The Cost of Christmas
Philippians 2:5-11
December 25, 2016
This morning, as you can see, I want to take just a moment
And discuss with you about THE COST OF CHRISTMAS.
And of course I’m not talking about your credit card balance
Or how much you spent on gifts this year.
Rather, we’re talking about the very initial cost of Christmas,
Dealing with what Christmas cost Jesus.
FIRST, I WOULD REMIND YOU THAT
The idea of COST IS A CONTINUAL THEME throughout the gospels.
We often talk about salvation being free,
And that is true in the sense that there is nothing you can pay for it,
And that Christ does freely offer it.
However, that does not mean that it comes without a cost.
I could illustrate that very easily this morning by giving every kid in this room a “free” puppy. And every parent in here would turn it down because you know that it is not free. It will in fact come with great cost.
That is true of salvation throughout the gospels.
In fact Jesus continually reminds us of the cost of salvation.
There is the cost of your REPUTATION
Matthew 10:22 “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.”
There is the cost of your RELATIONSHIPS
Matthew 10:34-36 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. “For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.”
There is the cost of your EARTHLY COMFORT
Matthew 8:19-20 “Then a scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
There is the cost of your LIFE
Matthew 16:24-25 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
And those verses are just the tip of the iceberg.
In fact continually when speaking of the cost of following Christ,
We hear it spoken of in terms of “EVERYTHING”. It costs everything.
What I want you to understand is that
Christ can so easily make such demands
Because He was One who first gave everything
In order to offer this salvation.
2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”
AND SO THIS MORNING I want us to briefly consider
Exactly what this great cost which He paid was,
And even more importantly what our response to that should be.
We do so by looking at this amazing passage
Found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
• It is primarily a passage which speaks to your responsibility to love your brother unconditionally.
• In order to motivate the Philippians to quit walking in selfishness and considering their own needs, Paul lifts high the example of Jesus.
• Saying, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus”
So we understand that this is NOT ONLY A THEOLOGY LESSON
It is ALSO A MANDATE; an example of how we should live.
And in this we find a tremendous picture of the price Christ paid
In the event we refer to as Christmas.
PAUL BEGINS WITH A FOUNDATIONAL STATEMENT.
Before you can measure cost you first have to understand what a person has.
• For example, the two mites that were given by the widow doesn’t sound like
much of a cost until you find out that this was all she had to live on.
• On the flip side a gift of 1 million dollars might sound like an enormous
sacrifice until you find out that the giver had billions.
So cost can only be measured once you we have some idea
Of the level of riches and that is what Paul establishes first.
Paul says of Jesus (6) “who, although He existed in the form of God,”
And this is a phrase that must be examined a little.
The phrase “He existed” is HYPARCHO (hoo-parr-ko) in the Greek.
And it means “to be”
So we are talking about the very being of Christ.
And I must submit to you that a person’s being is unchangeable.
You, for example, are a human being and nothing will ever change that.
It is what you are.
Well we find of Jesus that in His very being He is God.
That is unchangeable, that is immutable, that cannot go away.
That is who He is.
And it’s important that you understand that
(also why I showed you the RC Sproul video at the beginning)
To help you understand the dangers of the past when men
Sought to use Christmas as a means to remove the deity of Jesus.
Whatever Christmas cost Jesus, it did not cost Him His deity.
That is who He is and it cannot change.
Now Paul also says that “He existed in the form of God”
“form” there is MORPHE (mor-fay)
This refers to: “The essential characteristics that belong to someone”
It is not just appearance, which you will see later in verse 8.
It speaks to His essential being and attributes.
• What are the things that make you human? (life, soul, emotion, communication, skeleton, muscles, etc.)
• What are the things that make Him divine? (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc.)
SO WE UNDERSTAND WHERE JESUS BEGAN.
• In His very being He is God.
• And as such He has all the attributes of God.
Now that is the starting place.
Next we get to exactly what cost He paid to come to this earth.
(6b) “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,”
Again let’s think about this for a moment.
We find here that being equal with God
Was not something that He thought needed “to be grasped”
Now that can mean one of two things.
• TO GRASP can either mean to take hold of something, or it can mean to keep hold of something.
We are aware of Satan, who Isaiah tells us sought to make Himself equal with God.
Isaiah 14:13-14 “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”
Satan sought to grasp equality with God.
(As do many humans today)
But we just learned that Jesus already had that,
So for Him it was not something to take hold of,
But rather something to keep hold of.
And we find that although Jesus had equality with God,
He chose not to hold on to it.
WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE?
WHAT DID HE LOSE?
Let’s look at the rest of this text, and see if we can figure it out.
The CONFUSING PHRASE for many is found in verse 7
When it says He “emptied Himself”
And many, like Sproul talked about, assume that
Jesus at this point relinquished all of His divine attributes.
They say that Jesus was in the form of God, and then emptied Himself, therefore He must have emptied Himself of His deity.
But we already established that this is impossible.
Deity is His very being, and you can’t change what you are.
SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
Well first let me tell you what He did, and then I’ll explain what He lost.
We are talking about the cost of Christmas
And yet what we actually see here is not Jesus losing something,
But rather JESUS ADDING something.
Jesus Emptied Himself By:
#1 TAKING THE ATTRIBUTES OF A SLAVE
Philippians 2:7
Notice the verb in verse 7 “taking”
It DOES NOT say “but emptied Himself, losing the divine form”
It says, “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant”
Whatever He lost, He lost because He took “the form of a bond-servant”
“form” there is the exact same word that it was in verse 6, MORPHE (mor-fay)
Which again speaks to “the essential characteristics that belong to someone.”
Furthermore we know that in the New Testament a “bond-servant” was really a SLAVE (that’s what the word literally means)
• Jesus clearly stated that He was a slave of God, coming only to do the Father’s will.
• Jesus even stated that He was a servant of men:
Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
So we have this Jesus who in His very being is God
With all of the attributes that go along with it
And now we find that He added to those attributes
The attributes of a slave.
“taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”
There is that idea of “being” again.
Jesus has not relinquished His being as God, but He has added another “being” which is what?
HUMAN BEING
“being made in the likeness of men”
• So we have here God.
• We have here One who enjoys all the privileges of being God.
• And He makes a decision to take, in addition to His divine being, also the being of humanity;
• And even more startling is that He takes the attributes of a slave.
This is what we call the hyper-static union.
Fully God and at the same time Fully Man
Jesus emptied Himself by:
Taking the Attributes of a Slave
#2 TAKING THE APPEARANCE OF A MAN
Philippians 2:8a
“Being found in appearance as a man”
“appearance” is the word SCHEMA
It’s where we get our word schematic
Even though Jesus was God in every sense of the word,
He added to that the appearance of a man.
HE LOOKED HUMAN.
Isaiah 53:1-2 “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.”
You see all those medieval paintings of Jesus with this golden halo over His head…not true.
Jesus didn’t look impressive at all.
• There was nothing about His appearance that caused you to think He might be anything other than just another man.
Listen to the crowd:
Matthew 13:55-56 “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? “And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?”
In fact that was part of the problem.
The Pharisees couldn’t figure out how such a normal human
Could conceivably make Himself out to be God.
He took on a non-distinguishable appearance.
So we are talking about how He “emptied Himself”
And He did that by Taking the attributes of a slave
And He did that by Taking the appearance of a man
#3 TAKING THE ASSIGNMENT OF A CRIMINAL
Philippians 2:8b
“He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
You are aware that the cross was a SHAMEFUL DEATH.
We find in the O.T. that cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.
There could not have been a more humiliating way to die
Than the way that Jesus died.
AND YET HE SUBMITTED TO THAT MISSION.
And of course we know He did that
In order that He might redeem God’s elect from their sins.
NOW HERE IS THE QUESTION
We see that Jesus “emptied Himself”, and He did so by:
• Taking the Attributes of a Slave
• Taking the Appearance of a Man
• Taking the Assignment of a Criminal
SO WHAT DID JESUS LOSE?
• He didn’t cease to be God (He couldn’t)
• He didn’t lose His divine attributes (He obviously used them)
SO WHAT DID HE LOSE?
HE DIDN’T LOSE HIS DIVINE NATURE,
HE LOST HIS DIVINE PRIVILEGE;
HIS DIVINE WORSHIP, HIS DIVINE BENEFIT, HIS DIVINE GLORY
Jesus emptied Himself by taking on a humiliating role.
He didn’t quit being God, He just stopped being treated as such.
He stepped out of privilege into poverty.
He stepped out of glory into humiliation.
He stepped out of esteem into disgrace.
WHAT HE EMPTIED HIMSELF OF WAS GLORY.
Listen to Jesus praying the night before He was crucified.
John 17:1-5 “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
Jesus didn’t cease to be God, He just stopped being treated as God.
And there He prayed that the Father would restore His glory to Him.
Which Paul assures that God has done:
(9-11) “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The book of Revelation certainly confirms that reality as well.
We’ve seen all of creation worshiping Him.
BUT WE WANT TO APPLY THIS TO OUR LIVES.
Now obviously, to be TRUE TO THE TEXT, you see how Paul is using that as an example for how you and I should treat one another.
• Don’t quit being a human, don’t quit being good at things, just quit seeking your benefit in who you are and what you do. Seek the benefit of your brother.
But REGARDING CHRISTMAS, I want you to understand.
CHRIST GAVE UP HIS GLORY that He might come to earth and save us.
At the very least we should make it the ambition of our lives
To GIVE HIM BACK WHAT HE LOST.
We couldn’t give Him deity (He didn’t lost that anyway)
We couldn’t give Him sovereignty (that was always His)
What He lost was glory, and that we can most certainly give.
“Haste, haste, to bring Him laud! The babe the Son of Mary”
“O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…
O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!”
Christ walked out of His advantageous position that He might save us. The very least we can do is give Him the glory He deserves.
And to make sure the whole world knows what He did on our behalf.
