Sermon25-20 Phil2 Guide

Philippians 2:5-16 theme verse Philippians 2:12

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this fifteenth Sunday of 2025, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we saw that since human beings who were created in God’s image were fallen into original guilty and original pollution such as total depravity and total inability, by eating the forbidden fruit, so God, in order to resolve these issues to make them holy and blameless, chose His people in love before the foundation of the world and then justified them in faith in Christ and has been sanctifying them through the vicarious atonement of Christ and the regeneration by the indwelling Holy Spirit, yet this week, we would like to look at the incarnation and obedience on the cross of Christ to learn few lessons together.

1)    First today’s text is Paul’s exhortation to the Philippian church members, where there was a dispute among the congregations to have the mind of Christ Jesus, I mean, the humility of Christ. In other words, Paul said that as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the second person of the Trinity, “though He was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross,” so that God the Father has highly exalted Him for everyone in heaven and on earth and under the earth should bow their knees to Him and acknowledge Him as Lord to the glory of God.” As such Paul exhorts the congregation to always obey and work out their salvation in fear and trembling, obeying to God who works in them to will and to do according to His pleasing will, to shine as lights in the world as pure children of God without complaint or dispute.

2)    In today’s text, Paul introduced the incarnation and the obedience of Christ. Here, the incarnation refers to the event in which the Word of God became flesh. I mean, being born of the virgin Mary, the Son of God took both human spirit and flesh and became a descendant of David. Yet, through the supernatural conception of the Holy Spirit, He did not inherit the original sin of the mankind, that is, original guilt and original pollution. And then as a sinless human, he endured the suffering and death on the cross and even the eternal pain of the hell on behalf of guilty human beings. And also by keeping the law perfectly as a true human, He achieved righteousness which He imputed to the elect. However, this incarnation through which true God, who is Creator, Providential Carer and Judge became flesh was the first step of His humiliation, as, in today’s text, it is said that the Son of God, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, yet emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Yet, regarding the phrase “emptiend himself” which is “κενόω (kenou)” in Greek, there have been disputing on what the Son of God empty himself or what he lost. However as the Greek scholar William Davis suggested, the Son of God did not lose His royal status or nature, but chose the role of a servant, since “κενόω (kenou)” can mean to pour out the same content in a different form, meaning that Christ poured out himself into the form of a servant, in other words, he did nto give up His divinity, yet acquired humanity, so dismissing all claims that his divinity was damaged by his incarnation. Anyhow, the Son of God took on humanity, which was subject to the weakness, suffering, and death of humanity after the fall, not only in order to bear the quilt of humanity by crucifixion, but also to impute His righteousness by achieving righteousness through His obedience throughout his whole life, until to His death on a cross.

3)    Regarding this incarnation and obedience of Christ, Belgic confession article 18 confesses that “So then we confess that God fulfilled the promise made to the early fathers and mothers by the mouth of the holy prophets when he sent the only and eternal Son of God into the world at the time appointed. The Son took the "form of a slave” and was made in human form, truly assuming a real human nature, with all its weaknesses, except for sin; being conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, without male participation. And Christ not only assumed human nature as far as the body is concerned but also a real human soul, in order to be a real human being. For since the soul had been Jost as well as the body, Christ had to assume them both to save them both together. Therefore we confess that Christ shared the very flesh and blood of children; being the fruit of the loins of David according to the flesh, descended from David according to the flesh; the fruit of the womb of the virgin Mary; born of a woman; the seed of David; descended from Abraham and was made like his brothers and sisters, yet without sin. In this way Christ is truly our Immanuel­ - that is: "God with us."

4)    As such the reason why Jesus became incarnate and obeyed was, as stated in the Belgic confession, to save both the soul and the body of human beings who were corrupted by the first sin. I mean, Jesus’ crucifixion for vicarious atonement and the resurrection solved the problem of the original guilt of human beings’ first sin, that is, physical death, spiritual death, and eternal death. In other words, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the elect can be bodily resurrected after the death of their sinful flesh, along with the rebirth of the spirit, to be reconciled with God and restore relationship with God. In addition, the price of sin for eternal death, that is, eternal punishment in hell, has been paid so that they can participate in eternal life. Secondly, the problem of having to know and judge good and evil which God proclaimed to belong to God was resolved through His fervent prayer in Gethsemane that the Father’s will be done, instead of His will, so that the elect have to live in God’s will, not in their desire. Thirdly, the problem of human beings who lost the will and ability to do good and thus totally incapable of doing good on their own, was resolved by Jesus’ fulfillment of the law as Jesus in Matthew 5:17 says ““Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” and since He imputed His righteousness to us, so that we have to work out the salvation with fear and trembling. And finally, the problem of curse in our brain’s pollution, physical illness, aging, and weakness through our life, could be resolved through His sufferings so that when we will be resurrected, after leaving this sinful body, we will live in eternal life and happiness in new heaven and new earth with strong, eternal and holy resurrected body.

5)    These ministries of Christ was already prophesied in the Old Testament, as Isaiah in Isaiah 53:5 said “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” I mean, Messiah’s being pierced, crushed, chastised and wounded were for dealing with the transgressions and iniquities of the elect and to deliver peace and to heal us. Here transgress means rebellion against God, and iniquity means twistedness and because of those sin, humanity lost peace with God, other human and even with nature and also our soul and body became to be opened to the sickness and corrupted. Therefore, through His ministries, it is said that His elect can be forgiven, have peace and be healed.

6)    That’s why Calvin said in his book “Institute of Christian Religion” that “We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ [Acts 4:12]. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is “of him” [1 Cor. 1:30]. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects [Heb. 2:17] that he might learn to feel our pain [cf. Heb. 5:2]. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross [Gal. 3:13]; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.”

7)    By the way, the reason why Jesus had to fulfill the law, after becoming a human, in addition to the death on a cross was that even if the guilt of the first sin is resolved, still human beings do not have ability to do good so that the Lord kept the law completely and fulfilled the law to achieve the righteousness and then imputed it to the elect to work out that righteous life. However, I think we need to think about this a little more deeply. I mean, even before the fall, we human beings were not eternal, perfect and infinite like God. That’s why God placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden so that through the tree of life, we would always remember that we cannot live by our own strength, but only by God’s mercy. And also through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we would remember that God is the standard of good and evil. In other words, as Zacharias Ursinus said, human beings had to be preserved or controlled by the Holy Spirit in order to do good. So, Jesus, who was true human, not only kept God’s law, to impute His righteousness to us, but also, made us work out that salvation, as He exemplified.

8)    That’s why Paul said in v.12 that “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence,” as here κατεργάζομαι (katergazomai)” which means to work out, refers that we have to practice the salvation that the Lord accomplished so that such a life of obedience should be manifested as a result in our lives. Therefore I pray that this year, as our Lord sought for the Father’s will and obeyed to it even to the death on a cross, we may seek the Father’s will and obey to it by relying on the Holy Spirit.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 According to today’s text, we became to know that Christ became incarnate and obeyed even to the death on a cross to resolve our original guilt and pollution. So, reviewing our life, how we thank God for this grace, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And also we can know that we human beings have to seek for God’s will and to obey to it. So after reviewing our life, how we seek for and obey to God’s will, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.