The Ultimate Christmas Gift

I love Christmas, I was thinking just a few minutes ago, just anticipating the day we're having all our family over my entire immediate family, eight grandchildren now, and we have two new grandchildren this year, that's kind of how you mark your Christmases, you know, we have the Austin Cole Christmas this year, and just thinking about what it's going to be like when it's all over, and we complain about eating too much, and then figure out that Cole, for example, we could have just bought him boxes and paper, because that's what he'd be playing with instead of toys, but it's a wonderful time to be with our families, and the reason that that is so true for us who know Jesus Christ and have come to into the family of God and have been caught right in the midst of this relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the children of God, sons and daughters of God, it's an amazing reality to be embraced by the living God as His children.

I remember some years ago, Jay Packer, I was reading one of his books, and he said that adoption was at the very center of God's work of salvation. Adoption is just one of many different aspects of, of satireology, the doctrine of salvation. I never really thought of that as being in the center, but he said, this is really the essence of what salvation is. It's God bringing you into His family and making you His child. And Christmas time, I think, especially because it's a time in our culture and really among all believers around the world where families get together and celebrate God's good gift, His great love for His people. It's such a wonderful time, and I rejoice in it. In Acts 3, we're going to look at Philippians 2, but let me just read you a couple of verses out of Acts 3.

This is the incident where after the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit, the church has been birthed, and Peter and John are going to temple to pray. And on the way, there's a man there, a lame man, a man who's been lame from his mother's womb, and they used to carry him to the temple grounds where he would be seated and ask alms, ask for donations to help him. And he's being carried along before they've even arrived at the spot where they would sit him. He sees Peter and John, and he begins to ask them if they might give him some alms. And Peter, along with John, it says in verse 4 of Acts 3, fixed his gaze upon him and said, look at us. He began to give them his attention, his attention, expecting to receive something from them.

But Peter said, I do not possess silver and gold. But what I do have, I give to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, walk. And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up, and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened, and with a leap, he stood upright and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. In the FF Bruce's little commentary on, or actually his big commentary on the book of Acts, he tells a story by the Thomas Aquinas who went in to visit Pope Innocent III. And when he came in, the Pope was actually counting a very large sum of money, according to the story. And the Pope said to Thomas Aquinas, you see Thomas, the church can no longer say, silver and gold, have I none.

And Thomas Aquinas said to the Pope, that's true, holy Father. But neither can she now say rise and walk. What is it that the church can give to the world? We don't have healing services around here, although we've seen God supernaturally heal some people this year, it's been an amazing year. We don't see miracles like you do in the book of Acts in the church. What is it that we can give to the world? What is it that we can say, such as I have, give I unto thee? Well, the great thing that we can give is what Christmas is really all about. At the very heart of the gospel and the heart of the meaning of Christmas is the truth of a triune God's self-giving love to his people. And it begins in the Father's heart, the our Father in heaven, the one to whom we pray.

John 3.16 says of him, for God's soul loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believed that them should not perish but have everlasting life. That's the heart of Christmas. This is this great display of the love of God for fallen mankind, for his people. Turn with me to Philippians chapter 2. We'll take a few minutes just to encourage your hearts on this Christmas-y day concerning God's great love for you. This great love for his people. Listen to this. As Paul exhorts the believers at Philippi, he says in chapter 2, verse 5, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, adopt this mindset, think like this. Have this perspective, and then he begins to describe the mindset, the attitude of Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men and being found an appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. I want you to notice a couple things about this passage. This is one of my favorite passages, and I think I come to this so many times when we actually come to it in our study of Philippians, I feel like jumping over because I've talked about it so much. But I want to point out a few things that I think are so important, especially in light of what we are celebrating tonight and tomorrow. First of all, Paul tells us that Jesus was truly in the form of God, that God, the son from eternity, was in the form of God.

That is, and he explains in verse 6, notice, being in the form of God means that he was equal with God. The word form here is exactly the right word to use, to describe what Paul is talking about, because it denotes those characteristics or qualities and a thing that make it what it is, that he was in the morphe of God, that he projected exactly what God is in all of his glory. If you could have been caught up into the third heaven and seen the pre-incarnate son of God, in eternity past, you would have seen what God truly is. Of course, you would have been destroyed in the process because no man could look at him in our fallen state and live. But he was in the form of God. Notice the comparison down in verse 7, it says, he became in the likeness of men, he uses a different word there, schematta, from which we get a word scheme or schematic.

It means that there's an outward form there, but it doesn't tell the whole story. So when people saw Jesus walking around the sea of Galilee, on the shores of the sea of Galilee and walking those roads in Palestine, they saw a man, perhaps he was five foot seven, and he had swarthy skin, he was Jewish. They didn't realize that what they were seeing was the eternal God, walking around as a man. So he was in the, he was in the likeness of men, but in morphe from all eternity he has been God. It doesn't mean he was fuller to God. It means that his basic essential characteristic is that he is deity. This is one of the strongest statements of the deed of Christ found in all of scripture. He was in very nature God.

You'll have people coming to your door during the year who knock on your door and want to, want to communicate their religious beliefs to you who are going to tell you if you question them that Jesus Christ is not from all eternity. The Mormons and the, and others who go door-to-door and want to talk to you about their faith, the problem with their faith is that they don't believe what's true about Jesus Christ, that he is the eternal God in very nature he is God. It defines what it means for Christ to be in the form of God here in the sense that he is equal with God. And this is really what gives us the strength of this whole passage, that the one who emptied himself, the one who humbled himself and made himself of no reputation and came among us and became one of us, is no less than eternal God himself.

And then Paul tells us also in verse 6 that he did not regard this divine equality as something to exploit, that's something to be grasped, this being equal with God. Now this being equal with God was not something that Jesus desired to have and didn't have, it was something that he had had from all eternity. It was always his, but what Paul is saying is he didn't see it as something to be grasped when the idea there is not as, he didn't see it as an opportunity to be seized for his own advantage, to be taken advantage of. In other words, Paul is saying, who though of the same nature as God did not think this something to be exploited to his own advantage, being in the form of God as he was, Christ did not consider this being equal with God, an opportunity to be seized, but he emptied himself, he poured himself out.

What a contrast that this one was in the form of God and yet he emptied himself. That wouldn't be any big deal for me to empty myself because it's really not that much there and that's true of all of us, but for God to empty himself is the most magnificent truth in all his scripture, the plan of redemption. The third thing that Paul tells us here is that instead of grasping, of seizing this being equal with God, as Paul says, he offered the true interpretation of what it meant to be equal with God. See, that's what Jesus Christ was doing. He was unveiling to us in a way that couldn't be unveiled in any other way, the true interpretation of what it means to be equal with God. He became human. He died under the weight of the sin of the world.

He was obedient to this divine saving plan and only God could do that. Only God was willing to become man. So this God-likeness did not mean for Christ that he would be grasping and seizing and taking hold of this position that he had, this great manifestation of his equality with God. See, that was the characteristic of the gods and lords that the Philippians knew about, the people who lived in Philippi. They knew about gods and lords who seized power and seized glory. In fact, Nero was the Caesar at this time, the Emperor of the Roman Empire. And Nero was the most egotistical man you will ever find in all history. He was a man who thought he was a genius. He used to read his poetry and forced thousands of people to listen to his poetry because he thought he was such a poet.

When he died, he said, oh, what a genius dies in me. It was his last words. Can you imagine that? That kind of ego. And he demanded that the people in the Empire call him Lord and Savior, Kurya Sotere, the very title that belongs to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. It was nothing for Nero to be emptied any was after he took the life of Paul and a couple of the other apostles. What is he teaching these Philippians here? Not a new view of Jesus. It's something they already knew, but what he is driving home is a real life implications of this truth. But the one who humbled himself nearly 2,000 years ago and came into this world and was born in a manger. I mean, this was not a home shelter.

This was an animal shelter. The God of glory came to be born in an animal shelter. And Paul wants to drive home to the hearts of the Philippians. This was an act of humility. And this is the kind of humility you must treat one another with. This is the kind of mindset that you have to maintain in your relationships with each other. So in the manger and in the cross, God's true character. That is one aspect of his character is so mind-blowing and that is his outlandish, lavish expression of fatherly love was fully manifested. It is at the manger that we see in such an incredible way, the great love of the father's heart. And Paul is calling them to manifest the same kind of love in their life together.

That is what he is calling us to do as a local church, to love each other in this kind of way. Now, notice the comparison here in verse 6, he says, he didn't see this as something to be grasped, to hang on to tightly to seize. Well, if you look back in verse 4, he tells them, don't be looking out for your own personal interests. Don't be seizing your own personal interests. How do you manage your life? How do you manage your time? Is it based upon what's best for you? Imagine if Jesus would have adopted the mindset of the modern-day managers of our culture. He would have never come to Bethlehem. He would have never humbled himself. He would have never come into this world to die for us. He would have clung on to this manifesting equality with God, with all of his might.

Paul's appeal here is for them to have this same kind of mindset. Jesus didn't act in this way, and he says, you are not to act in this way either. So he appeals to them to maintain this mindset and their relationships with each other, as they consider one another more important than themselves. And you ever thought about the comparison of Jesus with Adam? You know, Jesus is called the second Adam. The first Adam was created in the image of God. And in fact, every person in this room this morning bears the image of God, though it's been marred by the fall, and though we direct perfectly, we all bear the image of God. We even see it in people who don't know Jesus Christ. They have within them the image of God.

Adam had the image of God in perfection. And yet he considered equality with God as something to be seized. Remember what Satan said to him? God doesn't want you to eat of this tree because if you do, you will be equal with God. You will be like God. And Adam seized that opportunity. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ, who was in the form of God from all eternity, disdained this kind of grasping, and he did just the opposite, he became a man. We have here the self-empting of God so that God becomes a man. Adam tried to become God and failed, but Jesus Christ, who was God, became a man in perfection. Why did he do that? Because he wasn't looking out for himself. He was looking out for your needs. Every person in this room who sits here this morning, whether you have ever come to trust in Jesus Christ or not, the fact is there is an event in history that is in place, almost 2,000 years ago, where God did something that has changed everything about you and your status before God.

Colossians chapter 1 says that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has changed our identity, the identity of this entire universe, every angel, every spirit being, every human being, everything that exists in this universe has been changed. When you sit here this morning, as people who are in a position to be told that God loves people just like you, so much that he sent his son into the world, and when you turn to him in faith, when you believe upon him, when you receive him by faith, the Father receives you into his family as a son or daughter of God, and you live with him before eternity. That's what Christmas is all about. It's God reaching all the way down to where you are, and you know how deep in the pit that you are.

Notice in verse 7 of Philippi, he says, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men. It doesn't say he emptied himself of something, in particular. A lot of people try to figure this out. What did he empty himself up? What was it that was in him that he got rid of, that he poured out, well it was himself. He poured himself out, and in fact it tells you in this verse how he did it, by taking the form of a bond servant. He poured himself out by becoming a bond servant. Now the word emptied here, he emptied himself. The word emptied is used most commonly in all ancient literature, this particular Greek word, to refer to something that becomes powerless.

It's emptied of its power, or it's emptied of its significance. And here it says, Jesus himself emptied himself. This stands in direct contrast to what he said back in verse 3. He says, I don't want you doing anything out of empty conceit. This is the exact opposite of empty conceit. He pours himself out. Second Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9, it says, though he was rich, what an understatement, though he was rich. You know this person, the second person of the Godhead, God the Son, the Bible teaches that he is the one. This is the person of the Trinity who spoke this universe into existence. This is the person of the Trinity who maintains the universe in existence. He was rich. He owns everything.

And it says, Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, though he was rich, he became poor, that you might become rich in him. Isn't that amazing? That through his poverty, you might become rich in God. That's what was necessary. You know what Christ was doing? He was revealing the true nature of God. He was telling us what kind of God it is that we serve. This is the kind of God who pours himself out. This is the kind of God who gives himself. Not just gifts. You see, God didn't just send somebody. He sent his one and only unique son into the world to die for sinners. It's mind-boggling in its implications. The character of God has been revealed in the mindset of Jesus and the activity of Jesus, the Son of God.

This is divine selflessness. Divine selflessness. What an amazing thing. You know, we get a clear picture in the Bible of God as he truly is, the sovereign ruler of the universe. The holy righteous judge before whom every man is going to stand in the person of his son. He's a righteous judge. And the Bible says in Romans 1 and 2, that every single one of us in this room is going to stand before the judge of all the earth in given account, that he's going to look into your heart. He's going to judge you based not only on your actions, the decisions that you have made, but he's going to judge you based upon the motivations of your heart. I see these bumper stickers, you know, let's say I believe in a woman's virtues.

I think it should say I believe in a woman's responsibility to choose, because we ought to be telling people the truth. You are going to stand before a holy God, and you're going to give an account for your choices. Yes, God gives you choices. In fact, one of the marks of the New Covenant is that God has relationship with people today as adult children, not little bitty kids. I got a bunch of little bitty kids and not a bunch. I got a few little bitty kids in our household, and you know, you don't give responsibility to those little bitty children who can barely crawl around the room. You just tell them what to do. The unique thing about the New Covenant is when God saves people today, he doesn't make them little babies.

He brings them into the family as adult children, and he gives them responsibilities. He treats them as adults, and God's going to hold us accountable. And imagine this, that you're going to stand before this righteous judge, and he is going to judge you based upon your actions and your motivations, the secrets of your heart, the things that nobody else in the universe knows except God. You're going to have to stand before this righteous judge, and yet the good news is this same righteous judge is the one who poured himself out so that you could escape that judgment. And he did that by allowing someone else to stand in your place, and all of your sin being placed upon him. Every single one of them, that mountain of sin, that mountain of rebellion, that mountain of falling short of God's righteous standard, was placed upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ, and he took them to the cross, and the Father judged him for me.

So that when I stand before Christ, and he opens up the book, he's going to say, Frank Griffith, you acted righteously. Now a few of you know me well enough to know, I don't always act righteously, but that's what God's going to say, because Jesus Christ has taken my place, and his righteous record has been imputed to me. It's been put upon my account. And so if you could look at the books today, if you had a computer that you could log into the computer in heaven, then there ain't no computers in heaven, I can tell you. But if there were, and you could look up my account, you wouldn't find any dirt. You'd only find holiness and righteousness, because his righteousness isn't imputed to me. You know, we all know the truth, all those of us who are old enough to know, we all know that this room is filled with a bunch of people who have failed to meet up to God's standard.

This week, I'm not talking about 30 years ago, I'm talking about this week. And yet this Christ who humbled himself, and he did it by taking on the form of a bond servant, he has stood in your place, and God has poured out your sin upon him, and then he has poured out his judgment upon Christ, and then Christ's righteousness has been poured out upon me, put upon my account. And he says this mindset that Christ had, that the Father had, is the mindset that you and I are to have towards one another. I'm to have the mindset of one who took to taking the form of a bond servant. That's the nature of his self-empting. That's how he's self-emptied himself. That's how he poured himself out on the form of a bond servant.

He took on the essential qualities of a bond servant. What does that mean? This is a strong word dolos in the Greek. It means someone who's owned by someone else, and they serve the one who owns them. In fact, in Galatians chapter 5, it says this is what's really important in the life of the church. It's not all these things that people think that are significant in their religious life. What is significant in the church of Jesus Christ is that we see faith working through love. We serve one another through love. And the word that he uses there is for us to serve as bond servants, the very word that he's used here of Jesus Christ. He took on the form of a bond servant. He says what is important to God is that our life in the body of Christ is that we treat each other.

We serve one another in love as bond servants, as those who are owned by someone else, the one who purchased us with his own blood. The background of this whole section of Philippians 2 is Isaiah 53, this great passage, the mountain peak of the Old Testament, that pictures 750 before the event occurred, that pictures the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. When our sins were poured out upon him, it's such explicit language that you can't imagine anybody reading this and not saying that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the midst of that, at the very high point of the statement, at the very end of Isaiah 53, it says he poured out his life unto death for your sake. You see, that's how he poured himself out.

This was just the first step when he came to the manger. Ultimately, the final step is going to go to the cross. When we talk about the incarnation of Jesus Christ, we are talking about this entire work of God in Christ when Christ came into the world and became a human being, a little baby in a manger, and then he lived before God in perfect righteousness and then he went to the cross and he died in the place of sinners. And then when he was resurrected from the dead and went back to the Father, he poured out the Spirit. We see the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father gives His Son. The Son loves us so much that He lays down His life for us on the cross. And then the Spirit manifests the great love of God as He is poured out.

He comes and He becomes a Spirit of adoption and He assures our hearts that we are children of God. One of the things I love about salvation is it's not just objective, it is very subjective. It's not just knowing certain things, it is experiencing the reality of the living spirit of God, living within you and assuring your hearts before God that you are a child of God because you have embraced Jesus Christ by faith. God has poured out Himself and He's done it through His Son and through the Spirit. So that we could know what kind of God He is. The King James Bible translates one little section in Philippians 2 here as He made Himself of no reputation in becoming human. He wasn't worried about His reputation.

When God became man, the person of Jesus Christ, He wasn't looking to advance His position. He wasn't looking for a raise. He wasn't looking to make His career move on. He humbled Himself and made Himself of no reputation. And in Christ Jesus, God has shown us His true nature. If you want to know what God is really like, you look at Jesus Christ, everything we know about God, we know through Jesus Christ. And this is what it means for Christ to be equal with God, to pour Himself out for the sake of others and to do so by taking the role of a servant, a slave. I think that's the most mind-boggling truth in all of scripture that God in His heart is a God who loves to serve. He doesn't serve you because He has to.

He's served you by sending His Son because He loved you. That's what God is like. It reveals His true character. And it also reveals what it means for us to be created in God's image, to bear His likeness, and to have His mindset. It means taking the role of a slave for the sake of others. That's what He's called us to be. I have a friend who signs His letters once in a while, an Indian friend of mine, who signs His letters, ferment to the servants of the servant. See, that's what we all are. We are servants of the servants of the ultimate servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. Part of the point of Philippians 2 is the point not so much about Jesus as about God, the Father, who sent Him. Paul's discoveries about Jesus and about God through His encounter with Christ brought Him face to face with the utterly deep, trustworthy love of a heavenly Father that He had never known about before.

In fact, you find this passion in all of His letters. He wants you to understand what kind of God it is, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, what kind of God He truly is, the God who is full of grace and trustworthiness to His people. One of the primary ways that the word righteousness is used in Scripture, in fact, this is what blew Luther away when He came to discover that one of the prayer ways that the word righteousness of God is used in Scripture is His righteousness in treating you as a covenant person of being faithful to you, of saving you and keeping you and finishing His work in your life. That is the righteousness of God. In fact, in 1 John 1.9, notice it says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.

Not faithful and merciful, not just kindly, but righteous. That's the righteous character of God. The incarnation is not something that God does unwillingly or only because He can't think of a better way. It's something He does that perfectly reveals the truth about God who is, who God is. At the heart of the gospel is the good news that the one true God consists through and through with self-giving love. And you know what? It takes a supernatural work of God for a person to come to understand that. Everybody in this world who cannot, could not stand to live in a universe and serve a God who is willing to pour Himself out, to die for their sins in order to save them, is going to be put in outer darkness away from the presence and power of God.

In order to live in this universe throughout eternity with God, you have to put faith in a God like this, this self-giving God. This one who demonstrates His great love in the manger and in the cross and in Pentecost, pouring out of the spirit of adoption. Romans 5 verse 5, it says, the only way you could ever come to grasp what it's like to be loved by God is that you must have one of the members of the Trinity come to live within your heart and to communicate to your heart on an ongoing basis how much God loves you. That's what Paul says. He says the Spirit of God comes into the life of the believer and he gushes forth the love of God in our hearts. He goes on in the following context to explain that what he's talking about is not your love for God, but God's love for you.

You see, that's what the Church of Jesus Christ is. It is a family of God, a family of people who have come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and have received this incredible news that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish. He should not be ruined for which they were created, but should receive eternal, everlasting life, a life with God through Jesus Christ. That's what Christmas is. Next week we're going to talk about this week we looked at how God emptied Himself. Next week we'll look at how, when God became a man, He humbled Himself and it's a glorious truth of how God has called us to do the same thing and our relationships with each other.

This morning, I'd like you to think about and throughout this Christmas season keep in mind as you go through this wonderful process of exchanging gifts and just rejoicing in the goodness of the love of God that manifests it in your life. You know the fact is if you're here this morning you don't know Christ, you still experience every day the love of God because God loves His enemies. In other words, God loves those people who treat Him like an enemy and He shows that love in all kinds of ways. He causes the sun to shine on you, He causes the rain to fall, He lets you see the glory of His presence in this world. But if you want to really know what it's like to be loved by God, you must come to Christ.

Christ is the only one who can communicate in your life what it means to be loved by a holy, sovereign, self-living God, self-giving God. And I would invite you this Christmas season as you exchange gifts, keep in your mind that the gift that we are celebrating is the gift that God gave 2,000 years ago when He gave His Son. This Son who came in the form of a little baby in a manger, such humble circumstances, this Son is going to come back again in glory. And when He comes in glory He's going to come as judge. He's going to come with eyes, the Bible, the book of Revelation says its eyes are going to be like fire, like swords that penetrate the hearts of men. And those people who receive this gift of life from a sovereign holy God are going to have to give an account to the same one who died for sinners.

The same person who laid down his life to save sinners is going to sit on the great white throne and He's going to judge every life who refused to receive Him by faith. The good news is you can receive Him today. You don't have to spend another Christmas as an enemy of God. You can come into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ and be one of the children. We mark our Christmases by the children. This is the coal Austin Christmas. Imagine God marking this Christmas with your name and you became one of His children. That's what He invites you to do is to turn to Christ and repentance and faith. And He says everyone who turns to me, I will not refuse it. What a promise. Let's stand together and close.

I'm sorry. Remain seated. Let me pray and we're going to sing another song. Our Father, we thank You for this great gift. We could not begin to describe it. We are a bit expressed to describe this great gift of life and love. It's so far beyond us but we pray that the Holy Spirit, the one that you send into the world to do this very thing, to convince the hearts of men and women and boys and girls of the truth of who this Jesus Christ is, we pray that He would paint a picture upon the hearts of every person here of the truth of who Christ is. We pray You would bring those who have not yet trusted Him to a place of trust, of repentance and trust in Jesus Christ. And Father, we pray for all of us who have come to believe upon Him that You would just draw our hearts to You, that the distractions of this world and all the things that we face during a season like this would not keep us from rejoicing primarily in this great love, this great gift of love that You have given to us.

We are so grateful and we thank You in Jesus' name, amen.