Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro*

We are now moving into a new section of our statement of faith.

We looked at the Word of God, God Himself, the Fall of Man and now for a few weeks, the Son of God.

Last week we ended with talking about the need of a Redeemer to come.

We are now going to talk about that Redeemer!

Take a look at two points that relate to this:

/5.    //That Jesus Christ is the Son of God, sent by the Father, begotten by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary; that He lived a sinless and obedient life, suffered and died on the cross vicariously for the sins of those who believe in Him; that God raised Him from the dead, exalted Him both as Lord and Christ, and gave Him the Holy Spirit for His Church.

/

/7.    //That Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and men; through Him and only through Him the believer has access to the Father.

/

Again, this is a mouthful to say, so we will as best as we can, try to unpack these truths the next several weeks looking at His humanity (today), His deity, His suffering and finally His resurrection.

The title of the message today is “Jesus Christ: The Humble Son of Man.”

By the way, whenever you see “Son of Man” as referred to Christ, it usually speaks of His humanity, as opposed to “Son of God,” which refers to His deity.

Today we will look at the former.

One of my favorite shows on television is called /Undercover Boss./

This is a reality show where the CEO of a large company works undercover in its company to learn how the company really works, how it can be improved and to reward the hardworking, usually unnoticed staff.

So in the season premiere, the CEO of Waste Management, Larry O’Donnell, goes undercover and starts working as an entry-level worker, being “forced to snatch recyclable bits of trash from a speeding conveyor belt.

He's made—under the barking orders of a foreman…to fill bags with windblown scraps of litter.

Finally, he's given a scrub brush and a pump and told to clean and empty a long row of portable toilets at a scabrous fairground.”[1]

Workers are told this filming is for a documentary.

In the end, the CEO says he is a changed man and that Waste Management must change as well.

Usually the CEOs will gather all the people he encountered during that week and reveals His identity.

This is my favorite part when the workers are shocked as they realize they had been working with the CEO of the company during the week!

And then, in a nice twist, the CEO tells them that he~/she is going to help them out by promoting them, giving them a raise or promising to mentor them.

It’s a happy ending and a feel good story.

I am sure, like all other reality shows, this is probably not reality at all.

I am not sure if this kind of thing happens outside of a reality show?

If it does, probably very rarely will a CEO do this.

I mean, which CEO has time to do this?

And which CEO wants to do this?

And some of us who work hard week after week might watch this show and might wish we had a CEO who would leave his~/her throne and actually come down and notice us, be in our shoes, pick up the trash with us, recognize us and even perhaps promote us.

The CEOs of our company might not do that, but aren’t you glad we have a true Undercover Boss for our lives?

Jesus Christ, if I may, is the true Undercover Boss.

And that is why I love the show.

It reminds me of who my Savior is and what He has done for me!

And I thank Him that not only does He notice the little people and little churches, He also blesses us in so many ways, lifting us up to have, be and do so much more than we could have ever imagined!

But have you wondered what kind of qualities should our Undercover Boss notice about us?

How do we know how He wants us to be?

If He calls us into his “office” and goes over our work, what will He say?

Will he go over how talented we are?

Will He be amazed at how we got to the top level of our video games?

Will He talk about how much money we made?

How great we look?

How nicely we sing?

What amazing grades we got in school?

Our resume?

What will our Lord Jesus, the true Undercover Boss say about us?

Well, Paul is trying to help a small church answer that same question out as well.

Today we are going to look at a church Paul founded on his second missionary journey, the church at Phillipi.

Paul tells them in our text today that not only do we have great Undercover boss who came not just to watch us for a while and leave, we have One who permanently came to be like us and to save us from destroying ourselves.

And in doing this for us, we have the ultimate model and power source of how to live life and especially how to live life in the church for His glory.

So in Phil.

2:1-4, Paul tells them that if they want Jesus Christ to be glorified in this church, if they want to enter His boardroom and receive His commendation and blessing, they must realize this great truth: /It is not great talents that God blesses, but great likeness to Jesus Christ!/

I believe this quote is attributed to the old Scottish pastor Robert Murray McCheyne.

This is the point of Paul’s command in Phil 2:5.

“Have this mind” here literally means “to set one's mind or heart upon something.”[2]

It is not a casual, maybe if I like it, kind of thing (notice the command), but a very intentional, purposeful attitude to adopt.

It is in the present tense, meaning it is to be continuously, working and developing in the church.

Within your church community at Philippi then, develop the attitudes that you already have in Christ, let it rule every move you make.

But what in a nutshell, was the attitude that Christ had that primarily marked His life?

Paul says here it was one of /humility/.

But what does it mean to be humble as Christ was humble?

What exactly are we to imitate or model?

As one commentator asks, “What was it that seemed important to Jesus?

What principles did he cherish?

What objectives?

On what footing were his choices made?”[3]

First of all:

*I.  **Selflessness (Phil.

2:6)*

We are about to get a lesson on Christology here and namely His deity and His humanity.

Supposedly, these verses (vv.6-11) are parts of a hymn sung by the early church.

First of all, Paul says Christ was “in the form of God.” J.A. Motyer says this means “one who possessed inwardly and displayed outwardly the very nature of God himself.”[4]

Jesus was and is and will be very God of very God.

NIV says “who being.”

The words /who being/ in Greek are a present participle indicating continuing existence from the beginning (Genesis 1:1).[5]

So when we talk about the person of Jesus Christ we mean /undiminished deity and perfect humanity united in one person forever/.[6]

Like the Trinity, how can Jesus Christ be 100% man and 100% God at the same time is truly a mystery.

Here Paul emphasizes the “undiminished deity.”

Jesus was always God (we will look more into this next week).

Though Jesus possessed full deity and as God and did not need anything, since He always had everything, Paul says, yet, He “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

He means though Christ had all the honors, privileges and honors of being God, He did not tightly hold on to them.

So “He did not regard it as /something that must not slip from his grasp/.”[7]

So “though He was God, Christ refused to cling to His favored position with all its rights and honors, but was willing to give them up for a season.”[8]

The first Adam wanted to be like God, (i.e. he tried to, like Satan, “snatch” it for himself) and selfishly thought only for himself, but here Christ, the second Adam, though He was God and already has all honors and privileges of God, willingly and selflessly gave them up for others.

Isn’t it ironic that Adam and Eve thought being like God meant they could master their own existence and get what they wanted, but God shows us that if you truly want to be like God, it is actually giving and spending yourself out for others.

In fact, God’s true nature, then “is characterized not by selfish grabbing but by an open-handed giving.”[9]

Aren’t you glad that Jesus Christ, who is God of very God, who had the riches of Heaven, the praise and adoration of all the angels, did not look down at pitiful humanity and think, “I am Eternal God.

I have and own everything.

I’m not going to give this up to save Robin Koshy!

Give this up and become a man?

A slave? DIE?!

No way!”

Paul says Christ was selfless.

But not only was He selfless in deciding to lay aside His rights to come to earth, He was selfless in this way every moment on earth.

Stephen Smith in his book /Dying to Preach /explains this:

While Christ took on the form of a human, he set aside his rights as God.

In other words, all of Christ's time on earth he was always Godlike.

When he was tired in Samaria, he was all-powerful; when he was asking questions in the temple, he was all-knowing; and when he was present in a particular place, he was omnipresent.

It is simply that he made a choice not to take hold of what was always, and always will be, his—namely, his God-like properties.

Imagine that you are visiting a hospital.

You cannot find a parking place close to the hospital, so you park way in the back, and now you are lost.

You stop another driver in the lot to ask directions, and he kindly says that he will just park beside you and walk with you to where you need to be in the hospital.