Sometimes in ministry, we find ourselves doing things outside our primary gifting or passion. Over the years, I have scrubbed toilets, scraped paint, shoveled sidewalks on cold Sunday mornings, and cleared paper jams from the copy machine. I’m sure you’ve had many similar experiences. Our high school pastor calls this “schlepping hay bales” because of the grunt work our staff do each October 31 to set up for Harvest Festival.

None of these things make us jump out of bed in the morning with excitement, yet they are a small way we can love God’s church and imitate Christ, who emptied himself and took on the form of a servant.

Yesterday, I had the honor of preaching at Gateway Seminary in Ontario, California. I was assigned the passage of Philippians 2 on the “kenosis.” We explored together the humiliation of Christ, how his divine nature relates to his human nature, and what this means for us in Christian leadership.

You can watch the full service here or read my sermon notes below. May God help us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and follow in his footsteps of humble service.

Below are full sermon notes. To find manuscripts to other messages I’ve preached, please visit my sermon home page.

“Jesus Emptied Himself”
(Philippians 2:5-8)
Gateway Seminary
Thursday, November 18, 2021

Introduction

• Grace to you and peace through God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! I bring greetings from Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland. Several of our staff are here today, some of whom are graduates of Gateway Seminary. So your work here is blessing many churches, including ours. I also want to say a special thank you to Dr. Groza, who has been serving as interim pastor of my previous church, Crossview Bible Church, as they continue the pastoral search process. What a blessing it has been to see his leadership there and our people growing in the faith.
• I understand that you’ve been doing a series on Difficult Passages, and I’ve been asked to speak this morning on Philippians 2, sometimes called the “kenosis” passage.
• About a two hour drive south of here is a little town called Julian in the mountains east of San Diego. It’s a great little day trip and you’ll be hard pressed to ever find a better slice of pie. But it’s also rich California history. Back in 1869, a man named Fred Coleman was horseback riding through that area, when he saw the sun reflecting off some rocks in the creek. Upon a closer look, he discovered there was gold in the area, and soon, there was a mad rush. Before long, several mining claims were filed, and another California gold rush had begun. To this day, you can go underground and tour one of the gold mines called the Eagle Mine and see some of the original equipment that was used in the area.
• The passage before us this morning is a gold mine of Christian theology. It is full of treasure, but contains an intricate network of tunnels, shafts, and potential pitfalls. A maze that could leave someone’s head spinning. Much more than we will have time to go into this morning. But hopefully we can hit some of the highlights and enjoy fixing our eyes on Christ together this morning.
• Read Philippians 2:1-11
• Three lessons about the person and work of Christ: His Deity, His Humanity, and His Humility.

His Deity (v. 6)

• This section begins with a look at who Christ was since eternity past.
• “Though he was in the form of God” – This may appear to be something less than God. He was not God – he was only the “form” or in some way “resembled” God. But Paul is not diminishing his divine nature here. He is actually emphasizing it. The word “form” (Gk μορφή) sometimes refers to one’s shape or outward appearance, but it also can speak of their inner character or essential attributes (AS). Had Paul used the word σχῆμα, he could have left the door open for Jesus being only the appearance of God, as though he were some sort of earthly depiction of God. But μορφή tells us that deity is his very nature and substance, and that this condition existed from eternity past.
• The prophet Micah testified to this hundreds of years earlier in Micah 5:2, that the one who would rule Israel was from of old, from ancient days.
• Colossians, another letter that Paul wrote around the same time, speaks of Jesus as “the image of the invisible God” and that in him “the fulness of deity was pleased to dwell in bodily form” (Col. 1:9)
• Jesus refers to this time in John 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
• The Son of God existed with the Father and Spirit from eternity past.
• What was he doing, you may ask? He was radiating beauty and ruling with wisdom. He was engulfed in glory and enjoying all the privileges of deity. He lacked nothing. He was the eternal, omnipotent, self-sufficient, second person of the Trinity, delighting in constant fellowship with Father and Spirit. And this relationship went on, with no beginning, no deficiency, and no interruption.
• To put it simply, “He was in the form of God”. But then, in order to save us from sin, God did something shocking. Read vv. 6-7a. This leads to our second point, “his humanity.”

His Humanity (v. 7)

• His Mindset. “He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” In other words, he did not cling to or insist on retaining equal standing with the Father. He could have done so. It would have been the reasonable and fair thing to do. And yet he willingly chose not to. There is a strong adversative (Gk ἀλλά) at the beginning of verse 7 as the story shifts to what Jesus did do.
• “Made himself nothing” (v. 7). Just let that sink in for a moment. God, through Jesus Christ, made himself nothing. My ESV (2004) says “made himself nothing.” Later the ESV editors updated it to: “emptied himself.” KJV “He made himself of no reputation.” Gk. κενόω. Which of course is why we sometimes refer to this as the “kenosis” passage.
• But what exactly did Jesus “empty himself” of when he became man? Did he exchange his deity for humanity? God and man are two very different beings and would seem to be mutually exclusive. God is infinite, while man is finite. God is eternal, while man is mortal. God is Creator, while man is the creation. It might seem logical, but the text doesn’t say he “emptied” himself of the form of God.
• The very next phrase tells us how he emptied himself “by taking the form of a servant.” In other words, his subtraction was actually an addition. His emptying was by voluntarily limiting himself. Some of put it this way: he gave up the independent exercise of his divine attributes. Augustine said, “He concealed his divine radiance.”
• A couple weeks ago my daughter came home from church saying she had learned about Ehud. Ehud was a judge used by God to deliver Israel from the Moabites. He went before the wicked king Eglon and assassinated him. And of course, if you remember the story, Ehud was left-handed. He had strapped his sword to his right thigh under his clothes, where it couldn’t be seen, and where the guards would not normally look. So the teacher that day talked about right handed people versus left handed people. Some of the kids weren’t sure which hand was their dominant one, and so the teacher had them run a short race to see which foot they started with. At lunch the next day, my daughter was eating with a spoon in her left hand, and said, “I’m going to try doing everything with my left hand today, except my school work.” There was a voluntary laying aside of an ability and right. To an infinitely greater degree, Jesus did the same for us. He voluntarily laid aside his rights, privileges, and glory.
• Hebrews 2:9 …for a little while [he] was made lower than the angels….
• 2 Corinthians 8:9 … though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
• John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
• So it is clear Jesus did not empty himself of deity in order to become human. He did not stop being God in order to become a man. He now has two natures. What then is the relationship between these two natures? A number of early church leaders grappled with these issues, sometimes moving into speculation and sometimes outright heresy.
• Apollinarius – referred to Christ as a “flesh-bearing God,” and suggested that Jesus took on a human body, but not a human soul.
• Nestorius – church leader speculated that Jesus was made up of two different persons that worked together with each other – one divine person, and the other human person. A split-personality, so to speak.
• Eutychus – this monk affirmed Jesus was a single person, but denied the dual natures of Christ. Jesus remained neither God, nor man, but became a third kind of being with a new nature – a “God-Man.” He oddly even went on to suggest that both the divine and the human nature of Jesus existed before the incarnation.
• All of these would have serious implications for the atonement, as Jesus needed to be both fully God and fully man in order to be our sin-bearer and our substitute, yet capable of bearing the sins of the world.
• To resolve the matter, the early churches gathered in the city of Chalcedon in AD 451. In it, they carefully thought through the wording and concluded the best way to express the person of Christ as “one person, two natures.” Chalcedonian Creed (AD 451). (see slide) “We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man…one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word…
• One person, two natures. That has been the orthodox understanding of Jesus over the centuries. And when Christ emptied himself, he did not give up his deity, but only temporarily hid his divine glory, and voluntarily set aside the independent exercise of his divine attributes.
• John Owen, The Glory of Christ. “His infinite condescension, in the assumption of our nature, did no way divest him of his divine essential excellencies. For a time, they were shadowed and veiled thereby from the eyes of men…But he eternally and unchangeably continued” in the form of God, and “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” Phil. 2: 6, 7. He can no more really and essentially, by any act of condescension or humiliation, cease to be God, than God can cease to be.”
• Instead of saying “Merry Christmas” this year, you can tell the store clerk, “His infinite condescension, in the assumption of our nature, did no way divest him of his divine essential excellencies.” But what an amazing God we serve! Amen? And he did this for you, my friend. God the Son humbled himself for you, so that you could be made right with God.
• >>We have considered both the full deity and the full humanity of Christ this morning, perfectly joined in one person. But Philippians 2 is not merely a doctrinal treatise. It is ethical in nature. Paul is saying that church unity is found in humility. Although Paul has made one of the most profound statements ever spoken on the person of Christ, it is within a passage that urges Christian humility. This is our third point. Now notice with me verse 8…

His Humility (v. 8)

• Jesus humbled himself, not only to humanity, but as A.T. Robertson put it, all the way to the “lowest rung of the ladder,” being treated as a criminal and dying a painful execution on a cross.
• It’s hard to boast and it’s hard to complain when you keep your eyes fixed on Christ.
• Here in chapter two, Paul gives four different case studies of humility. Jesus demonstrated humility par excellence. Then Paul goes on to mention himself as an example, as well as Timothy and Epaphroditus. He does not just tell us about humility, but shows us.
• Have this mind in yourself that was also in Christ Jesus (v. 5). Keep thinking the same way that Jesus did. Consider others more important than yourself.
• 1 Peter 5:5–7 … Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Conclusion

• What does this look like practically for us today in Christian leadership? A couple examples.
• You will serve in some areas that are not your passion. They may be way outside your job description, or your primary gifting. It may at times feel like this is the majority of your week. But serve anyway. One of our staff called it “shlepping the hay bales” because of the grunt work they perform at Harvest Festival. I have done a lot of grunt work over the years that frankly needed to be done, and no one else was around to do it. Scrubbing toilets and fixing paper jams. Giving someone a ride to the hospital and scraping paint off the side of a house. See these as opportunities to empty yourself and put others first. Nothing inspires your church more than seeing their pastor get their hands dirty. I’m not saying neglect the “ministry of the word and prayer” or fail to delegate (Ac. 6).  But don’t think yourself above any form of work.
• Second, one of the truest tests of character is how you handle disappointment. Things will often not go your way. I have heard Deryl Lackey say as a test of a new pastor, he is tempted to tell the waitress to deliberately bring the wrong order and see how the pastor responds. Bring their food out cold, or give them a tofu burger instead of a steak! Ministry is messy. Because it’s all about people. Writing theology papers and studying for exams is hard work, and it’s excellent preparation. But research papers don’t talk back to you. Computers don’t complain to you. Textbooks don’t stab you in the back. People will forget. They will get distracted. They will let you down. Ministries often won’t go as planned. Sanctification is a path that involves steady progress up with lots of bumps along the way. The biblical counselor David Powlison described sanctification as walking upstairs with a yo-yo. Lots of ups and downs at the micro level, but an overall moment in an upward direction. Most of us in leadership will experience far more criticism than we do encouragement. People aren’t impressed by our titles or degrees. How do you handle disappointment? This is an area where we need humility, to treat others with the same grace that God has treated us, and to give them room to fail, to find forgiveness in Christ, then to get back up, and try again.

So today, let us marvel at the wonder of Christ’s emptying himself for us. And by God’s grace, let us be people of humility. Let Gateway Seminary be known for its humility. When people interact with the faculty, the students, and the graduates, may they think of us, “those are humble and gracious people.” Let us be quick to serve others and place their interests above our own. Right now, let us express our humility to God by bowing our heads in prayer.