NO REPUTATION
Opening: We serve the one and only risen Savior, Jesus Christ. The living King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is second only to the very throne of God. We have worshiped Him this morning in Spirit and in Truth.
I am encouraged by what the Lord has been doing here in the last few weeks and months. The Lord has met many needs and answered prayer. We need to be encouraging one another about the things of God as often as we can.
God’s Word has called for us to:
1 Tim 6:3
"...consent ... (ourselves) to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to (His) doctrine..."
I have only God’s Word, His doctrine, for you this morning
2 Tim 4:2
"Preach the word...exhort (comfort) with all...doctrine."
Heb 3:13
"...exhort (comfort) one another daily"
(Every opportunity we have for each other)
After a long and busy week, any of us can use some comforting words from the Lord. I know most of you have come to worship the Lord today. But as well, I need the comforting words found only in the Gospel of Jesus.
You can’t find (that kind of) lasting comfort anywhere else. Not in an interesting novel, an inspiring poem, and certainly not sitting at home reading the Sunday Morning Newspaper. I want to read, hear and listen to what the Lord has for me this morning.
All any of us needs to know is that Christ died so that we could live. So that we could experience and enjoy the Life He has for us. Jesus comforted His disciples (in John 10) when He said,
"I am come that you might have Life, and...have it more abundantly."
He wants us to enjoy all of these gifts. We should not refuse the Lord. We should be open and receive these great gifts of God.
His Life provides a great abundance. Ephesians 3:20 says Jesus is,
"able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask OR THINK, according to the power that worketh in us,
But by far, the greatest of all the things Jesus did for us was when He faced the shameful death on the cross of Calvary. We cannot forget that this morning. We should encourage one another with this Truth. There can never be enough said about the struggles He faced for us (at the cross).
Jesus paid the ultimate price for us. His Father sent Him to come down (out of a glorious heaven) to this world of chaos and confusion. Let us stand in reverence to the Word of God.
Text: Philippians 2:5 thru 8
Prayer:
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" (KJV)
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:" (NIV)
We have been trying to better understand our relationship with Christ. It is often our "attitude(s)" that allow or prevent us from having a relationship with the Lord.
That is, our identity in Christ. Our repentance to Christ. Christ living within us. Our dying to self, our ways and motives. And, (as a result) His Life reigning and ruling inside of us. Our desire should be for those around us to see Christ living inside of us.
One way this is to happen is to look at the events that took place as Christ made His way to Golgotha’s Hill (to be crucified). As we have read recently in Galatians 2:20, we share in His crucifixion.
We have been "crucified with Christ".
Christians have always been taught to tell everyone the crucifixion story. And now I am convinced the church of Jesus Christ is to BEGIN SHARING WITH HIM in that timeless story. I want us to better understand the sacrifice Christ made going to, and while He was on, the cross.
It only stands to reason that we should share/partake of His crucifixion. I believe true believers (everywhere) are beginning to understand -
how important it is to:
1. Survive - spiritually the times they now live in
2. Overcome - the temptations they face each day
3. Identify - themselves entirely with the Living King of Kings
Today I want us to experience the obedience Christ demonstrated going to the cross. We must identify ourselves with Christ, and His crucifixion. This message will be an attempt to take us on that walk with Christ. A journey to the cross.
I would like to ask each of us (in our daily devotions this week) to read and study the few passages that record the death of Christ on the cross. If you have a daily/scheduled devotion you have been following, I would ask you to consider taking a short break from that program. Long enough to meditate on the short story of the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.
You will want to notice what Phil 3:9 and 10 has to say. His righteousness is complete and perfect. Our righteousness is not enough. The righteousness I can depend upon can only be found in the faith of Jesus.
It is the only righteousness that God approves of and recognizes.
We are to be "made conformable unto His death." NIV says, we are to be like Him in His death. I Peter 4:13 says it well,
we should - "rejoice, inasmuch we are partakers of Christ’s sufferings..."
It is only half of the story for us to know only the benefits of His death. We are to also know of the power (found in) the "sufferings" of His death.
Many of us have learned to declare many things in our life about the Lord:
His teachings, His compassion, His forgiveness, His Mercy and Grace, His resurrection, His ascension into heaven and being seated at the right hand of Father God.
But perhaps the sufferings of Christ have seemed too gruesome of an subject for some of us to identify with. No doubt, it was the most gruesome event in the history of mankind. Nothing can compare with what Christ did for us in going to the cross.
To understand the death of Christ we must first understand (verse 6) the AUTHORITY Christ had in coming to us out of heaven.
Christ had, and still has, equality with God.
There is none greater than the Son of the Most High. Colossians 1 says,
"all things were created by him, and for him:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning..."
We can sense His authority when we worship Him.
Verse 7 compliments verse 6. Not only is He the complete authority, but He has proven His absolute HUMILITY. He "made Himself of no reputation..."
What does that mean? No reputation?
Listen carefully. Jesus gave up all of His rights. He gave up His privileges. Jesus was a broken man carrying His own cross that day.
Consider the LOSES Christ faced that day:
1. Rejected by all of His family and friends. No one stood up on His behalf. The people He had healed and delivered from demons. His closest friends abandoned Him.
Even Peter denied Him three times.
2. Rejected by God. From the cross Jesus cried out, "My God, my God.
Why have You forsaken Me?
The streets were crowded with those that hated Him for Who He was. God sent Him to the cross alone. Alone in His commitment of crucifixion.
3. No acceptance. The people, that day, could not accept Jesus as the
Son of God. They made fun of His commitment to crucifixion.
He was willing to give up everything, and not one person could understand why He was Who He was.
The people looked at Christ as if He were a lunatic. A heretic.
4. Didn’t measure up to the people’s expectations. They were looking for a king who would deliver them from the Roman government.
As far as they were concerned, He hadn’t done enough for God, or, what they had expected of Him.
5. He was misunderstood on everything He had ever said or done. All of the inspiring teachings. All of the miraculous healings. All of the signs and wonders. All of the dramatic deliverances. All of the incredible resurrections. Few believed in Him anymore.
This was the death of Christ. His physical death on the cross is to be our spiritual death .
No thought for what we want or expect. Total brokeness. No reputation.
Here are the questions we must ask ourselves:
Are we willing to be made weak? Submissive to our own crucifixion?
2 Cor 12:9-10 -
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness...I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, I am strong."
Jesus purposely chose weakness when He went to the cross for you and I. Will you choose weakness over your own strength?
Are we willing to make ourselves of "no reputation?"
Are we willing to be rejected by our own friends and families for the sake of Christ? What if our friends don’t like us being so submissive to God’s plan?
Perhaps the only acceptance in our lives will be found with God. Can we live like that?
We may have ideas of our own on how things should happen. The unfortunate fact of life is that out of all of the plans I can make for my life, very few of them will happen the way I think they should.
They may not necessarily be heartaches or disappointments. But, the older I get, the more I realize how seldom I am going to get my way.
It is not that I don’t care anymore. I just know I have to learn to live more reliant on God, and Him being the only One to get His way.
Verse 8 (of Phil. 2) gives a perspective of how Christ prepared Himself for the crucifixion. It says He
"...became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
Can we be that obedient to the Lord that we surrender to His death? His death represents our spiritual death to all of our own wants and desires?
Paul said (in I Corinthians), "...I die daily." I remind myself of this passage when I don’t get my way. I must go to that cross daily, and remind myself that if the Son of the Most High was made of "no reputation", than so must I (be made of "no reputation")
Consider this as well:
The story of the crucifixion tells us that the Roman soldiers stripped Jesus to prepare Him for the crucifixion. He was humiliated by being naked. He bore our sickness, our diseases, and our sins.
He had to give up everything He owned.
Jesus was without any rights or privileges in His death for us. Journey to the cross can only mean dying to ourselves. We give up everything. We have no possessions. We can only come to the Lord spiritually naked.
Of no reputation. Without any rights. Without any privileges of our own.
Total surrender means God possesses everything that is near or dear to you.
