SERMONIC / WORSHIP THEME
INTRODUCTION
Opening Statement: In our culture we are all about promotions and advancement: a better salary, a bigger office, a nicer view, executive dining room privileges, more benefits, flying first class, luxury suites, and options and bonuses. We all have felt this pull toward a nicer lifestyle, a more comfortable existence. We are oriented to move up in the system rather than down. And while God-honoring achievement and progress is commendable, and having solid Christians in corporate America is so necessary, if Jesus had adopted our viewpoints on promotion and advancement, we would have never had Christmas. I think what you will find in the incarnation is a God that does not move up on the ladder, but moves down with love as the motivating factor.
Proposition: Life-changing love requires self-demotion. There is no other way to have Christmas.
Text / Key Word: According to Philippians 2, Christ took a series of demotions to come and be the Christmas child.
Review: Last week, we looked at Christmas Hope that moved into our neighborhood. We talked about how Christmas was all about reversal, about how God entered our dark and gloomy places where sin had stung us the most severely, and how Christmas Hope lived in and transformed our locations of sin. Today, we talk about…
Title: Christmas Love
OUTLINE
Background: Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians to thank them for their partnership with him in the gospel. In the middle of this informal letter, Paul launches into this formal Christological hymn to underscore the need to adopt a selfless kind of lifestyle and thinking. This is really what Christmas is about. Paul places the incarnational example of Jesus before the divided parties of the Philippian community and says to them “Treat each other with Christmas Love.”
Recitation: 1 Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Exposition: When reading this passage, I think a couple of things cause us to miss the astounding implication of what is being described. I think we are so familiar with Paul’s words that we miss their impact. This passage has been the topic of many Christmas sermons. In addition, I also think that we get in a hurry to get to the exciting details found in the Christmas birth narratives. These human stories – shepherds, stables, and newborns - explain Christmas from our perspective. We can relate to them. But the Philippian passage is Christmas from Jesus’ side of it. And even though it’s not nearly as exciting for us to think about, it explains the price that love paid to give to all of us a Christmas morning. Christ did go through a series of demotions. He came from heaven to earth. He became a man. He became a serving man, rather than a man of affluence and wealth. He became a sacrifice, submitting to death, in order to become our Savior. These are all true, but not all of those steps down were equal.
Observation: The first step down from heaven to earth was the greatest step. It was a lot further down than the other successive steps. Those of us who have only known this earth have no idea the gap between heaven and earth. We have no categories to help us think through what heaven must have been like for Him. We know that He undoubtedly was honored as one of the three persons of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We know that His environment was filled with sights and sounds and beauty that only our Biblical writers could describe in terms that they understood: gold, precious jewels, pure water, abundance of food, and a lot of celebration! The legions of angels must have marveled at the intimacy He must have had with His Father and the Holy Spirit, which undoubtedly rendered the three inseparable. I want you to contrast this kind of existence, sketchy though it may be, in your thinking with what we know about Christmas.
Explanation: When Jesus landed on planet earth, the first thing he experienced was a human birth. While this is exciting, it’s also terrifying not only for a new mother, but also just ask a father who has fainted by his wife’s side at the moment of truth. Birth is messy, painful, and uncomfortable, and Jesus, the Son, is right in the middle of it. I think little babies are especially cute, especially the ones that you see right after birth and they have those little “cone heads.”
Not only did Jesus know the stress of being born into a world like ours, but imagine the first smells and sights and sounds that he had to greet Him. While we’re not absolutely sure if all babies can see at the time of birth, they certainly can hear, smell, and sense the presence of others. The first thing Jesus smells (and I don’t mean to be crude) is cow manure and sheep’s urine. And the first sound that He hears is some goat that wants another meal. His first bed is some straw in a feeding trough. Friends, we have no idea what Christmas cost Him.
And as if this wasn’t enough, when he finally began his public ministry years later and was trying to teach the people about God’s love, the religious leaders crossed their arms and rolled their eyes, ridiculed His family, and endeavored to find holes in His theology. They wrote Him off, totally oblivious to the incredible price that he paid to even come to their planet in order to deliver them.
Question: How do you get from uninterrupted, eternal fellowship from eternity past with the Godhead to a stable where you’re messing your diapers and you’re completely powerless? What prompts one to make such a drastic transition? Christmas Love. This is what I call a demotion and love knows no other way. Love requires demotions. Christmas requires demotions. Love knows no other way. The love that motivated Jesus to take all of those steps downward cost Jesus everything and Christmas Love is still costly. In fact, the reason that Paul even gave us this great passage is to motivate us to pay the price of love and set aside our selfish living. Paul understood the fact that, instead of demotion, we often choose domination because it’s what we’ve learned from our earliest days of life. Our nature is to dominate, not demote.
Clarification: From the moment of birth, people urge others to meet their needs. The infant cries until Mom comes to meet his/her need. The toddler misbehaves until Dad stops playing with little sister and has to give full attention to him. At older ages, siblings often demand privileges in at least equal proportion to, and preferably in greater amounts than, their brothers and sisters. In adulthood the issues become high-paying jobs, comfortable homes, prestigious cars, and an extravagant lifestyle that fuels the urge to dominate rather than demote. And, so the tendency to want to dominate rather than demote is carried on. What begins, as a survival instinct quickly becomes an expression of fallen human nature. And so, what Paul is suggesting here to the Philippian community is that if they are going to make it as a church and if their relationships are going to be strong and their family’s stable, someone is going to have to break the cycle of domination and be demoted. And what he’s saying is that Christ volunteered and said, “I’ll be demoted.” That’s the way Christmas Love works. We want love to work another way, a less painful way, a less costly way, but love can’t.
Application: Some of you need to take a step down for someone this Christmas. Stop holding on to grievances and offenses from the past. Put your personal agenda aside for the cause of Christ and the sake of a relationship and serve someone who may not deserve it. We certainly never deserved the price that Christ paid. His entire life spoke of service. Born as a poor baby, submitting to his parents, washing disciples’ feet, carrying a cross on his back – He served despite the inconvenience.
Some of you need to let go of some things this Christmas. Christmas love demands it. From our side, Christmas has become all about getting. From Christs’ side, Christmas has always been about giving. The things that Christ possessed in heaven were not something that He had to hold on to; heaven did not keep him from coming to fulfill His mission. He gave up some things. Yet, we continue to hold on to things or positions as if life depended upon it. Let go. The “pecking order at work” is not nearly as important as you think it is. Don’t worry about who spends the most time in the CEO’s office. Let it go. Christ did. He set position and status aside.
Some of you just simply need the Savior. This is a wonderful time to recognize the love that came to all of us centuries ago. Now is the right time to personally believe in and experience Christmas love.
CONCLUSION
Illustration:
