The Wonder Of Christmas – Philippians 2:5-11 Series

But if you take all of that and put it together, it is about the size of a pea compared to the glory of God, which is so big. And so when God became a man, He gave up that glory. Are you seeing that? That's what He's saying here. That we think we're so great, but we are nothing really before God. And so when Christ became a human being, He gave up that glory. That's pretty big. Kenao. Kenosis. He emptied Himself. He gave up that glory temporarily.

Secondly, He gave up His independent authority. Jesus answered this question Himself. He said to them – “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does also.” So Jesus is taking His cues from the Father. He’s praying to His Father, “Father, take this cup from me.” You know, He recognizes the Father has the plan and Jesus has given up His independent authority in this sense. Those are the kinds of things, the privileges associated with the godhead that are given up. As Jesus takes on this form, morphe, of a person, He gives up those privileges.

Well let's go back to our passage because in verses 6-7 he's talking about the nativity, he's talking about the incarnation, Jesus coming down to earth. In verse 8 he's talking about the crucifixion – Christ’s life and His death. It says in verse 8 – And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

You see, another, I think, window into the wonder of Christmas is the recognition that the story of Christmas is only a piece of the story. That it's a much bigger story that has to do with God coming down, becoming obedient, even to the point of death, death on a cross. It's part of God's grand scheme, God's grand plan to redeem His people, to redeem us so that we can have this personal, intimate relationship with the godhead. Redeem us.

Redeem. That's the word we use when we take a coupon to the store and we redeem it. We get something for it because we're redeeming the coupon. Whenever you have a redemption, you have four things. You have the person who's taking it in to get it redeemed or giving it. You have the person receiving it. You have the coupon itself or the price itself. And you have the result, what you get out of it. Right? Those are the four things in any redemption.

Well let's apply that to the redemption of Christ. Who's giving the gift? Who's giving the certificate? Who is this? God the Father. Right? Okay. That's good. Now so far, we're on track. Let's see if we can get the second question. Now we have the redemption itself or the certificate, the price that was paid. What's that? It's Jesus Christ. Okay. So now we got that. Now here's the tricky one. Who's it paid to? Okay, God takes the certificate and pays it to someone. Who does he pay it to? Death. That's an interesting idea. He pays it to Himself.