Attitude of Christ
Philippians 2:5-7 · Miles Driedger · Apr 14, 2024
Philippians (2021-24), No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261934485386

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, so we are looking this morning at Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 7. And I wanted to back up a little bit for context and start. I actually only put 3 through 7, and then I decided, no, we should at least back up to 2. Does someone have a, if they have their Bible open, you could read and add in verse 2, or I can just read that here, unless anyone's got it ready to go.

Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in 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. All right. Thanks, Bonnie. That's great. So this passage here, is referred to as the kenosis doctrine. And there's a lot of theological discussion about the kenosis of Christ. The word kenosis comes from the Greek word in verse 7 for emptied himself. And theologians have debated what this means about the deity of Christ. Did Jesus become less than God? Did he lay aside his divine attributes or only the independent use of his attributes? Or did he lay aside his glory? And on and on the debate goes. What does this mean that Jesus emptied himself?

But, you know, to be honest, we're not going to trouble ourselves a lot with that debate this morning because that's not really paul's point here as i see it um paul wants us to see the character of christ jesus in this passage uh not not just debate the the technicalities of the incarnation because it's really abundantly clear from scripture that jesus is is one with god the father he never gave that up for an instant so Did we lose the class there for a second? No, we did. Yes, we did. OK, just saying it's very clear from scripture that Jesus never, certainly never gave up deity for a moment. And we've got 1 John 10, 30, during his earthly ministry, says, I and the Father are one.

A very, very clear statement that he knew that he was full deity. And then Paul to the Colossians in Colossians 2, 9, for in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. So very, very clear statement that Jesus in the incarnation, though he had emptied himself, was fully God, no less than God.

We're going to come back to Colossians 2 at the very end today and look at the following verse as well. But what Paul is drawing our attention to here is the Character that exists in Jesus that compelled him to do what he did in coming to earth as the God-man.

So Okay, so we just want to be reminded of the the context here Paul is exhorting church to make his joy complete by being of the same mind Okay, that was that's why I wanted to back up a verse two there. So the same mind and the same love and And Roger, a couple of lessons ago, said our unity is based on thinking the same thing. And I really appreciated that. That's exactly what Paul is saying here.

And we can contrast that to the ecumenical movement, perhaps, where they try to have unity based on having almost no doctrine. They may think the same thing, but they've got no content. Well, they can't agree on anything. Yeah, exactly. So we just empty our doctrine completely, and now we can agree. And they replace thought with feeling, and just trying to work up feelings of affection for one another. But that's not what Paul has in mind.

Another alternative is the denominational church, where all of our thinking is based around a man-made creed or a theological system. And there you have a sort of unity, but it's around the wrong object. So our unity is not based on cutting out doctrine and simply working on feelings. And it's also not based on adhering to a man-made system of religion.

Um, but our unity comes from a shared source of life. Um, and, and that common source of life is the only thing that allows us to have a common attitude. So, uh, last week Mike showed us how Paul describes the attitude that we're to share. It's, um, it's a loneliness or a humility of mine. And, uh, that's what, um, last week's lesson is about.

And now we see in verse five that the, attitude that is to be in us is the very attitude of Jesus Christ. So, a little bit of an outline thing through these verses is that in verses 3 and 4, Paul describes the characteristics of this attitude. In verse 5, Paul identifies Jesus as the source of this attitude. And then in verses 6 through 8, Paul presents Jesus' demonstration of of this attitude in his incarnation.

So looking at the first part of verse five, have this attitude in yourself. So we want to deal with that word attitude. That's the NASB translation, and most translations use either attitude or the word mind. The NASB is a little bit funny here because in verse two, where it says have the same mind, that's the exact same word. So in verse two, they translated it mind. And and then here in verse five, they've translated it attitude. But it's actually the same the same word in both places.

So the Greek verb here is for now. And Roger talked about that a couple of lessons ago in verse two. So he we've covered that already. And, but what's sort of confusing about the translation is that the Greek word phreno is a verb and not a noun. But pretty much all of the English translations that I looked at used attitude or mind as a noun. Have this attitude in yourselves. So we'll talk about that a little bit. But Roger was correct in saying that freneo has to do with thinking. Freneo is a word that comes from the root word frein. And frein is a noun. Frein is the noun for mind.

And the faculty of perceiving and judging, from Blue Letter Bible, zodiacs had the seat of intellectual and spiritual activity. And if you want a really authoritative source, you could just call it the thing that we think with, the thing that we think with, so.

How about mentality, Miles? Sorry? How about mentality? Mentality, yeah, okay. Yeah, so mentality, these words, it gets hard to think through sometimes what's the, you know, the seat of our thinking and the, and the, you know, the result of our thinking.

And, you know, and I think mentality is probably a pretty good word for Fresnel, um, because, um, it can, it can also be translated kind of as a disposition, um, or, or even the, the idea of a bent. Um, so, um, so that's good. Yeah. So Fresnel can be defined as, as to think, because it is a verb.

So think of it as employing the mind. Putting the mind to work and actually thinking with it Because it's verb is a verb so it has to be kind of this, you know an active thing So so here in verse 5 for now is in the present tense an active voice in the imperative mood So for now the root idea is to think the present tense means that this is constantly or continuously thinking The imperative mood means this is instruction a command. This is be continuously thinking And then the active voice says, you are the one who is doing this.

You are actively involved. It's active. So Colossians, I don't know if it's on a slide or not. Yeah, okay, it's coming up. So I didn't put this on, but Colossians 3.2 uses exactly the same word for now, where Paul says, set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth. So the words set your mind are the verb for now. And there it is rendered as a verb. So in a sense, well, we could, we could rent, I guess it's not exactly, it's kind of the same, but set your, set is the, is the verb that they've used in English, but we could render the Greek on the things above you are to be constantly thinking on the things above be constantly thinking. And that would maintain the verb of that.

So, In our verse here in Philippians 2.5, Freneo is preceded by the demonstrative pronoun, tuta.

And that's why we read this mind and this attitude. So we could ask the question, which attitude? Which attitude are we talking about? And it's the one that Paul had just described in verse 3 and 4. So the thinking or the attitude that is humble, the thinking that is lowly, and regards others as more important than myself. So Wyss gives the following translation, still keeps mind a noun, but he says, this mind, the one that we just described in verses three and four, this mind be constantly having in you. So you can see he's drawing out the present tense there.

But he also says that this is another viable translation, be constantly thinking this in yourselves. And I like that because it maintains the verb of phreneo, be constantly thinking. And so I made a bit of an attempt because I wanted to expand the demonstrative pronoun tuta. So in the manner just described, be constantly thinking in yourselves. That's a little bit of an awkward translation, but it tried to maintain some of the grammar aspects. So in the manner just described, be constantly thinking in yourselves.

So any questions, any thoughts on that first part of the verse? We're going to move on to the second part here. But it's a little bit hard to render in English, actually, because it says in yourselves. And we're so used to reading this, have this attitude in yourselves, and we think of it Um, you know, and I don't think it's, I don't know enough about the grammar to know about, um, you know, rendering a verb, um, because most of the translators have rendered it pretty consistently as something more of a noun, you know, how this thing in yourselves, this thing of a, you know, of an attitude or disposition or a, um, a mindset, um, or a mentality, but, um, but it is an active, uh thing because it is a verb so have this have this thinking in yourselves but but i think we recognize given the verses before as paul described that um the the type of mentality the type of attitude that it is that it's that that that thing is is to be in us but it's not really just a thing right it's an activity of mind so we're to have that activity of mind in ourselves so Okay, well, let's look at the mic. Yes. Miles. Miles are almost in the context of this attitude or this mindset. In verse 3, we're talking about humility. Yeah. And humility, to me, means to be in subjection to someone. And verse 5 is we need to be in subjection to Christ.

Perfect. And continually. Right. Continually, yeah. He's going to get the last half of the verse going. It's just Sunday mornings. Yeah, no, that's great. Thanks Bob. I appreciate that. That's great. So well, let's, that's good.

Let's look at the last part of the verse then. So five B, which was also in Christ Jesus. And of course when we go through and parse everything like this, we, you know, we split things up. Of course that goes together. You know, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. But, but let's look at this phrase a little bit. So, um, the last, the last part of verse five tells us who has this attitude or way of thinking. And um up to this point in chapter 2 paul has only described the thinking that is to be characteristic of us In the body of christ now paul identifies the one uh, who is the perfect specimen of this way of thinking and uh, this could be translated was in christ jesus or is in christ jesus that the um That's actually provided in a translation and and there's a little debate on which way it could go but either would be correct because jesus hasn't changed in character. He still thinks the same way. He always has. He always will. And he always will.

So we can ask the question, did Jesus have to try to be this way? I mean, that's kind of a rhetorical question, right? But Jesus lived consistently with his divine character. He didn't have to try to be something that he wasn't. Jesus is by nature humble and selfless. He's by nature um in subjection to the father right so there's here's a couple of neat verses from the old testament that talk about the character of of jesus and um this one in in daniel 4 7 4 7 4 17 sorry it's kind of a neat one because i i i stumbled upon this reading daniel i was like you know that's that's got to be prophetic that's got to be talking about the coming messiah this is the um the angelic watchers in in nebuchadnezzar's uh vision and And they say this, they say in order, this is kind of jumping right into the middle of context, sorry, but it says in order that the living may know that the most high is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom he wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men.

And if we know the context of Daniel and the visions, who is it that's ultimately set over the kingdom? You know, the stone cut out without hands, right? That crushes and Expands the lowliest of men. I really believe is a looking forward to the ultimate The ultimate king of kings, right?

Nebuchadnezzar was was incidentally the first king of kings Biblically, you know of that, uh, the the the five the head the head of gold of the statue Jesus is the final king of kings in the ultimate Anyway, but he's also the lowliest of men And then in Zechariah 9, 9, and we know this because we just thought about this.

Palm Sunday was not too long ago. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. So Jesus has always been humble and lowly in character.

So in applying verse five, and Bob, you're getting at this already here. But for us as Christians, how can we have this same attitude? How can we have this in ourselves? So we've got a problem, right? Our sin nature is completely contrary to the selfless nature that we see in Christ. Totally, totally contrary. We can say that the sin nature is self-centered, by definition. So it's exactly the opposite. And so how is the Christian supposed to have this same mindset in themselves that was also in Christ Jesus?

And you know, as I was reading different things in these verses, it kept coming up that the mindset of humility is something that we should be trying to produce or trying to emulate. I guess I'm going to pick on a couple of guys here, but I just, I read in Wiest, he said, the sum total of the thought of the exhortation seems to be that of urging the Philippians to emulate in their own lives the distinctive virtues of the Lord Jesus spoken of in 2, 2 through 4. And then, unfortunately, to pick on Chester Macaulay, he said, set in front of us the greatest of all examples of unselfishness. Sorry, set in front of us is the greatest example of unselfishness.

It is not placed in front of us for consideration, but for emulation. First, we are to emulate the mental attitude of Jesus. Change in conduct always begins with change in attitude. And so, you know, my response to that kind of has to be, you know, good luck, you know. Since luck is worthless, that's about all. But, you know, Paul's laying in front of us here as an example, the perfect humility of Christ, and we will never emulate that no matter how hard we try. You know, now Chester is right that a change in conduct always begins with a change in attitude or thinking, but we're never going to change our attitude. We need a new nature. And, um, and we don't get that nature through attempting to emulate it. So, so how do we get this same attitude as was in Christ Jesus? How does that happen?

And, um, and this was, uh, in the hungry heart, uh, on Friday, um, by JB Stoney, I think he really nailed it here. He said, I find that Christ loved me and gave himself for me when I was in an, in a most unattractive state. But he makes me suitable to himself, and I am so assured of the permanency of his love and of my association with him that my heart is free to study him. The more I am in his company, the more I acquire the tastes and characteristics which answer to his mind.

There is an amazing effect of beholding the Lord's glory. You may be transformed from some old taste without even feeling it, but you are transformed. And you cannot tell how. It is not the process that occupies you, but you are engrossed with the Lord.

We are united to the glorified Lord where he is at home and blessed by God, that is our home. Our life is there. So how does the father reproduce the life of his son in us? Rather than emulation, it's really about preoccupation. And it always comes back to faith, not effort, not willing or striving or trying to emulate, but we observe who Jesus is. And as we behold him in the word, and then by faith, we count on the fact that he is our very life, then we are transformed. It has to be his life, not our life.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it has it has to be his and and I think it's just such a common. It's so easy because this is in the imperative mood here, you know, have this same attitude. And so it's quite easy for us in our typical way of thinking to come along and say, well, then I have to I have to emulate this. I have to, you know, attempt to put this on. And the more we do that, frankly, the more we attempt to put it on, the more we find ourselves failing.

And, um, and that's important. That's really, that's really important to fail at because it shows us our need that, uh, that we can't produce this and, and we need, um, we need the life of Christ and that can only be ours by, by faith because it's a gift, you know, um, the, the, his indwelling nature is, is a grace gift and, and we just received that. So. Yeah, that's good. That's good observation.

You know, what's interesting is, as you look at, you know, we use Weiss and we use McCauley a lot, but it's interesting as you listen to them, as you read them, you still find that just like maybe we ourselves, sometimes we get off We're off the track sometimes, and we try to put ourselves in there when the Lord would have us put Him and put His life in there and not our efforts. And it's a slippery slope sometimes. And it's wise to be careful with it, being the best of men and with ourselves, too. Be careful about this.

Who's doing the living? Sure. Yeah. And, and, you know, I'm, I'm picking apart guys there who we, who we do, um, respect in many ways. And, and that, I mean, the reason I read them is because I, you know, I respect their opinions on, on things. Right.

And, but, but it came across that in, um, uh, in both of those, those guys. And I, and I, I could have found many others, but, and I guarantee you, if you were to look into either reformed camp, um, it would be, um, significantly worse, but it's so ingrained in our nature to be doers, to be working out of our own self-effort that it does sneak in there very, very easily. Miles, that's kind of like what Mike was talking about last time in verse 3.

Do nothing from selfishness or intricacy, delusions of grandeur, self-absorption, that type of thing. Yeah, that's exactly it. We're actually kind of deluded to think that we can... that we can be humble in ourselves. I'm going to determine to be humble. I think the other part of it, too, is if we have that kind of, you know, if we're trying to work towards it, and if he causes us to have success there, then we'll think, oh, that's because we worked for it. What's our doing? Yeah, yeah, that's right.

I think we can sometimes give ourselves some, like we said, delusions or, you know, kind of deceive ourselves into thinking that we've got some of this, but that will crash down on us. You know, as we attempt to live the Christian life in our strength, it always fails. It always does. It has to, because we don't have it in us. It can only be lived by faith.

Galatians 2.20, right?

Okay, let's look at uh verse six We've still got six and seven to go through so but a little a little bit briefer actually which is interesting because this is the part where we really get into You know the the doctrine of the kenosis and and uh, but like I said, we're really focused here on the character of christ in the incarnation um, so So verse six says who although he existed in the form of god did not regard equality with god a thing to be grasped and um I want to take note of that word regard, and some translations have consider or count there. And the Greek is hegeomai. And I wanted to draw out this word because it's the exact same word as in verse three. In verse 3, we saw that we are to regard one another as more important than ourselves. So we have a regarding to do. And now we see that Jesus regards something, namely that his equality with God was not something to hang on to.

The word hegeomai is very close to the meaning of the word legizimai, actually. I would say they're basically synonyms. We know legizimai from Romans 6, 11, and many other places, but of course, that's our reckon word, right? We have legizimai. We count on the facts, right? So under, and a little note on Blue Letter Bible under synonyms, I thought this was really helpful. It said that hegeomai denotes a belief resting not in one's inner feelings or sentiment, but on the due consideration of external grounds and weighing and comparing facts. You can see how similar that is to our wordly gizmo, right?

And Weiss translates the phrase, and who did not, after weighing the facts, consider it, and so forth. But just that part there, on regard, that's a lot of words to expand the the meaning of regard and I think helpful so So we see that Jesus weighed the facts we could say before he emptied himself now I think it's hard to talk to these things perhaps in terms of you know past tense present tense and so forth because Because as an eternal being you know his character has always been eternal and unchanging but But from our perspective, we kind of have to use temporal word tenses. But he did. He weighed the facts. And we are told to weigh the facts and consider others more important than ourselves. So what facts was Jesus weighing out and what facts are we to be weighing out? And I think that just a few thoughts here, in Jesus' case, He knows very well, this is one fact, he knows very well that he is God and that he will always be God. That's a fact.

He knew that by taking on flesh and dying as a substitute for sinners, he would perfectly satisfy the father's wrath against sin. That was a fact that he considered. Jesus knew that he would provide the only way for mankind to have fellowship with himself and with the father. He also knew that by doing this, By dying and being raised, he would perfectly satisfy God's, or sorry, he would perfectly display God's love for mankind.

And Jesus knew that he would perfectly vindicate God's character as both perfectly just and perfectly loving. So Jesus considered all these facts, and on that basis, he willingly chose to become the God-man and go to the cross. So there were hard facts behind what Jesus was doing. You know, in one sense, Jesus didn't have to go to the cross.

He he completely gave up his own will and submitted himself to the will of the father. He chose to. I mean, on the one hand, if we say if we're to have salvation, then he had to go to the cross. Right. But he but he did so willingly. He wasn't forced to. Right.

And that's what this is all about here. Over and over again in John's gospel, Jesus talks about the fact that he always and only does the will of the Father. There we go. John 6, 38, it says, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. So what about us? What facts are we to be weighing out?

And I've got Galatians 2, 20 on the screen there. I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And it's amazing enough to realize that Jesus gave up His own will entirely and submitted to the will of the Father. I think it's even more amazing to realize that Jesus' perfectly sinless life of submission to the Father is now my very own life. Do you see how that takes it a step further? It's like not only is that His perfect life of submission to the will of the Father, But by grace, that is our life as in Christ.

So how often in our lives are we thinking of ourselves rather than others? When we find ourselves in situations with others, we're usually thinking about ourselves, right? We're thinking about what's fair. What do I deserve? I'm no less important than you. Why should I serve you?

But if I'm coming to think spiritually, I'm coming to realize that I'm completely dead to self in Jesus Christ. And he desires to live out his selfless life through me, and he doesn't need my effort to do it. He will produce his life through me as I rest by faith. So when I consider those facts, then I can regard myself as nothing, simply a vessel for his life. for his love toward others in the body of Christ. So that's kind of Jesus counted on certain facts and we have facts to count on too in our regarding others as more important than ourselves. So let's look at verse seven here and then we're, yeah, we're getting close to the end of time here. but emptied himself.

I'm sorry. What did you give as a synonym for grasp? I always have a hard time with that. Understanding exactly what that means. Grasp. Oh, for grasp. Verse six. Verse six, yeah. A thing to be grasped. And there is, yeah, there is a lot of, I think, I think I use the phrase here, held on to, you know, And I know there's a lot of grammatical things in that verse in terms of what exactly does it mean. That's one of the reasons why, and it could just be people's, just our finite inability to understand, you know, Deity and united to humanity, you know, the whole the whole incarnation and so forth. But yeah, that is it really is such a remarkable verse right to think about that. How can that be?

Well miles you kind of covered that because you you said basically Jesus wasn't Well, I'll say this. He wasn't concerned that he might get full credit for the Godhead. He didn't. It's like, I don't have to make my case. I am God. I'm totally satisfied with who I am and what the God has decided. So I don't have to make my case. You know, because I don't need to. So I think that's the idea of grasp. You know, with a grasp, I got to grasp it to make sure I get my full due. Well, he didn't need to do that. He didn't need to get his full due. He has it. He already has that.

So I don't know. I think you're somewhat touching. I think that's really good, Roger. I agree. And I think that's kind of what I was trying to get at when I talked about the way that we often think, well, that's not fair. Why? It's really not about fairness. Was it fair to Jesus that he that he died, that he bore our sins on himself? Nothing fair about that whatsoever. So he didn't he didn't hang on to what was his his just deserts as as God. You know, he didn't deserve to go to the cross. He didn't deserve to take on humanity, you know, and be and be hated, hated by men and crucified.

But he but he did it. um because his because of what his character is and in the same way that's you know when we approach um you know certain human relationships and and particularly in the body of crisis where we're focusing here um you know it's so easy to say well you know but i deserve you know i'm i'm worthy of more than this or better than that and um or i don't deserve to have to do this or that and and um And that really points out our un-Christ-like character in our nature. And we don't have to grasp what we think we deserve, right? Though we really don't deserve anything, but you know, in ourself, we do think we have some pretty high evaluations of what we deserve. And so, yeah. Okay, that's fine. That's good. Oh, that's great. Good, good, good. That's really good to talk about and clarify a bit. Okay.

So verse seven, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men. So, um, so as I've been saying here, this, um, we're not focusing so much on the mechanics of the incarnation, but on the character of, of Christ, which led to the incarnation. So the reason we want to focus on the characters is because that's what Paul is focusing on in the passage.

He's talked to the Philippians about having love for one another in the body of Christ. He's talking about unity in the body of Christ. And unity cannot exist where everyone is constantly thinking about themselves, considering themselves and their own interests. And as we've been saying all along here, the only way to have the character of Christ is not through trying to have it, it's through resting in the fact that Jesus himself is our life.

And this quote, another quote by J.B. Stoney, I guess he understood this issue here. This was from yesterday. He sums it up really well. He says, the constant tendency is to try to improve the manner of one's life here below by adopting Christian principles, whereas you will never arrive at it unless you start from crucified with Christ. Then it is not thinking of what I am, but of what he is. Christ liveth in me. So it really sums up there in one, two sentences.

That was great. So the love that we have for one another in the body is completely dependent on the unity that we have with the one who is perfectly selfless and thought nothing of his own interests. So John 17, Jesus expressed this beautifully in the upper room prayer.

He said, glory which you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one. So unity is in the body of Christ. I in them and you in me that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you have loved me. And then in the closing line in verse 26, he says, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.

So that's the source of the love that Paul's admonishing here. So our union with Christ is for the purpose that his love would be expressed through us. This is the only way that we can ever fulfilled Jesus' instructions from earlier in that upper room discourse where he says, love one another even as I have loved you.

An impossible command if it weren't for the indwelling life of Christ. And we know exactly what God's love is like because of the cross, because Jesus gave up his own writes and came and died in the cross, 1 John 3, 16, we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So that really sums up this passage very well. Also, you know, just as he laid down his life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, which is something we can't do.

We really can't do that. It doesn't, that's not sourced in the flesh. Nobody, nobody gives up their own rights unless they feel that it's going to better, better them. You know, there's, there's some, sometimes the sort of a, um, a false, uh, kind of idea of, of altruism in, in the world that, well, yeah, well, unbelievers can be a selfless as well. No, no, they can't.

The only selflessness that exists in the world is, you know, you might help someone, but ultimately, At the root of that is because it's going to gain you something or better you in some way. So the only selfless love is found in Christ Jesus and his character. So concluding thoughts.

What I want to do here, we brought up Colossians 2.9 at the beginning, and I want to tie in verse 10, and this also just kind of summarizes this here.

So for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. In the kenosis, Jesus never gave up full deity. He never did. The fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And then verse 10, and in him, you have been made complete and he is the head over all rule and authority. So we've been made complete in him so that his perfect selfless love should be lived out through us.

So that's, That's really the thing I think we want to pull away from these verses. You know, it's valuable to really prayerfully meditate on them and understand something of what it took for Jesus to, you know, to empty himself to come and to lay down his life. But the real focus of this is the amazing character, the wonderful character of Jesus that lies behind the whole incarnation and his whole reason. that he came, so. All right, any last thoughts?

We're a little past time, so I won't. So he was a true humanity, but with undiminished deity. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And this was all a challenge, basically to unity. Mm hmm. The top part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there would be no unity in the body of Christ. There would be no true unity if it wasn't that we've been joined together in Christ Jesus. That is the source of our unity, and that is the source of our love for one another. Any other basis, any other attempt to create it or manufacture it will fail. It really will.

You know, I've been studying in the gospels that this was a stumbling block for the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed that Messiah would be man, but not God. And that was their contention with Jesus Christ. That's what they crucified him for, because he claimed to be God, which to the Pharisees was blasphemy. So they had to destroy him. Yeah, the very next verse after John 10, 30, where Jesus says, I and the Father are one, verse 31 says, and they picked up stones to kill him. You know, they understood what he was saying. He was claiming to be God and they wanted to kill him for it.

So, yeah, absolutely. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much that Jesus is who he is and that he has done what he has done. Lord, we just marvel at his amazing selfless character, the purity of that and his absolute willingness to come and to take our place from the highest heights of heaven to become the lowliest of men, crucified by the hands of sinners. Lord, we just can't fathom the depths of that love, and we pray that you would more and more draw us into it. Show us more of yourself and your love and your character, and then teach us to recognize that it's that very life that you intend to live out through us day by day in all of our interactions and everything that we face. We just thank you for all this in Jesus name. Amen.