WEBVTT 00:00:06.959 --> 00:00:12.720 This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota. 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:24.480 Here at Faith, our focus this season has been on the humility of Christmas. 00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:30.000 That theme comes from the second chapter of the book of Philippians. 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:40.560 There, the Apostle Paul shows that the eternal, glorious God became a human being without ceasing to be God. 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:48.799 God the Son, the scriptures declare, took the form of a slave. 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:57.200 That was an embarrassing thought for the Christians in the ancient city of Philippi. 00:00:58.240 --> 00:01:08.079 History shows us that social status and class played key roles in the community life of that city. 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:17.920 It even appears in the scriptures as the idea or the theme of citizenship plays a central role in the letter to the church in Philippi. 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:23.680 Ancient peoples often displayed their status through clothing. 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:25.519 I'm not doing that tonight. 00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:30.000 Probably should have come dressed in jeans and a tattered t-shirt. 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:36.879 But in ancient Philippi, status was displayed through what you wore. 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:40.959 For example, you might recognize the Roman toga. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:46.719 Roman toga was often white in appearance. 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:53.040 Roman senators, though, wore something a little bit different. 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:59.840 The white toga was worn by individuals who held Roman citizenship in the Roman Empire. 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:10.240 Roman senators, so just a step below the emperor, wore a white toga with a wide purple stripe on it. 00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:14.159 It was called the lattice clavis. 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:23.840 Those of upper class status wore a similar toga with a narrow purple stripe. 00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:36.639 So you could tell simply by looking at someone if they were a Roman citizen, or if they were a Roman citizen of ruling class, or if they were a Roman citizen of an upper class. 00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:48.960 Even freed slaves, those who had received their manumission by some way or form, had their own symbol of status. 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:53.520 They had an egg, half egg, or cone-shaped hat. 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:57.759 It was a symbol of their freedman status. 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:05.680 So imagine a proud Roman senator choosing to wear the clothing of a freed slave. 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:09.840 It would be humiliating. 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:16.960 People would happily accept the honor of graduating to a higher class. 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:23.919 But it was unheard of to choose a lower class and appear as a slave. 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:28.879 Yet that is exactly what God the Son did. 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:36.560 He existed in unexplainable glory before the world was created. 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:46.960 His status, his existence as God shone brighter than the star of Bethlehem, even before the stars themselves were placed in the sky. 00:03:47.199 --> 00:03:49.520 He is the perfection of God. 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:56.960 By taking on human form, it was as if God was becoming a Roman slave. 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:09.599 He didn't stop being God, but he set aside his right to display his glorious form and being when he came to earth. 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:12.240 He wrapped himself in a body. 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:14.719 He became the God man. 00:04:15.599 --> 00:04:23.920 The New Testament calls this a humbling, a humiliation for God. 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:27.600 Yet he did it willingly. 00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:37.600 That act is so remarkable that many call it the perfection of love, because he did it for others. 00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:44.000 Perhaps, though, more surprising than the humiliation itself is that it was planned. 00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:46.240 It didn't just happen. 00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:55.839 The humility of Christmas, that humbling act of God taking on human form, was intentional and foretold. 00:04:56.079 --> 00:05:01.439 The prophet Isaiah spoke of a person called God's servant or God's slave. 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:09.839 And strangely, in Isaiah chapter 52, it says that slave would be high and lifted up and be exalted. 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:20.079 Those words are only used, that language is only used of God in the book of Isaiah. 00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:26.240 A slave who would be high and lifted up. 00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:39.360 But then Isaiah goes on to say that many would be surprised by the slave's appearance because it was so marred and distorted beyond what a human being looks like. 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:42.000 But that's jumping ahead. 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:43.279 We need to back up. 00:05:43.439 --> 00:05:49.040 You see, Isaiah asked a question at the beginning of Isaiah chapter 53. 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:53.519 He says, who has believed what he heard from us? 00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:07.920 The prophet recognizes that the idea of a glorious God appearing as a human being or even a slave doesn't align with human perceptions of reality. 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:14.959 It would be humiliating for the indescribable God to appear as a slave. 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:19.839 And Isaiah says that makes his message difficult to believe. 00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:24.480 But then the prophet explains a little bit more. 00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:32.160 In verse 2 of Isaiah 53, he says, Let me explain, that's what that four is all about. 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:45.439 For he grew up before him, that is, the servant or slave, grew up before God, like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. 00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:53.680 He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 00:06:53.920 --> 00:06:56.879 So let's follow the description from beginning to end. 00:06:57.120 --> 00:07:00.639 A slave would possess the form of God and be exalted. 00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:02.560 He would be high and lifted up. 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:22.079 He would be glorious, yet he would grow up like a human being, emerging in a picturesque kind of way, like a like a sucker branch from a plant that was already there, but apparently cut down, and so this other branch just comes up out of the ground. 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:40.000 But then we remember that Isaiah already spoke of that happening back in chapter 11, where he said, There will be a shoot that comes forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots, from Jesse's roots, will bear fruit. 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:44.879 There's an unexpected quality to this image. 00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:52.720 Sucker branches grow up on their own, out of the ground, unexpectedly. 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:58.240 And this one depicting a human being was nothing remarkable. 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:01.439 Just another sucker branch coming up out of the ground. 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:05.680 It didn't seem special, it didn't seem unique or desirable. 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:09.439 Under normal circumstances, we would merely cut it off. 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:20.959 But Isaiah says that this branch from the root of the messianic line of David will be high and lifted up and exalted as God. 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:26.319 He would enter time and space like a slave with no desirable appearance. 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:47.840 The perfection of beauty and brilliance of God himself, clothed with a body, as though an emperor were taking off his royal toga and taking on the clothes of a slave. 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:56.559 Isaiah was looking forward in time, prophesying about the coming slave who is God. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:09:07.759 And looking forward, he says in Isaiah chapter 53, verse 3, that he was despised and rejected by men. 00:09:08.799 --> 00:09:12.480 He was a man of sorrows because he was acquainted with grief. 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:22.320 And as one from whom people hide their faces, they didn't esteem him, didn't consider him worthy. 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:29.360 So that root came out of the ground, so to speak, in humble Bethlehem of all places. 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:40.960 No one heard about it or cared about the angelic announcement of his birth except for some poor shepherds in the middle of the night and some magi coming from some country in the east. 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:50.720 That's because no one really notices when someone as low on the social ladder as a slave is born. 00:09:53.919 --> 00:10:00.320 But that, my friends, is precisely where the awe of Christmas resides. 00:10:01.679 --> 00:10:05.840 The glorious God humbled himself. 00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:10.799 He did it to himself. 00:10:12.559 --> 00:10:14.879 No one forced him to do it. 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:17.279 It didn't just happen. 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:36.320 It was planned that the glorious God would humble himself by wrapping the glory of his deity and his majestic power in the form of a human being, the eternal God experiencing a beginning in his creation as a humble infant. 00:10:36.559 --> 00:10:45.600 So we don't find a royal toga, we find strips of cloth wrapped around an infant. 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:59.279 See, only those who accept him as Christ the Lord, as those shepherds did, will understand what kind of child lies in the manger. 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:08.799 Only those who believe what the prophets predicted and what the gospels reveal as fulfilled will come and worship him. 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:18.480 Because if we don't come in faith, we see him as a despised and rejected sucker branch. 00:11:19.679 --> 00:11:21.279 It is undesirable. 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:38.159 So this is a call to trust in the infant holy, the one who is high and lifted up and exalted, but who humbled himself for your salvation. 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:49.600 It's a call to come to Bethlehem and adore the humble God who came for us. 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:50.799 Let's pray. 00:11:56.799 --> 00:11:58.240 Awed, yes. 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:12.480 But to be awed by this indescribable event of God humbling himself, the all-worthy one. 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:16.240 The one who is beyond worth. 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:18.480 Indescribable. 00:12:20.559 --> 00:12:26.080 The one who already had all of the gold and frankincense and myrrh that he could desire. 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:46.080 Who came and set that aside to be found as a human being, like a slave, like a lowly one on the social status that no one would notice or desire. 00:12:47.039 --> 00:12:49.200 Except those with eyes of faith. 00:12:49.519 --> 00:13:12.639 Lord, give us eyes of faith that we might see beyond the strips of cloth, beyond the swaddling, beyond the manger to the glorious truth that our God took on human flesh to die. 00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:15.440 A death on a cross. 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:21.279 There would be a distant night not so silent. 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:24.480 And people would weep and wail. 00:13:26.399 --> 00:13:29.279 For yet another indescribable event. 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:30.960 The death of God. 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:38.159 Lord, we will look forward with faith beyond that cross. 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:48.399 To when you came out of the tomb, demonstrating once and for all that the God man is real. 00:13:52.159 --> 00:13:59.440 So in your presence we gather tonight to come on bended knee and adore you. 00:14:01.919 --> 00:14:08.320 Remembering the humiliation of God being born. 00:14:09.679 --> 00:14:10.320 Amen. 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:16.320 That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church. 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:23.360 Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus. 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:27.679 You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.