Date: 29.5.16
Text: Philippians 2:5-11
Title: From riches to rags
Place: Rhema
File: MFFL#6Rhema
Preacher: Stephen Taylor
We all love to hear those rags to riches stories don’t we? The story of Cinderella, an unwanted, unloved, ugly duckling of a little sister, who was given her opportunity to go to the ball, danced with the handsome prince, won his heart, got married and lived happily ever after.
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Or the modern day equivalent being the story of Mary Donaldson, casually talking to a guy in a Sydney pub during the Olympics who happened to be the crown prince of Denmark. They start going out, they marry and she becomes Queen Mary.
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From rags to riches - they are great stories aren’t they? But when we come to Philippians 2 we see the ultimate rags to riches story. But it is a rags to riches story with a twist. For it starts off as a riches to rags story. I wonder if you have ever noticed that? For the story of Jesus is about God sending his son to leave the comforts of heaven, to come down to earth as a man, to die a horrible death on the cross but then to lift him up and give him the name above all names. The story of Jesus is a riches to rags story and then a rags to riches story. All done for you and me. Done to provide you with the salvation you desperately need as well as giving us an example for us to follow. Let’s have a look shall we?
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1. From riches to rags.
It all starts with Jesus in heaven, being in very nature God. Wow. Jesus did not suddenly appear when his mother Mary gave birth to him, sometime around 4 BC. From time began he had the very nature of God. He was in fact God. He was there in the beginning when God made the heavens and the earth. In fact it was through him that all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made.
There he is enjoying all the benefits of being the only Son of the Father God. He was helping his Father rule over the world. He was the object of worship and praise. He was enjoying a perfect relationship with the other members of the Trinity, when he volunteered to go on the Father’s rescue mission.
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Paul says Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. You see he could have hankered for going upward in the pecking order. Currently he is one of three persons who make up God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He could have desired to be the ultimate top dog. But he doesn’t go upward he goes downward.
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Think for a moment of the first man Adam. He is created by God and called a son of God. He has been made in God’s image. He is to rule over the fish and animals of this world. He gets to name them and fill the earth and enjoy it. But he listens to the serpent and grasps for the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil because what God had given him was not enough. He wanted more. He wanted to go further upwards.
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Unlike Adam, Jesus went downward, he left heaven, he emptied himself, He made himself nothing. Now this doesn’t mean he emptied himself of being God nor did he exchange being part of the godhead for being part of humanity. But he set aside his role and status, his privileges if you like, in order to take the role of a servant. To serve His Father God in an amazing way by taking on human nature. He lowered himself to take on flesh and blood.
Here was the God who was infinite, not bound by time and space, now trapped in our bodies and in the first Century Roman world, in order that he could do something about our salvation. Here is Jesus, 100% God. 100% human.
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The late CS Lewis, made an apt comparison. He said that this was like a shepherd becoming a lamb to save the rest of the flock. Now would you be willing to become dolly the sheep, not just for a day, but for the rest of your natural life? Or an ant, or a slug, or a cockroach to help out these species? But none of these adequately describes the jump, the demotion that Jesustakes in becoming one of us. Jesus becomes a human being.
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And so there he is,being found in appearance as a man. He lives for nine months in his mother’s womb. He is delivered in the most undignified circumstances and ends up not in a palace, or in the home of a wealthy merchant, but finds himself the son of a poor carpenter. A peasant who can’t even afford to celebrate the coming of his first son with the sacrifice of a male sheep, he can only afford a couple of doves. And I’m sure the stigma of a birth out of wedlock would only have made the economic situation even harder.
Yet Jesus still has to plummet further because not only is he born a human, but he is made subject to the law. This Jesus as God, was once the giver of the law. He stood above the law. Yet now he was limiting himself even further by voluntarily keeping the commands of God perfectly. But he knew that only a perfect sacrifice would be able to save us humans, so he steadfastly follows God’s law and refused to do anything but God’s will and kept his eyes on the cross.
Throughout his life, he experienced the miseries that we all experience. He knew hunger, pain, sorrow and poverty. He was unjustly hated and ridiculed. Any pain you have felt, he has felt, and the sort of rejection we all secretly feel was his in spades.
And yet that suffering reached its full crescendo when in the last few hours of his life, his Father God turned his back on him. So when Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was actually experiencing the pain of hell. God’s cup of wrath, His judgement was poured out in full upon him, because there he was with my sins on him, your sins on him, the sins of the world on him.
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And then he died. God the one who will never die, allowed Jesus, the Son of God to die. He died in a state of shame, of rejection, of punishment. His death on the crossis the ultimate symbol of humiliation. Crucifixion was the cruelest form of execution in the Roman Empire. It was commonly reserved only for the lower classes, especially slaves. This was as low as you could go. And he did it all voluntarily. He made himself nothing. He took on the nature of a servant. He humbled himself. He was obedient to death.
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“Though he was rich, so rich. Yet for our sakes how poor he became. Even his garments they parted when he hung on the cross of shame. All that he had he gave for me. That I might be rich through eternity.” (E H Swinstead)
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And Paul says to us in verse 5, “your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Our attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus. This is an amazing passage, a Christological gem, a theological diamond. A passage that teaches us who our savior really is. One that traces the gospel from Jesus point of you. But it is there to provide us with an example of how to live. A life of self denial, self giving, self sacrifice and selfless love, all lived out in obedient submission to our Father’s will.
Friends Jesus example shows us that life is not a matter of getting but of giving.Life is not about being served but serving others.Life is not about dominance but obedience.We are called to be incarnational Christians. To enter our world not to go onward and upward but to have the mind and the heart and the actions of Christ Jesus.
Friends what are you going to decide not to grasp? Fame? Fortune? The centre of attention? Are you willing to lay your reputation to one side for God? Are you willing to be humiliated for God? Are you willing to serve and be treated like a slave for God? Jesus was in his dealings with you. Our mind should be the same as Christ Jesus.
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2. Rags to Riches
But the story of Jesus doesn’t stop on Good Friday. For on Easter Sunday, we remember that the tomb was empty, that the crucifixion turned to resurrection. And here we see the riches part of the story kicking in again. For death could not hold him down, he was risen. The hold of Satan, the sting of death were not strong enough and so on the third day he came back to life.
Jesus does something that no one has ever done before. Now there are some people who have died and come back to life, take Lazarus for example. But no one has ever died and come back to life by themselves after 3 days. No-one except Jesus.
But Jesus journey hasn’t finished yet. He appears to his disciples for 40 days and then in Acts chapter 1 after his final teaching to his apostles, he was taken upwards before their eyes, until a cloud hid him from their sight. That’s called the ascension. Now this isn’t some ghost, or a phantom rising upwards, it is the physical body of Jesus, defying the laws of gravity which he helped make!
But when Jesus got to heaven God did something else to glorify Him, he allowed him to take the place of honour and sat him at the right hand side of the Father. That’s called Jesus’ Session. God was infinitely proud of what His Son had done. He had humiliated himself, in order to serve us human beings. He had provided a way, the only way where people could escape the consequences of their sin, so God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above all names.
And he promised that one day everyone on the earth would see Jesus in his full glory. One day, he would come back on the clouds, to draw to a close the last chapter of the earth’s wonderful history. One day, every person from every tribe in every country will see that Jesus is the rightful ruler of this world and will bow before him and confess that Jesus is Lord. And that day will be the day of his second coming.
Jesus will draw the earth’s history to a close. Jesus will be the one who will pull the final curtain down and set up the thrones of judgement and Jesus will be the one who will judge every single person here on earth, in the past, in the present and in the future.
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The rags to riches story will then be complete. The humiliation reaches its depths at the cross. The glorification will reach its zenith when Jesus comes again. And on that day the name of Jesus will be the greatest of all names. Now for many today it is a swear word. It is an embarrassing word. Jesus. Today you can talk about God but not Jesus. You can say you are religious but if you say there is only one way to God and that is through Jesus you will be called arrogant, proud even, discriminating.
But one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Even those who have raged against him will go “O Oh” on the last day. They will see the wisdom in God’s apparent foolishness. They will acknowledge the work and wonder of what Jesus has done on the cross. And those who have put their trust in Him will continue praising Jesus in heaven and those in hell will be forever taunted by the fact that this Jesus offered them salvation but they were too busy doing other things – like making money, or building a home, playing sport, collecting shells, writing books, watching their facebook feeds, listening to music – that they missed out on being a part of this rags to riches story.
Where God himself would lift us out of the depths of our depravity, lost in our sin and selfishness and bring us with Christ and allow us to have an eternity in his presence along with Jesus. Riches to rags. Rags to riches, and finally
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3. Rebels to redeemed.
Now because Jesus did all of these things for us. Our inclination, our disposition needs to change. Our attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus. What have you given up for Christ Jesus recently? Often when we are young Christians we have to give up swearing, or drinking or a relationship. I was talking to a Presbyterian minister recently and he overheard a conversation between two new Christians at his church one Sunday at morning tea. One said to the other. Did you hear what our pastor said today in the sermon that porn is wrong. I never realised it. That’s something else I need to give up!
But what have you given up recently? What have you laid aside? What have you decided not to grasp hold off? Who have you served like a slave? How have you humbled yourself? What has your obedience cost you? For many the Christian life is there to bring me riches and happiness and peace and blessing! Yet this passage reminds us there is suffering before glory. There is humility before exaltation. There is servanthood before sonship. So one thing we do is allow Jesus to change us from rebels to the redeemed by changing our inclination.
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But we also need to make the right confession. All will declare that Jesus is Lord on the last day. But isn’t that something we can declare now, right here, right now? He is not just my Saviour. He is not just my ticket to heaven. He is my boss, ruler, Lord, King. A massive 747 times in the New Testament Jesus is called Lord. It’s everywhere. Confess it. But along with a confession we need submission.
Jesus is Lord of my career and my job and my role at home. Jesus is Lord of my family, even if my family situation is not turning out how I thought it would turn out. Jesus is Lord of my money so I need to be generous to ensure I give sacrificially to enable his kingdom to grow. Jesus is lord of my spiritual gifts and abilities, I need to use them as part of our obedience to Jesus. We need to share with everyone that Jesus is Lord of all.
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And we don’t do that triumphantly. We don’t do that arrogantly. We don’t do that as if we have all the answers to everyone’s questions. We do that humbly as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. We do it gently so that the message may offend but the manner in which we present it would never offend. We do it because if Jesus did all this for me then surely others need to hear about it. One day they will acknowledge that Jesus is Lord so let’s make sure they have the chance to do it before it’s all too late.
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This passage has reminded me of going on one of those roller coaster rides at Sea World or Luna Park. For those sorts of rides slowly go up to the highest point, before coming crashing down and then up again. Until you end up where you began, feeling very different, with your hearts beating faster inside of you, wanting to tell everyone what you have experienced before you join the queue to start it all again.
In the same way this passage has point to the exaltation of Jesus, then his humiliation, then how he is exalted again. It has been an incredible ride to learn from it. But we are now different. Our hearts should be pumping a bit more in excitement and we should want to tell others about this Jesus. Before we queue up again to enjoy where God is going to take us next.