second Adam, made like us in order that we could
be made like him. And so in verse five, when the
apostle Paul says to us, have this mind, have this mind and
you be like Christ Jesus, who left heaven, who came to earth,
who suffered and died. And so when he commands us to
have unity, when he commands us to get along, when he commands
us to serve one another, we say riches to rags, no thank you. We say, pick up the basin and
wrap the towel. We say, above or below my pay
grade. Or when we go through agony or
embarrassment, or even the curses of God and the hardships of life
for others. We want our rights. We want our
comfort level. And what is the apostle saying?
He says, serve others. like Jesus has served you. Remember on Maundy Thursday,
remember the time when Jesus had the last supper and he wrapped
the towel around him, he got the basin and he washed his feet.
The reason we call it Maundy Thursday is Jesus issued a mandate
to his disciples. And he said, do like I have done
to one another. You also ought to wash one another’s
feet. We get busy, our calendars get
filled up. Some things people need are kind
of icky and gross. Some people are a pain. Some
people are difficult. Some people are ungrateful when
we serve them. And we can come up with a list
of excuses and reasons and this and that. And guess what? We
may walk our way through life as the people of God saved by
Jesus who left heaven and came to earth. And we may not ever
serve another because we’ve got our reasons. And this passage
is meant to upset the apple cart and say, think differently by
having the mind of Christ Jesus. Let us pray together. Our gracious
God, we pray that you would work in our hearts and our minds so
that we might serve like Jesus has served. Oh, what a tall order
it is. We could never do it, but by
your spirit and with your grace, we could do it and we could be
We could be a blessing to others. We could be a blessing as a congregation. We could be a blessing even to
the world when they look into our little fellowship here and
see what you must be like. And so we pray, Father, that
the end goal of our unity and our humility and our rich life
together would be to put on display to the watching world what the
unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit must be like. and
that more and more men and women and boys and girls may come to
faith in Jesus, the suffering servant. And they may be with
us one day in the new heavens and the new earth, where the
lion will dwell with the lamb and there will be peace. Oh Lord,
grant it, may it be so in us and in others for your glory.
And we pray it in Jesus’ name, amen. Let us stand as we respond
to the goodness of God and sing what is a Christmas hymn but
very appropriate to our message. Thou didst leave thy throne,
number 127.