Incarnation | Part 2a

The only reason I can reach God through my prayers and receive from him is because deity wrapped himself in humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. We all need our minds renewed. Jesus taught us in John 15 that his word would clean us. And as my mama would say, we need a washing. And many times it's our brains that need washing, as my mama would say, because we just get so polluted by society and polluted by our own selfishnesses that we miss the mind of Christ. Well, with this verse in mind, I want to back up and look at it in context in verses number three and four. He says, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. And this is speaking of being competitive or wanting to receive fame or glory. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Now that's not a word that you would hear in our society. This is a counterculture word where I would put somebody else before myself. Verse four says, look not every man on his own things. That word things is translated interests. Look not every man on his own interests, but every man also on the interests of others. Don't be self absorbed. Don't get caught up in your own world that you miss the world of people that you do life with. Then he says in verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. So verse five becomes a transitional verse. The previous verses tell us how to treat one another, how to think about ourselves. Verse five says, let this mind be in you. It points to Jesus and these following verses are going to give us this model and this example of who Jesus is and how we can follow that example. Because when you say you're a follower of Jesus, there's a lot of folks that follow Jesus, but they don't really imitate Jesus.

But the word follow means to imitate. It means I'm going to be as he is in this world, ever how he is, that's how I'm going to be. That's what first John four 17 says. It says as he is, so are we in this world, we're supposed to be representatives of Jesus, but I cannot present what's not been presented to be, to be a representative. I represent what was presented to me. And verse five is going to give us this presentation of the incarnation, humiliation, and exaltation of Jesus. I want you to see it in these following verses because this is the foundation that we'll build from. Notice verse six. He says, who being in the form of God, who being in the form of God, that word form speaks of the inner core of a being that cannot change no matter what they look like, no matter what they call themselves. It comes from the Greek word morphe and it's unchangeable who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be one equal with God. The incarnation is how God wrapped himself in flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to come into this earth. Why to reach those of us that are in the flesh. Many people think that salvation is all about you and I reach in heaven, but salvation really is about how heaven reached earth. Not about how I went to him, but how he came to me. That when I couldn't get to him on my own, he came to where I was. God wrapped himself in flesh and through the incarnation wrapped in flesh, he came to man. That is the message of Jesus. That is why he came. I don't feel like there's enough relatability in the body of Christ. I'm concerned that the overall church is disconnected from the society it's supposed to reach because we've not learned how to be relatable because we've not looked at Jesus, a savior that is

relatable, not some dead statue that we pray to, not some good prophet that's been laid in a tomb. No, we're talking about a living savior that was man enough to die. But God enough to get up from the dead. Are you hearing what I'm saying to you? We're talking about deity wrapped in humanity so that humanity could reach deity. Are you hearing what i'm saying? I gotta say that again We're talking about deity wrapped in humanity so that humanity could reach deity The only reason I can reach god through my prayers and receive from him is because deity Wrapped himself in humanity in the person of jesus christ and he came to bring me and you Salvation hallelujah Write this verse down in your notes. It's first timothy 3 16 stay with me in philippians 2 But write this verse down for your notes first timothy 3 16. Here's what it says And without controversy Great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh Oh what you say God was manifest in the flesh. Can you imagine that god wrapping himself in flesh? Deity wrapping himself in humanity. God was manifested in the flesh. That's what first timothy 3 16 is telling us John 1 1 says it like this in the beginning was the word the word was with god The word was god then verse 14 of john 1 says and the word was made flesh And dwelt among us and we beheld his glory What we're reading in philippians chapter 2 is the story of jesus from glory to glory From from the jesus that was that that was deity in heaven and how he became emmanuel God in man in this earth walked this earth for 33 and a half years Died on a cross was buried in a borrowed tomb for three days and three nights got up from the dead Walked this earth 40 days and was ascended back to the father from glory to glory first timothy 3 16 says God was manifest in the flesh Justified in the spirit seen of angels preached under the gentiles Believed on in the world and received up into glory from glory to glory

Notice these verses here verse 6 of philippians 2 says who being in the form of god Thought it not robbery to be equal with god But made himself of no reputation In other words, he didn't go around bragging He didn't go around boasting about how you know, he was god manifested in the flesh. We couldn't have been jesus Some of us couldn't have took it We'd had to demonstrate that we were deity We couldn't we couldn't have sat down and been taught by somebody we'd had let them know I know everything there is to know how you gonna teach me anything Can you imagine the humility that jesus walked in just being in the flesh god wrapped in the flesh? Can you imagine the humility it took for god to wrap himself in human flesh for god to be? Conceived in the womb of a virgin to wait nine months for his earth suit to be tailored god needing to be fed God needing to be carried as he grew Jesus at the age of 12 sat in the temple looking like a student when he is actually the teacher Becoming a teacher and having men quote moses to him When he could have told them everything there was to know about moses because before moses I am Are you hearing what i'm saying to you god manifested himself in human flesh the incarnation And to me the humiliation of jesus Is amplified when I recognize the incarnation In other words, it's one thing to walk in humility but it's another thing when It looks like you didn't have to If every area of my life is failure if every area of my life is brokenness Then it might make sense that I walk around in a humility because I don't have nothing But imagine having everything and you're still humble imagine knowing everything and you're still humble Imagine owning everything and you're still humble imagine everything you made still answers to you, but yet you remain humble That's jesus And he's saying let this mind be in you Are y'all with me?

So he says in verse 7 but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant Form of god form of a servant And was made in the likeness of men As much man as though he were not god and as much god as though he were not man Verse 8 says in being found in fashion as a man. He humbled himself And became obedient unto death even the death of the cross Not just any kind of death, but even the death of the cross so in your notes, write number one incarnation. That's what we see in verse six, the incarnation, God becoming man, heaven touching earth, deity wrapping itself in humanity, heaven touching earth, heaven manifesting in the earth through the person of Jesus. Secondly, you'll see in verse eight, the humiliation of Jesus. So number one, write incarnation, number two, humiliation. Humiliation came after the incarnation and it amplifies the humiliation. Let me see if I can't bring that down to something relatable. Have you ever known somebody that back before they had anything, they were relatable, but then they began to prosper and they got that job, moved in that neighborhood, got that title, got that seat, and all of a sudden they became goody two shoes

and they forgot when they only had one shoe or no shoes. And all of a sudden they were unapproachable and you couldn't deal with them anymore because something changed. As they began to prosper and as they began to succeed and as they got those titles and all those accolades, then all of a sudden now there's no humility. See, that's not Christ. Christ has it all. He is it all. He is it all. Everything exists by him. Colossians 2.9 says he's the fullness of the Godhead bodily. When you see his incarnation, to me, his humiliation is amplified because he doesn't have to humble himself to any situation that he doesn't choose to. I hear what I'm saying to you. He didn't have to be humble, but he was. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. See, he's given us the model of Christ and saying, okay, follow that example, follow that model. But notice his life,

though he is the incarnate God and we see his incarnation, it didn't end there. His incarnation was followed by a humiliation, a humiliation of a death, even the death of the cross. Imagine the humiliation of the king of kings receiving a crown of thorns, the prophet of God being mocked as a prophet, the savior of the world being mocked as a savior while on the cross they said, if he really be who he says he is, and then come down off that cross being mocked and challenged in the three offices that he holds, prophet, priest, and king, yet he opens not his mouth. That's his humiliation. But the humiliation is not the end of the story. No, verse nine says, wherefore God also hath highly done, what? Exalted him. So after the humiliation, what comes? The exaltation. And I feel like there's so many that don't experience the goodness and the exalting and God's power to promote because we never learn humility. Exaltation always follows humiliation. If you feel like you're in a place right now in life

where life is just humbling you, then be humble. Don't be moved because God exalts the humble. That was the lesson Jesus taught over and over and over again, that humility, going down is the way up in the kingdom of God. And going up is the way down in the kingdom of God. He humbled himself. But that's not the end because verse nine says he was exalted and given a name which is above every name. And there's no name like Jesus, even if you don't believe it. I just believe with everything in me. When you see the name Jesus, something happens. Even if you don't believe, you have to look at that name. You have to acknowledge that name. That name is so powerful that as bad as my handwriting is, when I write Jesus, it looks like I got good handwriting. It's just a beautiful, powerful name. And even if you don't know its power, your enemy knows its power. The angels of God know its power. That's why I love putting the name of Jesus all over this city because you never know just what seeing that name might do to somebody's life.

There is power in the name of Jesus. The word says the name of the Lord is a high tower that the righteous can run to and be saved. His name embodies his character. God exalted his name above every name. Verse 10, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory, to the glory of God the Father. Lastly, what do we see here? Adoration. Incarnation, humiliation, exaltation, and adoration. Because of everything that Jesus went through, he would one day be adored. That's what the. Father was saying is that he would enter into adoration for every person that just adores him and sings Praises to him and brags on him and tells others about him for every person that no matter what's going on in your life You still give him worship. You still give him praise because your relationship with him goes beyond what's in his hand Your relationship with him is all about the heart and you can't help but adore him And if someone looked at your life and saw your praise and saw your worship, they might say wow Everything must be perfect in their life and you would say no everything actually is not perfect in my life But my adoration has nothing to do with my inventory. My adoration has nothing to do with my situation Are you hear what I'm saying to you? My situation is not big enough to change his adoration But his adoration is big enough to change my situation In other words, I'm not gonna exalt him based on what I'm going through because whether I'm having my best day or my worst day He's still worthy of my praise. He's still worthy of my adoration for what he did for me on that cross. Hallelujah. He's worthy And that's hard to understand church because we live in such a merit-based society

We struggle with understanding true love We struggle with Keeping the golden rule that mama taught us do unto others as you'd have done unto you We live in such a narcissistic society It's so merit-based that it's hard to understand mercy and it's hard to understand the goodness of God Because everything we do is so merit-based Scratch my back now scratch your So When all of a sudden some preacher shows up and starts telling you about the grace of God and the mercy of God and The goodness of God that's unmerited. It's unearned. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with him Sometimes we can struggle. I Want to show you something over in the book of Hebrews if you would turn over there to Hebrews chapter number two Deity wrapped itself in humanity. That's Jesus But why Romans 8 tells us in verse 3 The reason Jesus came in the flesh Was so that he could condemn sin in the flesh and give us freedom In other words there was a debt put on mankind That only man could pay and so God wrapped himself in flesh to pay that debt that man owed God That's heavy So he comes in the flesh to pay this debt That sinful man owes God Romans 6 23 says the wages of sin is death The payment for sin is death Jesus had to come in the flesh to pay that sin debt So deity wrapped itself in humanity God through incarnation the Son of God Humanity wrapping deity that's the incarnation. Why am I spending any time on this? I thought this series would go about two weeks. It may go a third based on what's happened at the first two services this morning But the reason why I want us to understand incarnation is because I feel like we separate

The Lord we separate our Father in heaven We separate his deity and we don't realize he relates through humanity It's frustrating when you have a feeling or you're going through something and you try to share with somebody What you're going through but they're not able to relate They're not able to comprehend or feel what you're feeling And if you sense that I'm not communicating and you can't relate we'll say something like well, you don't know what it feels like You don't know what it feels like Because it's rough when you feel like you're walking through something and nobody relates to that and that's where we come up with this phrase Well, you don't know what it feels like it's frustrating when you don't feel like anybody can relate to what you're feeling Am I talking to anybody in here? And we allow our Circumstances to bring about a division we get separated by skin color. We get separated by class We get separated by social status. We get separated by affiliation We get separated by denomination when if you peel back all those layers, all of us are just flesh We're all just trying to do life and meet in grace and We end up doing relationship with the people we relate to If you Step into a church and Jesus gets misrepresented. Then you walk out of the church saying they don't relate. The people don't relate, that savior doesn't relate. Why? Because something was communicated that didn't connect. We do relationship with people that relate. God became flesh to relate. He came, he became a man so that we could have a relationship with him. There are too many that think Jesus came to give a religion. He did not come to give a religion.

He came to give a relationship. It was not a religion that Adam lost in the garden when he sinned against God. And it was not Adam that went seeking the Lord. When Adam sinned against God, it was God that came after Adam and said, where art thou? Why did you leave my presence? Do you know the book of Genesis tells us in the second chapter that, oh, that God would walk with man in the cool of the day. Have you ever read that in Genesis? That God would walk with man in the cool of the day. Now I want you to think about something for a minute. Did God walk with man in the cool of the day because he couldn't take the heat? No, he walked with man in the cool of the day because he knew that was best for man. Y'all ain't hear. The heart of God said, I wanna walk with you. I wanna commune with you. So I'm gonna visit with you in the cool of the day. But at that moment, God's not feeling warmth. God's not feeling cold. God's not moved by the temperature of the room because he's God. Temperature came out of him. He's not governed by it. Are you hear what I'm saying to you? But he knew, he knew man. He said, I'm gonna walk with you.

And even when the Holy Spirit came, guess who he was called? The comforter. God is saying, I wanna feel what you feel. I wanna relate to you. All right, let me read some scripture. I gotta build a better case. Hebrews chapter two, verse 14. But my point in quoting Genesis is that the father came for the relationship. And is the church relating? Are we relating to the father? And the reason why that's so important is because if we don't relate to the father, we're not gonna be able to relate to those that need him. And I am concerned that if the church embodies this perfection and self-righteousness and an us and them mindset, we're not reaching the very people that Jesus died for and we are misrepresenting him when we can't be relatable to people that don't look like us or come from where we are. Are you hear what I'm saying to you? When we become discriminators? Hebrews two, verse 14. If you're there, say amen. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood. That's you and me. Please look past skin color.

Flesh and blood. That's what Adam was, flesh and blood. God made Adam in his own image out of dirt. Formed a physical body out of dirt. Breathed into that body the breath of life and man became a living soul. But yet we know from Adam came every nation, every nationality, every ethnic group. That meant Asian had to been in Adam. Italian had to been in Adam. Puerto Rican had to be in Adam. Caucasian had to be in Adam. Are you understanding what I'm saying to you? All of that had to have been in Adam. Adam had to have been a fine 57. And just like dirt comes in different colors, man comes in different color, but he's still flesh and blood. I get so upset when I hear people talk about the opposite race. What do you mean opposite race? There is no opposite race because there's only one race. It's called the human race. Man is man. I got challenged with this recently and it ticked me off. Talking about black folk ought to go to black church and white folk, I got hit with this recently. That white people ought to go to white church.

church, I'm black, go to black. Are you kidding me? If I'm in an emergency situation, you think I'm gonna look for a white hospital? Or if you're black, I'm gonna look for a black hospital? I'm gonna look for a hospital. You go to the emergency room, you see people of all kinds. You see people that speak English, those that don't speak English, white, black, old, rich, young, poor. You wouldn't tell somebody sick, you need to go to a white doctor, you need to go to a black hospital. That's foolishness, but yet we let that mess come into the church. And we of all people ought to know that man was made in the image of God. All men was made in the image of God. And Jesus shed his blood for all mankind. Flesh and blood. I was trying to help a guy one day on the street, because he was needing some money, I went to help him. And I asked him about Jesus, and he got all mad at me. I wanted to take my $20 back. I gave you $20, you gonna... He said, you think Jesus was white? So what he told me, I ain't said nothing about Jesus being white. He must have been looking at me, I must not have been very tan that day. He said, you think Jesus was white? Jesus was black. I don't want to say, man, Jesus was a Jew. In the flesh. But before the flesh, he's the son of God. And after the flesh, he's the son of God. Well, I want to extend unto you my personal invitation to attend our upcoming Aleph Tav conference. The dates are August 19th through 21st. That's a Wednesday through Friday, 6.30pm nightly at our Shreveport campus. Don't miss this conference. There'll be dynamic worship. I'll be ministering the word of God on the topic of Jesus, the Aleph Tav, August 19th through 21st. I hope to see you there. Well, I want to thank you for allowing me into your viewing area today. And I hope that you were blessed by the ministry of God's word. Our broadcast is made possible through the faithful financial support of our members and partners here in this viewing area. And I want to encourage you to prayerfully consider supporting the work of this ministry so that we can take the message of Jesus as the manifested word of God, reaching more people in more ways and in more places than ever before. Thank you for your support. He was God in both. He showed his humanity in one and his deity in the other. You better know God will walk you through things to let you know I'm in touch with your humanity.