Incarnation

Christmas is over. And for most of your friends and neighbors that means it’s back to work and life as it was. But that’s not true for us. The Church in the Old Testament celebrated Passover with joy and happiness on the anniversary of their deliverance from Egypt. But that doesn’t mean that they forgot about what God had done in that event once the celebrating was over. The reality of the exodus from Egypt was the foundation of their life together. And the same is true of us. God’s great work, Jesus’ Incarnation, is not some event to remember once a year. It is the foundation to our life together. And that’s why Paul wrote our text to the Philippians. In this text Paul is describing and applying the Incarnation. There are two aspects that he points to. One has to do with what happened before the Incarnation that led up to it. The other has to do with what Jesus did once He took on flesh. We’ll look at both and then see what they have to say to us.

Listen as I read Philippians 2.1-11.

The first aspect we’ll look at is Jesus’ emptying Himself, His making Himself nothing. Paul is clear. Jesus was God. We’re talking about the Trinity here: the Father, the Son, the Spirit. And yet, Jesus ‘did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped’. He didn’t cling to what it meant that He was God. And what does that mean? Consider a scene from Revelation. There is God on His throne, surrounded by the 24 elders on their thrones along with the four living creatures. And what is happening as John watches? Worship. ‘And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”’ Heaven resounds with praise. Worship, profound worship, is the only proper response to God. And every creature knows that this is the right response. He is, after all, God. But Jesus, God the Son, did not cling to this. He made Himself nothing. Today, we know who Jesus is. He is Almighty God. But think back to Nazareth when Jesus was growing up. What was His claim to fame then? All that the people there knew was that He was the son of one of the town’s carpenters, Joseph’s boy. Now, if you went to another village, say Capernaum, and asked people if they ever heard of this young boy Jesus of Nazareth, they would have given you a blank look. ‘Jesus of Nazareth? Never heard of Him.’ Jesus deserved worship. People should have been praising Him because He was God. But that didn’t happen. And that’s because He didn’t cling to His true status. Instead, He ‘made Himself nothing’. Or to put that in different words, He became a nobody. ‘… though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but He made Himself nothing …’

And that leads to the second aspect that Paul points to. ‘And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient …’ Understand what’s going on here. Jesus, as Incarnate God, submitted Himself to the Father. ‘For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.’ Submission within the Trinity. It was out of that submissive spirit that Jesus obeyed the Father. So, when we read the Gospels and see Jesus doing a miracle or teaching the crowds, He is doing this in submissive obedience to the Father. This is big. But it gets bigger when we see what Paul includes at the end of the sentence: ‘by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross’. When we read this our thoughts go to the suffering that Jesus experienced on that cross, physical and, more so, spiritual suffering. And rightly so. But there was something else going on, something else that you need to remember. To die on a cross was a matter of great shame. Our culture has almost forgotten what shame is about so this aspect of Jesus’ death doesn’t have the punch that it should. Jesus was shamed on that cross. He was labeled a criminal, mocked for His words, stripped naked for all to see. We need to remember this aspect of Jesus’ death, the shame that it meant for Him. So, here are two aspects of the Incarnation: Jesus made Himself a nobody and because of His submission to the Father He experienced great shame.

Now a question. Paul points the Philippians – and us – to the Incarnation of God the Son. Why? His goal in this is not merely to say, ‘Here’s a doctrine about your redemption that you really should be aware of’. No, there’s more. Listen again to an earlier part of this section. ‘Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.’ Let’s translate that. How about this? Imitate Jesus. Imitate Jesus in His Incarnation. And what exactly are we to imitate? Paul is clear. For one thing, Jesus became a nobody. So should you. That doesn’t mean that you should think of yourself as a worthless piece of garbage. You’re not. Jesus wasn’t. It means that though you are a somebody who is valuable and significant, you should lay that all aside, just like Jesus did. Though you are a somebody, have the attitude of a nobody. But having that kind of attitude, the attitude of a nobody, is so difficult. Every day, by all sorts of means, we are all told to assert ourselves, to make sure that we are noticed. We are told that we need to act like a somebody. Everyone hears this, but most people can’t do it, and they know that they can’t. And that is why so many people are so very unhappy. They have this subtle sense that they are failures. They have not achieved the status of a somebody.

But that’s the wrong goal. Paul sets us straight. Imitate Jesus. Become a nobody. And there’s a reason for this. It has to do with being Jesus’ disciple. If you get what Paul is saying then, when Jesus calls you to do whatever it may be, some things will already be clear to you. You’ll know that it’s not important that people notice you and appreciate your strengths. It’s not important that you receive their praise. None of that is important. You are ready to ignore all that so that you can obey His call. The greatest Somebody emptied Himself and became a nobody. You need to also.

And that leads to the second aspect of Incarnation, the second way in which Paul tells us that we are to imitate Jesus: submissive obedience, and that even to the point of being deeply shamed. We become nobodies so that we can obey Jesus’ call. Having the attitude that you are a somebody will get in the way of obedience. The threat of shame will be a barrier to submitting to His call. We empty ourselves of that kind of attitude so that we will obey whenever Jesus calls and to whatever He calls us. Quick and cheerful obedience regardless of the cost.

A good example of all of this is Mary, Jesus’ mother. There she is, engaged to Joseph, looking forward to a happy wedding and a good life with her beloved. But then the angel shows up. He delivers God’s call: pregnant but not married. What could she have said in response? That’s easy. ‘No, no, NO! I have a right to my happiness. This will ruin all of that. Joseph is a righteous man. He’ll not marry me if this happens. And I have such dreams for our life together. What will my parents think or the rest of the town? In their eyes I’ll no longer be, ‘That sweet girl, Mary’. It will be ‘Mary, the slut’. No! This is not for me. I deserve better.’ But that, of course, is not what she said. ‘Behold the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.’ Mary had already emptied herself, adopted the attitude of a nobody, so that she could submit to God’s call regardless of the cost. And we’re back to the kind of prayer that I’ve mentioned to you before, the disciple’s prayer. ‘Lord Jesus, I want to do whatever You want me to do. Just tell me what it is, and give me the ability to do it.’ And that ‘whatever’ may include having your life disrupted, your dreams dashed, your reputation ruined. That’s what happened to Mary. That’s what happened to Jesus. And it just may happen to you. Are you ready for it?

Paul’s point is clear. Imitate Jesus. Assume the attitude of a nobody and pursue submissive obedience, regardless of the cost. That’s what the Incarnation is to look like in your life.

Paul has more to say. He gives us a reason why we should pursue this. Listen again to the opening of our text. ‘So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves …’ The reason that you are to imitate Jesus is tied to the other people in this room. Your imitating Jesus in His Incarnation helps to bring unity. It results in being of the same mind and having the same love when it comes to the other people of Faith Reformed. The reason we are to imitate Jesus has to do with our being the kind of church we have been called to be. The Spirit is calling us to become what we were created to be. In heaven, we will all act like this. We will all have this mind of Jesus, acting like nobodies and ready to obey. And it will be very beautiful. That’s the Church in heaven. Being the Church on earth is something like being an outpost of heaven. We work at imitating Jesus for the sake of the other believers here. Our relationships are to be a taste of heaven. How encouraging! But that’s not all. We also do it for the sake of the world around us. They are watching. One way of interesting them in Jesus is giving them a little hint of what heaven will be like.

Now, this is hard. It will mean living in ways that don’t make sense to them out there. And it may not even make sense to us, at least at first. But Paul includes something that is intended to encourage us. After describing the hardships of Jesus’ Incarnation, Paul writes this, ‘Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name …’ Jesus was called to act like a nobody and to be ready to obey, regardless of the cost. He was faithful to that call. As a result, was rewarded for His faithfulness. God rewards faithfulness. I’ve told you before that I have questions about this, but it’s in the Bible. God rewards faithfulness. Please note that it’s about faithfulness and not ‘success’. And He is the one to do the evaluating, not our neighbors and friends. So, those who ‘have this mind’, who adopt Jesus’ attitude, who empty themselves so that they can obey – these will also enjoy the other side of that ‘therefore’, just as Jesus did. These will be rewarded. Some of those rewards will be experienced now, things like enjoying God more as He draws you closer to Himself thus experiencing a sense of peace and joy that is not common. Other rewards are for later, things enjoyed in the age to come. There will be rewards and the measure of reward will be tied to the measure of faithfulness when Jesus calls. Imitating Jesus will be difficult. When you feel the difficulty remind yourself that God rewards faithfulness.

Let me close with this. We have just finished celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus. And that’s good. But don’t let it be just some annual tradition. The Spirit calls you, day by day, to imitate the Incarnation. And as each of you do that, it will affect us all as a church. As you work at that we will become, more and more, a church of one mind and one love, and to such an extent that Jesus will be honored and the world will be attracted.