Our society today is suffering from an ALARMING crisis of TRUTH: (Stats compiled using Claude)
- “Two out of three American adults (66%) reject or doubt the existence of absolute truth”; DESPITE the fact that two out of three Americans describe themselves as CHRISTIANS. (Barna, 2025)
- “Roughly six out of 10 adults (58%) now believe that there can be multiple conflicting views of moral truth and yet all of those conflicting views can (somehow) be completely accurate.” (Barna 2025)
- And perhaps MOST tellingly, “The most popular source of truth today is personal feelings. Approximately three-quarters of all Americans (74%) say they at least occasionally rely upon their emotions to discern moral truth. [According to a Barna study just last year,] Feelings emerged as the sole truth source trusted by a majority of adults.” Science polled at ~40% trustworthy, and the Bible at ~18%; less than 1 in 5 adults now, look to God’s word as a consistently reliable source of truth (Barna 2025)
Truly, the million dollar question in our day, as Pontius Pilate famously asked in HIS OWN day, is: “WHAT IS TRUTH?” (Jn 18:38). Fewer and fewer of us KNOW any more.
And specifically, when we consider SPIRITUAL truths, the results are even more DISTURBING. Just last year, Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research surveyed over 3,000 Americans to diagnose the “State of THEOLOGY”. The stats are scary; and MOST unsettling are the responses from those who self-identify as EVANGELICAL Christians.
- Over half (55%) of evangelicals believe that “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.” (Ephesians 2:3 “you were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind”)
- “almost half of evangelicals (47%) affirm that “God accepts the worship of all religions” (John 14:6 “Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”)
- And most relevant for this morning, over one-THIRD of evangelicals (34%) believe that: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” (Philippians 2:6- “Christ Jesus… being in the very NATURE of God…”)
Friends, there are LOTS of important truths we need to know in life. As a parent, I am constantly dispensing truth:
*”If you don’t brush your teeth, they will rot and fall out.”
*”If you SIT on the dog’s HEAD, he is NOT gonna want to PLAY with you.”
*”You may be WEARING an Ironman dress-up, but you CANNOT in fact FLY.” That is an objective FACT, and an IMPORTANT one, for my 3-year old to accept, before he leaps off the kitchen counter.
But friends, ALL those truths PALE in comparison to the three truths that the apostle PAUL has for us this morning. And EACH of them is his answer to the most important QUESTION that we must all reckon with. It was JESUS’s question to his disciples in Matthew ch16, v15: “Who do you say that I am?” ”. We’re gonna see this morning: our answer to THAT question – “Who is JESUS for you?” – it is the single most important, identity-defining, ETERNITY-determining truth about us; is the truth we believe (or DON’T believe) about HIM, about JESUS. And this morning, Paul’s gonna tell us EXACTLY who Jesus is.
These 6 verses in the middle of Philippians ch2 form what is probably the single most significant, substantive, SUBLIME passage in all of Scripture for understanding an orthodox, biblical CHRISTOLOGY. “Orthodox” means “right doctrine”; you believe the right beliefs… IF they’re “Biblical”; in accordance with the Bible, God’s word. And specifically, we want “right beliefs” about JESUS; that’s your “Christology”, your view of CHRIST. And NO passage in ALL the Bible is more consequential for our Christology than THIS one. As Tim Keller notes, “If the Bible were a mountain range, this would be one of the 2 or 3 highest peaks” (“Imitating the Incarnation” sermon, July 2, 1995).
And I would ADD that it may be one of the toughest texts to preach without slipping at any point into inadvertent HERESY! We’re going right back to the very first Church SPLIT in HISTORY, at the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, where this guy named Arius split the entire Church over literally one LETTER: they said Jesus was “HomoOUsios” – “of the same essence” with God the Father; Arius added a letter and claimed Jesus was “Homo-I-ousios” – “of a SIMILAR essence” with God the Father. And lest you think, “REALLY? The early Church Fathers got all bent outta shape over ONE LETTER? Didn’t Paul call us just last week to UNITY?
Yes he did. But remember: we must be UNIFIED around the GOSPEL, the “good news” about Jesus. And if you CHANGE the news, even by what SEEMS like just 1 degree, just one little LETTER; Church, let me ask you: whether we believe that Jesus is GOD… or Jesus is LIKE God – is that a LITTLE matter? An INSIGNIFICANT belief? If you change THAT “news” about Jesus, is the gospel even still “GOOD”? Can a savior who wasn’t – who ISN’T – truly GOD, still SAVE us?
I can assure you, Church: there are NO insignificant details or doctrines in our passage this morning; all 76 Greek words we find here are PACKED with meaning and weight. So we’re gonna have to approach the text perhaps a bit more TECHNICALLY than we typically do. But I’ll also try and make sure we don’t lose the forest for the trees here, and Paul’s overarching point – his THREE points – concerning WHO JESUS IS.
Let’s read it together now; I invite you to STAND… Phil 2: (pick up where we left off, in vFIVE… thru v11; hear the word of the Lord:
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 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,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
This is the word of God…
There are three essential doctrinal truths we discover about Jesus in this preeminent passage, and they MATCH the three MOVEMENTS we find here in Christ’s STATUS and his physical LOCATION. Let me give you that right up front; Paul reminds us here of Christ’s:
- INCARNATION (he came DOWN, from HEAVEN, to earth)
- Christ’s HUMILIATION (he went down even LOWER in place and prestige by DYING, “even death on a CROSS”, the most shameful KIND of death; the Bible says Jesus even “BECAME SIN for us”; he was utterly and ULTIMATELY humbled and humiliated). But then…
- (Incarnation… Humiliation… and #3 is) Christ’s EXALTATION (God raised Christ ALL the way back up, from the lowest of lows to the HIGHEST of highs; actually, to an even HIGHER place than he’d occupied previously; Paul says here “God BESTOWED on him [God GAVE him] the name above all names”, AFTER his death and resurrection; Hebrews 5:9 says Christ “learned obedience through what he suffered, And [was] made perfect”; Now, you wanna talk about potential for HERESY?! I’m not TOUCHING Hebrews 5 and Christ’s being “MADE perfect”, other than to point out that the Greek word for “perfect” can also mean “COMPLETE”, and there is a real SENSE in which the FULLNESS of Christ’s GLORY and EXALTATION was not COMPLETE until he had come DOWN, and completed God’s great redemption plan from eternity past: to live, die, and be raised to reconcile sinful humanity BACK to God the Father. THAT earned Jesus the name above all names.
So far so good? You haven’t stoned me yet! 🙂
Alright, THREE CORE DOCTRINAL TRUTHS about Jesus that Paul gives us here:
#1 – Jesus Christ is the ALTRUISTIC GOD-MAN. (vv6-7)
Oh! There is SO much meaning captured in just those 3 words: the “ALTRUISTIC GOD-MAN”.
For starters: “Altruistic”, means “unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others (as opposed to egoistic; which means you only care about YOURSELF)” (dictionary.com).
Now, re-read vv6 and 7; I really WRESTLED with how to best summarize Paul’s insight into Christ’s character here.
*I could’ve said, “Jesus is the INCARNATE God-man”. It’s TRUE; we noted already, it’s one of Paul’s primary points here: that Jesus “came DOWN”, and took on FLESH. But I think it falls short of his MAIN point.
*I could’ve said, “Jesus is the SELF-SACRIFICING God-man”. Hmm, that gets CLOSER to the point. Because vv6&7 aren’t JUST about what Jesus TOOK (namely, “human form”, a BODY, in his incarnation), but rather, they emphasize what he GAVE UP: “equality with GOD”; Jesus “EMPTIED himself”, we read. He was and is INDEED the self-sacrificing God-man.”
But the word “ALTRUISTIC” points to something even DEEPER: why’d he DO it? Look: it is entirely possible to be “self-sacrificing” for TOTALLY self-CENTERED reasons. You know that. You offer to do the dishes after dinner; “Let ME get that, Honey…”, cuz you’re secretly hoping she’s saving enough energy for YOU, later in the bedroom; how much of OUR “self-sacrificing” is REALLY driven by self-CONCERN? We help others… cuz it feels GOOD to; WE get a hit of oxytocin. God WIRED us that way, and frankly, it’s a really good thing, cuz otherwise we might NEVER do the right thing, if the ONLY reason to do it was for the right MOTIVATION.
But friends, what was CHRIST’S motivation? For HIS self-abasement? Genuine ALTRUISM. Jesus was purely, “unselfishly concerned for and devoted to OUR welfare”, not his own.
The beauty of the word “altruistic” here is it grounds us in this text’s CONTEXT. All this rich, lofty DOCTRINE; what got Paul THINKING about it in the FIRST place? It was his exhortation to US, that WE ought to THINK like Jesus; v5: “Have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus”. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16 that “we [Christians] have the mind of Christ”; “SO,” he exhorts us here, “… HAVE it”; “USE it”. Don’t think and act like the “selfish”, “conceited” sinner that you USED to be; you are a NEW creation in CHRIST! So think and act like JESUS: “HUMBLY”, “count[ing] others more significant than yourself”; “look[ing] not only to [your] own interests, but to the interests of others”. Be ALTRUISTIC!
And then ALL of this towering, resplendent THEOLOGY is really just Paul’s support, his ammunition for that admonition.
YES Christ took on flesh; YES it cost him DEARLY; but friends: why’d he DO it? He did it FOR US! His incarnation, his HUMILIATION, Jesus’s life, death AND resurrection – he did it ALL, for US; that we might be SAVED.
Christ came down from heaven to LIVE the life of perfect obedience that we ought to but FAIL to.
He climbed UP the cross to DIE the death that WE deserve because of OUR sins; Jesus died in our PLACE, to pay our debt.
And then he rose UP from the grave to raise US to newness of life – ETERNAL life – with Him.
Friends, this is the GOSPEL, the good news of what God has done for us in the person and work of His Son JESUS CHRIST. And the Bible says that EVERYONE who simply BELIEVES in the gospel, will be SAVED. Every other religion in the world says that your standing before God is determined by your BEHAVIOR, and they give you a list of “Dos and Don’ts”. Only CHRISTIANITY says that our standing before God is a result of our BELIEF, in what Jesus CHRIST did for us, despite our DIS-obedience, and undeservedness.
We are saved NOT by what WE’VE done for GOD, but by what HE’S done for US, through CHRIST. All that’s left for US to do… is BELIEVE! That’s why our DOCTRINE – WHAT we believe about Jesus – is so ESSENTIAL.
Which brings us to the SECOND doctrine, word that describes Christ here: “Jesus is the altruistic GOD.” Jesus is not just “LIKE God”; He IS God. And Paul makes that ABSOLUTELY, 100% crystal CLEAR here in vv6 & 7, in TWO ways.
First, he informs us that Jesus was “in the form of God”. Now ironically, some who try to DENY Jesus’s divinity will appeal to v6 here as “proof”; they’ll say, “AHA! Paul says that Jesus was only “in the FORM of God”; maybe Arius was right after ALL!”
But Tim Keller explains:
“In English, we understand the word “form” to refer to a thing’s appearance. And there is a Greek word for that: it’s schema (the “outward fashion or appearance”). But the word used here – morphe – actually means the ESSENCE of a thing; it means “those qualities which make something what it is”… This is the strongest possible statement about the deity and divinity of Jesus… Paul is saying Jesus has the unique and very identical qualities that make God, God. Jesus Christ is the very SUBSTANCE… the very BEING of God.” (ibid)
And that’s just the FIRST proof! Second… and actually, before we move on, I wanna offer two ADDITIONAL improvements on the FIRST half of v6; as I said, “form” would be better translated “nature”, like the NIV has it: “Christ Jesus… being in very nature God…”. And the NIV actually fixes BOTH of the other two problems with the ESV here: #1) the word “THOUGH” doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the Greek text. And it sort of sets us up to expect Paul to say that “though Jesus WAS in the nature of God”, that then that CHANGED. But it DIDN’T. There’s no “though”. And there’s ALSO no “WAS” in the Greek. This is a present active participle (I warned you; we’re getting a bit TECHNICAL, but this MATTERS!). When you say, “Jesus WAS in the nature of God…”, again, you’re sort of IMPLYING that Jesus “USED TO BE in the nature of God”, but then CEASED to. But he DIDN’T! When Christ took on his human nature, he never RENOUNCED his DIVINE nature. That is NOT what he “emptied himself” of, in v7; we’ll get to that later. But Jesus was FULLY God AND fully HUMAN.
So the NIV translates v6 best: “Have the same MINDSET as Christ Jesus, who, BEING in the very NATURE of GOD…” – remove “though”; change “WAS” to “BEING”; and change “form” to “NATURE”.
But the SECOND proof here, that Jesus is God, is that Paul tells us he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped”. Grasped FOR… or grasped TO? Did Jesus LACK equality with God, but decide not to even REACH for it? Or did Jesus POSSESS equality with God, but humbly decide not to CLING to it?
Well, the first three words of verse SEVEN make the answer CLEAR: “…but EMPTIED himself”. How could Jesus EMPTY himself of something he never HAD? He had to be “EQUAL with God”, in order to then let GO of that equality.
Paul teaches unequivocally here that Jesus Christ was and is “true God from true God”. And by the way, most scholars agree that vv6-11 here, sometimes referred to as the “Christ Hymn”, probably weren’t original to Paul; he is QUOTING this. It was likely a confession or a hymn, perhaps the EARLIEST we know of, that was used in the Church, might have been recited or sung every Sunday, in worship. And we know that Paul is writing within 20 years of Christ’s death. So if he’s quoting an even EARLIER hymn here, that means the popular theory that Jesus’s divinity was a much later Christian development, as the legend of Jesus grew over time, that theory is TOTALLY BUNK. From Day ONE, Jesus’s followers have believed – have KNOWN! – that he was GOD.
MATTHEW says so in HIS gospel: ““Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us)” (1:23)
MARK said so in HIS gospel: when Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven”, Mark records that the scribes “questioned in their hearts… ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?”” (2:5-7).
But most of all, JOHN attests to Jesus’s divinity in HIS gospel:
- “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was GOD… And (yet) the Word became flesh and dwelt among us… No one has ever seen God; (but) God the only Son… he has made him known.” (Jn 1:1,14,18) Jesus IS “God the only Son”; the “WORD” who “WAS (and is) GOD”.
- In John 10:30, Jesus unambiguously declared, “I and the Father are one.”” So the Jewish leaders picked up STONES, to put him to DEATH, “for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”” (v33)
- John records for us the moment when even doubting THOMAS finally believed; how he felt the risen Jesus’s nail-pierced hands, his spear-pierced SIDE, and Thomas cried out to Jesus: ““My Lord and my God!”” (20:28)
And yet, as John also told us, “the Word became FLESH”. He’s the altruistic God… MAN.
Jesus “did not consider (his) equality with God a thing to be [CLUNG to],[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of (the NATURE of) a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men.”
Jesus TOOK a HUMAN nature; again, the verb there connotes not SUBSTITUTION, but ADDITION; he added humanity TO his divinity.
But what about the SUBTRACTION in v7: “he EMPTIED himself”? We already noted Jesus DIDN’T “empty himself” of his DIVINITY – **EHHH (buzzer); heresy. So what DID he “empty himself” of?
Well, there are at least THREE things we can say biblically that Jesus “emptied himself of” in his Incarnation:
- First: his GLORY. Not ALL of it, because John told us “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have SEEN his GLORY” (1:14). But we didn’t see ALL of it, because the night before his death, Jesus prayed, ““Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son… I have accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me… with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (17:1-5). So Jesus emptied himself of his godly GLORY.
- Second: Jesus set aside some of his divine PRIVILEGE or PREROGATIVE is a word used by a lot of commentators – “an exclusive right, privilege, etc., exercised by virtue of rank or office”. I have a “Clergy Pass” that gets me into Cardinals’ games for FREE. Even if I RENOUNCE that privilege (as I have all season long; haven’t made it to a single game yet), I am nevertheless STILL a PASTOR, right? Jesus was still GOD during his time on earth; even though he resigned himself to not EXPLOITING his divinity.
Now, you might think, “Wait a minute: what about the MIRACLES? Feeding the 5,000, walking on water, raising people from the DEAD?!” To which I would respond: “If Jesus did all that after EMPTYING himself, just imagine what he could do if he HAD clung to his equality with God!” What he WILL do when he RETURNS “in glory”! - But third and most explicit in Philippians 2, of ALL his divine prerogatives, the one we can most assuredly affirm that Jesus laid aside in his Incarnation, and it takes us to Paul’s SECOND core doctrinal truth in verse EIGHT now: Jesus EMPTIED himself – at least temporarily – of his IMMORTALITY. As God, Jesus had the “exclusive RIGHT and PRIVILEGE” not to have to DIE. And yet…
(#2-) “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
2) Jesus Christ is the SUFFERING SAVIOR. (v8)
The suffering SERVANT-Savior. He “took the form of a SERVANT”. The Infinite, Almighty Creator and Sustainer of the UNIVERSE got down on his hands and knees to wash his disciples’ stinky FEET. And when Jesus got to Peter, who realized just how DEMEANING and BACKWARDS this was, for JESUS to be washing HIS feet – that was the job of the very LOWEST slave in a wealthy household – Peter said, “NO, Lord; You shall never wash my feet.” ” (Jn 13:8). How did Jesus reply?
“Peter, What I am doing here, you do not understand right now, but SOON, you will… (And) If I do not wash you, you have no share with me”.
Jesus was saying, “The ONLY way to get a share in MY inheritance, the eternal LIFE that I am offering you, is by allowing yourself to be SERVED by me. And THIS washing is just a SYMBOL of the SPIRITUAL washing you’re ABOUT to receive, when I pour out my BLOOD to wash away your SINS.”
Here’s how Jesus put it in Mark 10:45 “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””
Jesus is the Suffering Servant-Savior anticipated by the prophet ISAIAH, who seven centuries before Christ was “found in human form”, foretold that the Messiah would be:
* “despised and rejected[b] by men, a man of sorrows[c] and acquainted with[d] grief”. (53:3)
* That he would be “oppressed, and afflicted, yet… like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, so he opened not his mouth.” (v7)
* That “By oppression and (wicked) judgment he was taken away… he was cut off out of the land of the living… And they made his grave with the wicked… although[g] he (himself) had done no (WRONG)”
* And YET, Isaiah tells us, “ it was the will of the Lord to crush him… (that) his soul (might) make[i] an offering for (our) guilt”; “the righteous one, my servant, (will) make many to be accounted as righteous, for he shall bear their iniquities… and make intercession for the transgressors.”
* “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our (sins);
upon him was the (punishment) that brought us peace (with God),
and by his wounds we are healed.”
So I ask YOU this morning, friend: Have YOU been “healed” by Jesus’s “wounds”? Do YOU enjoy “peace” with God, because you’ve trusted in JESUS to bear your sins and punishment?
Will you let him SERVE you?
Did you know JESUS said, in Matthew 18:3; he said, ““Truly, I say to you, unless you CHANGE and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” You know what “little children” are GREAT at, WAY better than us adults? Being SERVED. We HATE being served, don’t we, mostly? I couldn’t get my LAWN mower started last week, tried fiddling with it for over an HOUR, watched all the YouTube videos; NOTHING. Now a LESSER man would admit defeat, take it in to the SHOP, and ask for HELP. But not ME; I may not be a REAL man, cuz REAL men know how to FIX their lawn mowers. But I’m at LEAST man enough to kick and CUSS at it, and hide it in the back of the garage in DENIAL. Cuz heaven FORBID I allow myself to be SERVED.
You know my SIX year old, Elijah, will still sometimes convince Polly to FEED him?!
“Elijah, eat your dinner.”
“Mom, I’m too TIRED…”
“Fine, come sit with me…” and she’ll FEED him. My son has NO problem being SERVED!
Friends, Jesus says, “If you can’t be more like ELIJAH than WILL, when it comes to your SPIRITUAL need, for forgiveness – CLEANSING of your sins – then you have NO SHARE with me.” I’ve got NOTHING for you; cuz it’s not the HEALTHY who need the doctor, but the SICK. (Mk 2:17) Jesus says, “I’ve got MEDICINE for you, but you’ve got to HUMBLE yourself and RECEIVE it!”
He said, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Lk 14:11)
Like Christ HIMSELF; that’s a great segue way to Paul’s final core doctrine here…
#3- Jesus Christ is not ONLY the Altruistic God-Man, not ONLY the Suffering Servant-Savior; he is ALSO… the EXALTED LORD. (vv9-11)
V9: “Therefore” – BECAUSE he humbled himself in obedience to God’s will, and suffered and DIED for us, to RESCUE us – as Christ’s REWARD for that obedience, “God has highly EXALTED him”; the Greek word is “SUPER-exalted”; it’s a word used NOWHERE else in the Bible, reserved for only this occasion, Christ’s glorious homecoming… and God “bestowed on him the name that is above every name”; not just “JESUS”; that’s a GREAT name – it means “The Lord SAVES” – but that was a fairly COMMON name in 1st c. Palestine, and he already HAD the name JESUS.
No, the name that God bestowed on his son Jesus at his exaltation is right there in v11: God declares that “Jesus Christ is LORD”.
Vv10 & 11 here are a quotation from Isaiah 45:23, where GOD HIMSELF, YAHWEH, declares: “‘To me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear allegiance.’”; in other words, God is saying here in PHILIPPIANS, that “Jesus is ME”! He’s GOD! In John 10, Jesus declared, “I and the Father are ONE”; now in Philippians TWO, God the FATHER is declaring, “I and the SON are ONE.”
And EVERY tongue is going to CONFESS it; every KNEE is gonna bow to him – “in heaven and on earth and (even) under the earth”; every ANGEL and DEMON, every HUMAN BEING, both the living and the dead – ALL will bend the knee to Christ Jesus.
The only question LEFT, friends, is will you bend it JOYFULLY… or REMORSE-fully? Will you bow to King Jesus WILLINGLY, gladly of your OWN accord NOW, or will you have to be MADE to bow on that day, begrudgingly? Your eternal FATE hinges on your answer.
See, the confession that “Jesus Christ is LORD” is much MORE than some abstract doctrinal stance; it’s a statement of PERSONAL allegiance. [Share testimony…]
For almost two decades, I lived with the understanding and the desire to have Jesus as my SAVIOR… but not my LORD. I wanted to live however I wanted, and still have Jesus there ready to forgive me when I NEEDED. But friends, Jesus says unambiguously that ““If you want to follow ME, you must deny yourself and take up your cross… For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will FIND it.” (Lk 9:23-24)
EXALT yourself, and you’ll be HUMBLED; but HUMBLE yourself, under CHRIST’S Lordship, and you WILL be EXALTED.
The way UP is down. The Christian life is one of DOWNWARD mobility; “the first shall be LAST, but the LAST will be FIRST” in Jesus’s Kingdom. Keller points out how “utterly DIFFERENT” Jesus is from us in this respect; he notes:
“Though we were NOT equal with God, we considered equality with God something to be grasped (for); that’s TOTALLY the opposite of Jesus. Though he WAS equal, he let GO of equality and became a servant, took a lower position… Any time you’ve ever said, “I know what the Bible says, but I gotta do what makes me happy”, you are grasping for equality with God (you are RIGHT back in the Garden of Eden, grabbing for the fruit)… Then Paul says, “And he made himself NOTHING, and took the role of a servant. “ But you and I DESPERATELY wanna become SOMETHING, don’t we? We wanna be somebody, we wanna be KINGS… But Here’s the IRONY: we try to be somebody… therefore, God let’s US fall to the bottom. But Jesus FOUND his name by LOSING it; he got UP (exalted) by going DOWN.” (ibid)
So Church I ASK you: “Will WE?” Will we “Humble ourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God (trusting) that at the proper time he will exalt us”? (1 Pet 5:6)
The way UP is DOWN.
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus”.