From: Wong Wie Khiong The Incarnation of the Triune God (Excerpt)
Philippians 2:6-11 By John MacArthur Excerpted from: http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=2218 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (NIV) [.]At Christmas, we are confronted again, and I'm sure you're aware of it, with the sometimes very difficult task of separating the reality of Christmas from the clutter that surrounds that reality. There is so much confusion that sometimes you feel like the real Christmas story is like a diamond lost in a haystack--it just seems impossible to find. This was graphically illustrated to me the other night as our family was driving along together and we decided to drive through a certain neighborhood in the valley where they have a lot of lights and displays on the lawn and the kids always enjoy that. So, we were driving up and down the street and the place was just lit up and there were lights everywhere. And we came to all kinds of houses with all kinds of representations of Christmas--everything imaginable: Snoopy on a surfboard on the roof, Santa Claus and everything. But we came to one house that just sort of put it all together. Everything you can conceive of about Christmas was there. There was the nativity scene. There was a Hanuka bush, the star of David, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus, the reindeer, Rudolph, the workshop, elves, you name it, lights, Christmas trees, presents, plastic toys on the lawn, the whole shot. And really, it was just a graphic picture of the chaos of Christmas, all confused so that no one could make any sense out of any of it. Christmas has really become a hopeless muddle of confusion. The humility and the poverty of the stable are somehow confused with the wealth and indulgence and selfishness of gift giving. The quietness of Bethlehem is mingled with the din of shopping malls and freeway traffic. The soberness of the incarnation is somehow mixed with the drunkenness of this season. Blinking colored lights somehow have some connection to the star of Bethlehem. The room in the inn, so obscure, so dirty with such meager fare, somehow embraces the thought of a warm house, a fireplace and opulent feasting. Cheap plastic toys for little kids with which to play out their follies are mixed with the true value of the gifts given by wise men. Salesmen somehow get mixed up with shepherds. Angels are confused with flying reindeer, one of which even has a red nose. The pain of childbirth is mixed with the parties. The filth of the stable is confounded with the whiteness of fresh snow. And then there's Mary, Joseph, Perry Como and Bing Crosby. And so it goes. The great reality of Christmas, which is the glory of the Lord being revealed, is obscured by so much tinsel and activity and commercialism. And I think it's true that Santa Claus really has become the focus of Christmas for most people. And I've noted in the years that I've been ministering, that more and more each year, Santa Claus takes a dominant place. In fact, it's amazing but I think some people have trouble confusing Santa Claus with Jesus...if you can imagine that. One of the most incredible and blasphemous confusions of Christmas I ever read appeared in a recent issue of "The Episcopal News--The Diocese of Los Angeles," written by a Reverend Bennison(?) who is the rector of St. Mark's Church in Upland, California. He wrote this article and I think it might point up to you something of the confusion of Christmas. Listen. "There are few causes to which I am more passionately committed than that of Santa Claus. Santa Claus deserves not just any place in the church but the highest place of honor, where he should be enthroned as the long-bearded, ancient of days, the divine and holy one whom we call God. "Santa Claus is God the Son. `You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town' simply refers to God the Son slipping into the secrets of the heart as easily as he slips down the chimney of the house. "Santa Claus is God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth, in whose hand is a pack bursting at its seams with the gifts of His creation. Santa Claus is God the Holy Spirit who comes with the sound of gentle laughter with a shape like a bowl full of jelly to sow in the night the seeds of good humor. Santa Claus indeed deserves the exalted and enthroned place in the church, for he is God, Son, Father and Holy Spirit. "So there he is: God the Son, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit. I've seen him in the toy store. I've seen him in his car on the freeway. And when I saw him with his crazy beard and his baggy red suit, I saw more than the seasonal merchant of cheap plastic toys, I saw no less than the triune God," end quote. Unbelievable! Santa Claus is the incarnation? What confusion! And from the clergy, no less. How far can you miss the real Christmas, huh? So far that you believe Santa Claus is the incarnation of the triune God? What confusion! Now, as we face the reality of Christmas, I want us to see the true story and this time not from the perspective of Bethlehem or Joseph or Mary or shepherds or innkeepers or wise men or Herod or Old Testament prophets, but I want us to see the Christmas story from the viewpoint of the Holy Spirit of God as revealed to the Apostle Paul. And I believe it gives us the real Christmas story. The scenery isn't there. Bethlehem isn't the issue. Shepherds and wise men and Joseph and Mary and mangers and oxen, they don't appear in this perspective. But what is here is the reality of the incarnation. This is one of the greatest texts in all the Bible. It is, perhaps, the most profound statement of the Christmas story anywhere in the Word of God. [.] He abandoned the sovereign position. He took a servant's place. He approached a sinful people. He became one of us. Paul Harvey tells a very beautiful story that illustrates this truth. It was Christmas eve in the midwest. There was a man who had been in a family where his wife and his children were Christians but he was not. And he rejected it. He sat home that Christmas eve in front of the fire. It was cold out and the snow was blowing. His wife and the little children had gone to the chapel in the nearby village for a Christmas eve service to honor the Christ they loved. He sat by the fire reading the paper. All of a sudden he heard a loud and repeated thumping. He thought someone was banging on the door. He went to the door and opened it but found no one was there. By the time he got settled back into his chair, he heard it again and again. And he was bewildered as to what was causing it until he realized that something seemed to be smashing against the window. And so he went to the drapes and he pulled the drapes aside and to his amazement, a flock of birds was flying into the window. A snowstorm, you see, had blown in. And the birds had been caught away from their shelter and they couldn't find their way back. They couldn't fight the wind. They saw the lighted window and the warmth of the light had attracted them. And they were literally flying into the glass trying to get to the light to get warm. They would freeze to death, you see, if they didn't find some shelter. Well, the man who had refused to go with his family to the Christmas eve service because he had no interest in the Christ of Christmas was all of a sudden very compassionate for these poor birds. And so he wondered how he could help them. And so he opened the door and went out in the cold and tried to chase them away so that they wouldn't kill themselves against the window. And then he ran to the barn and he threw the doors open and he whistled and he shooed them and did everything he could to get them to fly to the barn, they wouldn't do it. He even went so far as to take some corn and some bread and make a big trail from the window to the barn. And they wouldn't follow it. In frustration, he said to himself, "If I could just communicate with them. If I could just tell them that I don't want to hurt them, that there's warmth and there's shelter and that they'd need to stop beating themselves to death against the glass. But I'm a man and they're birds and we don't speak the same language. Oh, if I could just become a bird, I think I could tell them." And then it hit him. And in that moment, said Paul Harvey, the whole meaning of Christmas dawned on that man. Mankind had been beating itself to death against the barrier that kept him from the warmth of God's love until somebody became a man and told us the way. That's the Christmas story. He who was fully God, did not cling to His privileges but laid them aside, became a servant and approached a sinful people. But is there a message for Christians here? . This passage [Phil. 2:6-11] was written for Christians. That's right. The passage was not written for unbelievers. It was written for Christians. How do you know that? Because this whole passage is just an illustration of another principle. Go back to verse 5. The whole passage simply illustrates another principle. And what is the principle? Verse 3, "Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves." Don't look on your own things, but on the things of others. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being..." and then you go into the passage. What is Paul saying? Be humble. Be selfless. Be lowly. And if you need an illustration, then let this mind be in you which was in Christ who was something and became nothing that God might make Him something again. He is a living illustration to the believer. If you will humble yourself, God will exalt you. [.] I think the point of Christmas is right here. Christmas, there's no better time in the year than to teach us the illustration of the lesson of humility. The character of Christ, He was unselfish. He was humble. He was condescending. And Paul is challenging the church to that perspective. An attitude of a willingness to suffer, to be humiliated, to be selfless, to be sacrificing, so that God can lift us up. And the thing we need to learn, people, is not to always be asserting ourselves, defending ourselves, pushing ourselves up, but to be humble and selfless. That is the message of Christmas to us. Benjamin Warfield, the great theologian, said this: "We see Him among the thousands of Galilee, anointed of God with the Holy Spirit and power, going about doing good with no pride of birth, though He was a King; with no pride of intellect, though omniscience dwelt within Him; with no pride of power, though all power in heaven and earth was in His hand; no pride of station, though the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily; no pride of superior goodness, but in lowliness of mind, esteeming everyone better than Himself. He healed the sick. He cast out the devils. He fed the hungry. And everywhere He broke to men the bread of life though He Himself went without. We see Him everywhere offering to men His life for the salvation of their souls. And when at last the forces of evil gathered thick around Him, walking alike without display and without dismay, the path of suffering appointed for Him and giving His life at Calvary that through His death the world might live." Selfless...selfless. That's the message for us, the message of humility. Let's pray. Teach us, Father, to be selfless. Wherever men suffer, may we be there to comfort. Wherever men struggle, may we be there to help. Wherever men fall, may we be there to lift them up. Wherever men succeed, may we be there to rejoice. Teach us that we cannot be self-consciously self-forgetful. We cannot be selfishly oriented. Teach us to walk humbly as Christ walked, to walk the path of self-sacrifice is to walk the path of glory. May we learn that. And know, Father, too, may those who don't know the Lord see in His humiliation the abounding love and be drawn to Him. We praise You, Lord, for the gift of Your Son. We echo the words of the poet who said, "Lo, in resurrection glory, Thou art throned in heaven above where Thou dwellest in the fullness of the Father's changeless love. Love bestowed on Thee unmeasured, ere the heavens were begun. Love of God the everlasting to His everlasting Son. Now to ages of the ages crowned with honor, Thou shalt be. All the heavenly hosts' unceasing glory might ascribe to Thee. Fadeless this, Thy royal splendor, purchased by Thy precious blood, Thine the praise of every creature, holy Son and Christ of God our praise we offer to You." Amen. ============================================= From: "Bayo Afolaranmi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dearly Beloved, PASTORAL BLESSINGS FOR YOU IN THE YEAR 2008 Glory be to God for the opportunity of seeing another year - year 2008. As usual, Opeyemi my wife, and Boluwatife and IfeOluwa our children are joining me to pronounce these pastoral blessings as found in Numbers 6:24-26 (AMP) on you this new year: - The Lord will bless you; - He will watch, guard, and keep you; - He will make His face to shine upon; - He will enlighten you and be gracious (kind, merciful, and giving favor) to you; - He will lift up His approving countenance upon you; and - He will give you peace (tranquility of heart and life continually) in Jesus' name. Amen. Happy and prosperous New Year! In His service, Bayo Afolaranmi (Pastor
