EMPTYING OURSELVES:
Making Room for the Fire
A Morning Lent Prayer Worship Sermon
Week 2: Stripping Away (Self-Denial and Surrender) — Day 13
Philippians 2:5-7 (ESV) — "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."
INTRODUCTION
Good morning, church!
Before I say another word, I want to welcome the presence of the Holy Ghost into this place right now. Father, we open the doors of our hearts. We open the windows of our souls. Come in, Lord. Come in and have Your way.
Now somebody told me this is Lent. And I know what some of you are thinking. You are thinking: forty days, sacrifice, somber reflection, maybe give up chocolate or social media. And while there is nothing wrong with that, I need to tell you something this morning.
Lent is not a funeral. Lent is a FIGHT.
This is a season of spiritual warfare. This is a season of chain-breaking. This is a season where God strips away everything that has been suffocating the fire in your belly, so that when the Holy Ghost shows up, there is ROOM for Him to move.
We are on Day 13. Week 2. The theme is "Stripping Away." And I need you to hear me clearly: this is not a punishment. This is an invitation. God is not taking things from you because He is cruel. He is making space in you because He is generous. He wants to fill you with something so much greater than what you have been holding onto.
1. ADOPTING THE MIND OF CHRIST
Philippians 2:5 (ESV) — "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus."
The Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 2, verse 5: "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus." Now I need you to stop right there. Before we get to what Jesus did, Paul tells us to have a certain MIND. Not a certain behavior. Not a certain church attendance record. A certain MIND.
Why does that matter? Because actions flow from the mind. Every single thing you do today, you will first think. You cannot behave like Christ until you think like Christ. You cannot walk in the Spirit if your mind is still running on the flesh.
Let me give you an image. Think about your phone. When you first pull it out of the box, it comes loaded with a factory operating system. And that factory OS determines what the phone does by default. Your flesh, church, came out of the womb loaded with a default operating system. That OS is called Self-Preservation. It says: protect yourself, promote yourself, position yourself. It runs in the background every single minute of every single day.
But the Holy Ghost wants to install a new operating system. He wants to replace Self-Preservation with Self-Sacrifice. And that upgrade does not happen automatically. It requires your cooperation. It requires surrender.
Philippians 2:3 (ESV) — "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves."
Now I know somebody in here wants to argue with that. You are sitting there thinking: if I count everybody else as more significant, what happens to me? But here is what C.S. Lewis said, and I want you to write this down in your spirit. He said humility is not thinking poorly of yourself. Humility is thinking of yourself LESS. There is a difference. God is not asking you to despise yourself. He is asking you to take your eyes off yourself long enough to see Him. He is asking you to get your hand off the steering wheel long enough to let Him drive.
This is what Lent is for. These forty days are a re-installation. The Holy Ghost is doing a deep clean on the operating system of your mind. Let Him in.
2. RELEASING OUR GRIP ON STATUS
Philippians 2:6 (ESV) — "Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped."
Now watch where Paul goes next. Philippians 2:6: Jesus, "though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped." Did not count it a thing to be GRASPED.
I need you to feel the weight of that word. To grasp something means to clutch it, to white-knuckle it, to hold it so tightly your hand cramps. Jesus was God. He had every right to hold onto every privilege, every honor, every title that came with that. And He CHOSE not to. He opened His hand.
Now contrast that with another figure in Scripture. The enemy. Satan looked at the glory of God and said: I want that. I will ascend. I will make myself like the Most High. He GRASPED. And it destroyed him.
So this morning I have a question for you. And I need you to let the Holy Ghost speak to your conscience before you answer. What are you grasping?
Are you grasping a title? Are you holding onto a position in this church or your workplace so tightly that you would rather see it burn than let someone else have it? Are you grasping a grudge? Have you been carrying an offense for so long it has started to feel like identity? Are you grasping the need to be right? Would you rather win an argument than win a soul?
James 4:6 (ESV) — "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
1 Peter 5:5 (ESV) — "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
When we grasp, we resist grace. When we grasp, we put ourselves in a posture that God Himself opposes. And nobody wants God as their opponent.
This is why we fast. This is why we are in this Lenten season right now. We fast to break the grip of earthly things. We fast so that our hands, which have been clenched around status and comfort and control, will slowly open. And when those hands open, we are positioned to reach up and grab the hem of His garment.
The fast is not about suffering for suffering's sake. The fast is about grip therapy on your soul.
3. TAKING ON THE POSTURE OF A SERVANT
Philippians 2:7-8 (ESV) — "He emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
Paul brings us to the most staggering truth of this entire passage. Philippians 2:7: Jesus "emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant." The Greek word there is "doulos." That does not mean a hired hand who gets paid on Friday. That means a BONDSLAVE. Someone who belongs completely to another. No rights. No privileges. No platform. No negotiating power.
Stop and think about what happened here. The One who spoke the galaxies into existence, the One at whose word the seas obey, the One who is high and lifted up and whose train fills the temple... He put on human skin. He felt hunger. He felt fatigue. He felt grief. He walked on dusty roads with calloused feet. And then He picked up a towel.
John 13:14-15 (ESV) — "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you."
The Creator washed the feet of the created.
The world tells you: climb the ladder. Build your brand. Elevate your profile. Get to the top. But in the Kingdom of God, the anointing flows DOWN. Oil pours from the head to the beard to the hem of the garment, the Bible says. It does not flow upward. It flows DOWN.
The lower you bow in the Spirit, the higher God lifts you. The more you take on the posture of a servant, the more room there is for His glory to rest on you.
Mark 10:45 (ESV) — "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Jesus understood something that we are still learning. True greatness is not found in how many people serve you. It is found in how faithfully you serve others.
And I need to be honest with you this morning. This costs something. Paul is not preaching a comfortable sermon in Philippians 2. He says Jesus became obedient to death. Real obedience leads to sacrifice. Real self-denial has a price tag. And some of you are feeling the cost of this Lenten season right now. The thing you gave up is calling your name. The pride you set down keeps trying to get back up. The control you released keeps pulling at your fingers.
But I declare to you this morning: the cost of emptying yourself is NOTHING compared to what God is about to pour in.
CONCLUSION
Let me bring this home. Paul says Jesus "emptied himself." That is the Greek word "kenosis." He did not lose His divinity when He emptied Himself. He laid down His privileges. He clothed His glory in human frailty. Fully God. Fully surrendered.
2 Corinthians 8:9 (ESV) — "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 by his poverty might become rich."
His emptying produced our filling. His surrender produced our salvation. His release produced our redemption.
John 3:30 (ESV) — "He must increase, but I must decrease."
That is your Lenten call. That is your Day 13 assignment. Decrease. Empty out. Strip away. Not because God is punishing you, but because He is PREPARING you. He is making room. He is clearing the clutter so the fire can fall.
You cannot fill a cup that is already full. You cannot pour new wine into old wineskins. And you cannot receive a fresh outpouring of the Holy Ghost if you are still stuffed full of yourself.
But here is the thing I need you to hold onto as we close. Jesus did not empty Himself into a void. He emptied Himself into the mighty hands of the Father. When you surrender your pride, it does not fall into nothing. When you release your grip on status, your open hands are caught by the God who holds the universe. You are not falling when you surrender. You are landing.
Right now, this morning, I am asking you to do something physical. I want you to open your hands. Literally. Right where you are seated. Open your hands, palms up.
Those open hands represent your surrender. Every title you have been grasping. Every offense you have been carrying. Every need to control. Every prideful thought. Every comfort you have allowed to become a god. Release it. Right now. Into the hands of the Father.
If you are in this room and you have been running on the flesh operating system, if you have been white-knuckling your status and your reputation and your comfort, I am calling you to the altar this morning. Come. Come with your hands open. Come empty. Because the Holy Ghost is about to fill what you release.
CLOSING PRAYER OF SURRENDER
Pray with me.
Father, we come to You this morning not with our résumés. Not with our titles. Not with our track record. We come to You empty-handed.
We confess that we have grasped things You never intended for us to carry. We have clutched our reputations and our comfort and our need to be right, and we have called it wisdom. But today, in this holy season, we lay it down.
We choose the mind of Christ. We choose the posture of a servant. We choose to decrease so that You, Lord, might increase in us.
Come, Holy Ghost. Fill every empty space we have created. Pour Your fire into the places we have cleared out. We are not afraid of the weight of Your glory. We welcome it. We have made room for it.
Lord, let this Lenten season not end with us simply having gone without something. Let it end with us having received YOU in greater measure than we have ever known. Let the stripping away produce a filling up. Let the fast produce a feast of Your presence.
We are Yours. All of us. Every title. Every ambition. Every plan. We open our hands and we say: have Your way.
In the name of Jesus Christ, who emptied Himself so that we could be filled. Amen.
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Blessings,
Pastor JM Raja Lawrence
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
email: lawrencejmr@gmail.com
Mobile: +91 9933250072
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