Paul was concerned. The latest message from Phillipi was disturbing. Word has come to him that cracks are starting to develop in the church division and strife are threatening the fragile unity of the church. But he has a problem. He's chained to a Roman soldier.

He's under house arrest. In  different times, under different circumstances, he would immediately make plans to go to Phillipi and help them navigate through the choppy waters they were facing. Of course, he's concerned for them. He has many friends there. He loves them, they love him, he is ministered to them, and they have ministered to his needs many, many times. And because of his affection for them, he is deeply concerned for them.

But his greatest concern is for the advancement of the gospel, he is afraid that if unity and strife continue to grow inside the church, he knows that the gospel advancement will be slowed, maybe even halted.

Well, the good news is that even though he's in chains, his hands are not tied, so he does what he can. He picks up his pen and puts it to paper and begins to offer counsel to them by way of the written word. And now he's not searching for his theme, he's not searching for where to begin, he knows exactly where he needs to begin he knows exactly the issue that needs to be addressed. He knows he must go directly to the heart of the matter.

He understands that the root of strife is pride.

He knows their unity is threatened by their wrong thinking. The problem has been created by getting their priorities out of order and thinking of themselves more than they think of others and not counting others more significant than they're counting themselves. And he also understands until their thinking has been corrected, until they begin to think properly, they will never act properly.

But it wasn't so much a lecture that they needed. What they needed was a lesson. They needed a living lesson.

They needed a flesh and blood lesson. They didn't need a lecture on humility. They needed a living lesson on humility. They needed the example that they could look to. They needed the example that they could meditate on. They needed the example that they could look to frequently. Of course, the example that Paul has in mind would immediately smash their pride, it would melt all resistance away, and so that they would be able to live in humility and thereby have unity with one another.

And of course, we know the example that Paul has in mind is the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about the Lord Jesus Christ. He went from the savior. He went from the Sovereign to a servant. To the Savior. And the example of the Lord Jesus, Paul is going to show them to teach them. Demonstrates to them that God is not going to ask them to do anything that he wasn't ready to ask his son to do, in fact, indeed that he had asked his son to do and his son had done it.

Of course, there's no better example than the one Jesus provides for us, Jesus provides all believers, all places at all times with a very vivid and very dramatic demonstration of the humility that promotes and creates unity. And Paul does this by describing a series of downward steps that Jesus took. A series of steps that took Jesus from the glory that he had eternally shared with his Father to the grave. And from there, the Father exalted him to rule and reign as Lord.

Jesus made the journey from a Sovereign to a servant, to Savior to Lord of all.

Your God. You're all powerful, your power is unlimited, your power knows no boundaries, you are totally self-sufficient and you have never been contained or constrained in any way. Your existence cannot will not ever be threatened. You've never needed any kind of help. You will never need any kind of help. You are God. Yet God, through an intentional act of his will placed himself in the womb o f a young teenage girl. With intention, the creator not only of mankind, but of everything that exist. Became a part of his creation.

So how did this happen? Well, Paul describes here in our text what Jesus did in order to become a man, Paul describes a humility that Jesus displayed. In order to become one of us, in order to live among us so that he could die for us. So Jesus, who from all of eternity has existed in the form of God. He was God. To be in the form of God is equal to being God.

John MacArthur says Jesus was equal to God, the Father in every way Jesus Christ is always has been and will forever be divine. Paul emphasizes truth of the Colossians. He said he referring to Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. Yet Jesus, the firstborn of all creation, in a tremendous display of humility and a tremendous act of humility, did not count or did not consider his divine equality something to be grasped.

Jesus didn't see the need to hold on to that equality. He didn't see it as something that he had to cling to. And what very well may be has to be the grandest act of selflessness, Jesus refused to cling to his favored position of power and glory. And then contrast that with the human race. When people find themselves in positions of power. More often than not, they will do whatever it takes to hold on to that position of power.

Whether it be a politician who is long past their prime. But yet continues to run for office, why they're intoxicated by the power. It could be a CEO of a company. He's no longer fit to run the company, but. Because he loves the power, he hangs on to the power. It can happen as parents with our children, we've had power to a degree over our children's lives and sometimes we don't want to give up that power.

It happens through all strata of society, we love power, we crave power, and many times we will even go to illegal lengths in order to hang on to that power. But Jesus didn't do that. His attitude must also be our attitude. Every believer should display the same level of selflessness, meaning that we are willing to give up whatever is necessary for the sake of others, we are willing to count others that count others simply means to consider others more significant than ourselves.

And this is important because it is one way that we demonstrate that we actually do possess the mind of Christ.

It's important because it's one way where we demonstrate that we are actually in Christ, it's an outcome of our union with Christ.

Therefore, if we just can't do this or we won't do this, we need to seriously consider our profession of faith. Because as we saw last week, what we do as believers is simply exercise the mind of Christ that we already possess through our union with Christ. So it should be our attitude. And Jesus proved that he was not willing to cling to his divine prerogatives by emptying himself and taking on the form of a servant. Now, as you might imagine, this particular passage in this verse in particular has caused a certain degree of controversy and confusion down through the years in the history of the church.

But I don't believe that it needs to do that. The key is really properly understanding. That phrase emptied himself the word empty. It means abased. Here's what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that Jesus emptied himself of his deity. It does not mean that Jesus exchanged his deity for humanity. Jesus did not swap out his divine nature for a human nature. When Jesus emptied himself, he set aside for a time some of his divine rights, some of his divine prerogatives, and he added something to himself.

He gives up some things for a time, but at the same time, he adds something to himself he takes on. Paul says the form of a servant. So when Paul says that he came and the emptied himself and he says he took on the form of a servant servant servant excuse me again, he's not losing anything. He's actually taking something on

Dennis Johnson comments, Christ was and remains equal with God, but he did not regard that equality as a perk to be exploited for his own advantage, a windfall, a fortuitous springboard to be used for self promotion.

See, when Jesus empties himself, he did no way diminishes his deity. When Jesus became a man, he never became fully less than God. Now, there are those who will say that, yes, Jesus emptied himself of his deity. But there's a huge problem with that, and here's the huge problem. If he empties himself of his deity, then he could not die on the cross for our sins. Only God could die on the cross for our sins.

So be very careful about wanting to rob Jesus of his deity because you rob him of his potential as your savior, so we need to be careful about that. If he had ceased to be God, he would not have been able to die on the cross, he would not have been able to die for the sins of the world. And you think about who Paul is writing this to, Phillipi Roman colony. Rome was tolerant of all kinds of false gods and false practices, as long as you recognize Caesar's lord, you could pretty much do anything else that you wanted.

And these false gods, these pagan deities, they weren't known for being benevolent. They were always making demands of those who worship them, they were always having to be appeased. This is the way the mind of man works when it creates a false god, I've got to keep that god happy. They didn't see these false gods as being willing to give up anything on their behalf yet. What do we have here? What a contrast this must have been to the believers of Phillipi that, hey, here is a God who willingly Emptied himself on my behalf. He was a guard who was willing to give to give up the exercise of what was rightfully his for the sake of others.

And I think that based upon our limited understanding, granted our limited understanding of the Lord's actions, we should take the time to try as best that we can to gain some kind of a perspective on the depth that Jesus lowered himself to in the incarnation.

For just a moment, let's just try and fathom. Let's just try and think about the vast, even the infinite gap that. Exist