This morning, we will depart from our study of Zechariah and I would like to begin a three part series that will lead up to Christmas regarding the humanity of the Son incarnate. Christmas is the season, of course, when we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that that means for the redeemed; an opportunity like no other time, perhaps in the year, when we can focus on his incarnation; when we can reflect upon him as not only our Creator but our Redeemer, certainly, as our King. And I have a responsibility before the Lord to teach you the Word of God, to feed you the great truths of scripture. And that responsibility must be fulfilled in expository preaching, in the in-depth, systematic teaching, preaching and application of the word. In other words, doctrinal preaching. And apart from that a congregation will be banished to an island of spiritual infancy. You will never really grow in Christ. And your responsibility when you hear the word, when you hear these great doctrinal truths, is to master them, to learn them, to apply them to your life. And I wish, therefore, to set the stage for what is to follow by giving you some examples to show you the stark contrast of what happens when people that are ostensibly Christian abandon the great doctrines of the Word of God and wander off into all manner of religious folly. And Christmas being the time when we focus on, often, the deity of Christ, as we should, I fear that many times we don't focus enough on the humanity of Christ. And so that will largely be my focus today and in the days to come. So let me step set the stage for these profound doctrinal truths regarding the humanity of Christ by sharing a few thoughts from things that perhaps you're even familiar with.

There is a very popular app out there today called the Hallow app, perhaps you are aware of it. It is a Roman Catholic app with prayers and meditations. If you look on the website, they have a special right now. Quote, "Hallow celebrates Advent with Pray 25 Challenge. And you hear about this on television. I thought I would look into it a little bit. So I looked at the website, and it has little clips that you can click on. I'll give you a sample of some of them you can click on - How to Pray the Hail Mary, How to Pray Mary in Consecration. In the parens, it says, "Entrust yourself to Mary to grow in devotion to her Son, Jesus." Another one, "How to pray the Latin rosary." Another, "How to pray the St Michael chaplet," in parens, "Seek the intercesSsion of St Michael the Archangel by praying this Chaplet." Another one, "How to pray the litany of trust," in parens it says, "Ask Jesus to deliver you from the various fears and insecurities that hold us back from fully trusting Him, and after each petition, respond with, deliver me, Jesus." And on and on it goes.

Of course, anybody that truly understands Christ and the gospel, realizes that all of this is pure folly. It is an apostate religious system, and I notice that nowhere in any of their materials will you see a biblical Christology or a clear presentation of the gospel, an invitation to it. There's no call to repentance, no call to faith in Christ. It's a very man centered gospel, kind of you know Jesus exists for you, Jesus as blesser, not Jesus as Savior and Lord and so forth. And recently, when I was flipping through the news, I noticed one of the Fox News anchor Martha McCallum. She has a show called The Story. She interviewed the Roman Catholic actor Jonathan Rumi, who portrays Jesus in the hit series, Chosen; and he also has a very active role to play in this app. Here's kind of a summary of what happened in this interview that she had with him, and I'm quoting some of what was transcribed off of the internet, and it's a little bit choppy. First they showed a little clip of the Hallow app and John 3:16, and anyway, she said, quote, "Actor and narrator, Jonathan Rumi, is here of The Chosen Season Five in April, and a Hallow spokesman," she went on to say, "Thank you for joining us and Happy Advent." And she said, "You know, this is the kind of thing the people see John 3:16; they see it on people's football helmets and front yards." And then she asked this very excellent question. She said, "Tell us why this is such a really breathtaking part of the gospel." Wow. I thought, what a great question. I can't wait to hear the answer. Here's his answer. "You know, the Christmas story is not just about Christmas trees and presents. The Christmas story at the core, is about vulnerability and risk." Vulnerability and risk. And he went on to say, "and God the Word made flesh in the form of Jesus, as a baby, to live like one of us, to eat, to breathe, to have friends, to argue, to fall, to skin his knee, to go to parties, weddings with his family, and do the things we do, and live the life of a human, sinlessly being the Son of God. So that we have an ally that can identify with us. We have him to go to. This is the epitome that started in the Nativity." End quote.

Well, obviously this dear man is clueless about what Christmas is all about. He has no understanding of who Christ is or the gospel. Beloved, the Christmas story is not about vulnerability and risk. It is not about Jesus taking on human flesh so that we can have an ally that can identify with us, someone we can go to when we have troubles. Even though there's some merit to that. I wish he would have quoted Galatians four, beginning in verse four. There, the Spirit of God says this through the Apostle Paul, "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons."

Now may I remind you that whenever you see millions of people clamoring after Jesus, you know that that is not the Jesus of the Bible. Popularity was never something Jesus pursued, and it was certainly something he never attained. In fact, Jesus said in John 7:7, "...the world hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil." And in Matthew 10, beginning in verse 34 he said, "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came TO SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; and A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.

And certainly John 3:16 that they were discussing is a marvelous text, because God is infinitely holy, and he is also a loving God, and he provides salvation to all who embrace the Lord Jesus Christ in repentant faith; but he is also a God of justice. He is a holy God, and he requires all sin to be punished. That's why, later on in that same chapter in John 3:36 the true Jesus said, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life. But who he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." Of course, this is all too offensive for people to hear.

You will recall in Matthew one and verse 18 and following, we read, "... before they came together..." referring to Mary and Joseph, "she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David,  do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, and she will bear a Son; and you shall call his name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.'"  That's what Christmas is ultimately about. And my goal over the next three Sundays leading up to Christmas is to contemplate the magnificent, miraculous and mysterious reality of the incarnation and what it means for all who trust in Christ as Savior. And I want to use God's own words to answer Martha McCallum's excellent question as to why John 3:16 is quote, "such a really breathtaking part of the gospel." I want us together look at scripture carefully and see what God has revealed to us regarding the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by carefully examining not just the deity of Christ, but also his humanity as the Son incarnate. And as we do so, we're going to see that the same spiritual resources that were available to Christ and that he availed himself of, are available to us; which is a magnificent truth in and of itself. And what you will hear will be a stark contrast to the popular Jesus of the Hallow app, which is a false gospel. Satan uses every means possible, every means at his disposal, to prevent people from understanding the truth of who Jesus is, the astounding attractiveness of the gospel. Second Corinthians 4:4 we read that, "...the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving." Why? "So that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." And frankly, my heart breaks, in fact, there, as I was watching that whole thing on television, there was a combination of just grief and sorrow for people who need to know who Christ is, and they're getting this distorted foolishness.

But at the same time, I find myself righteously indignant to see the Lord so dishonored. Proverbs four, verse 19, we read that, "The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble." They have no clue. It's like they're too ignorant to know they're ignorant. But there is light in the darkness, and that light is the true Christ. In fact, Jesus said in John 8:12, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness but will have the Light of life." Moreover, in Acts 26 and verse 18, at his conversion, Jesus told Paul that he was sending him to the Gentiles, and here's why, "'...to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, and that they might receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.'"

Now again, while we're going to examine the deity of Christ, the primary focus is going to be on the humanity of Christ. I want us to be able to answer questions like this: Why did Jesus have to be born of a virgin? How could Jesus be both fully human and fully divine? What does it mean in Philippians two six, that Jesus Christ existed in the form of God? Does that mean he only appeared to be God outwardly? And what does it mean in Philippians two seven, that Christ "emptied Himself taking the form of a bondservant." Did that mean that he somehow became less than fully God? Is it fair for believers like us to be commanded to quote "follow in His steps"? First Peter two, two, since he was, he was, and he is perfectly God. We aren't. Sois it fair for us to try to do what he does? Was his obedience animated by his intrinsic divine nature as God, or was he able to live a perfect life of obedience through the Father's will, solely through his human nature, which is it? And if he did not depend upon his divine nature to resist sin, then how was he able to do so in his human nature? What was the role of the Holy Spirit in his human nature, and what implications does this have for all believers? Well, there's a few of the questions that we will answer, and certainly, Christmas is the perfect season to look intothese things. And I will add that the answers are deep, they are profound. They will require your great attention, but they are also exhilarating. Frankly, they are life changing.

I've divided what I want to say to you over the next few weeks into three categories. We're going to look number one, at the virgin birth of the eternal Son. And then secondly, the self emptying of the eternal Son. We're going to look at those today. And then finally, the spirit empowerment of the eternal Son; and I will just have time to introduce that to you today.

So, let's look at this mystery of the incarnation, focusing primarily on the humanity of the Son incarnate. And we do that under this first heading here: the virgin birth of the eternal Son. And I might add that this is absolutely foundational. You simply must have this foundation in order tobuild a super structure of the person and the work of Christ, otherwise everything else will crumble. Let me remind you of Luke one, verse 30, and following that I read earlier, "The angel said to her,'Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father, David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.' Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I am a virgin?' The angel said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason, the holy child shall be called the Son of God.'"

Now there's a number of reasons why the virgin birth is so important, and I'll give you kind of a summary of a number of them, without getting off into too much detail, but first and foremost is it allows for the pre-existence of Christ. Remember Jesus' humanity was not eternal. It began with the supernatural union of both the divine and the human natures, when the Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive, but Jesus was and is the eternal Son that existed prior to this conception. A number of passages will speak to this; Isaiah made this clear in Isaiah 9:6 he said, "For to us, a child is born. To us, a Son is given." In other words, he was already God. Remember, according to John one the first three verses, the second person of the Trinity was not only with God, the text says at creation, but it says he was God, "He was in the beginning with God, all things came into being through Him. And apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being." And so Jesus had to take upon his human flesh in order to reveal God to man, in order to reconcile man to God; you might even say in order to reign over the realm of the Earth as the second Adam; to replace where the first Adam failed, and then eventually hand over a successful mediatorial kingdom to God the Father prior to the eternal state.

I want you to think about this for a moment. Jesus had to be born a virgin and take on human flesh, to be punished for our sin as our substitute, right? Yet, he also had to be God in order toendure the sufferings of all of the elect. If Jesus wasn't God and was merely a descendant of Adam, he, like all of Adam's descendants, would have to die because, according to Romans 5:12, "Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned --." Therefore, the work of redemption demanded a "theanthropon," a god man; one who would supernaturally fuse the human nature with the divine to form an indissoluble bond.

This, by the way, in theological terms, is called the "hypostatic union." Hypostatic means that which lies beneath or is the basis or a foundation. You see Jesus was at the same time, both human and divine. Now, I know your head begins to explode, because this is beyond us, but this is what we see in Scripture. The two natures are without confusion. The two natures are without change. They're without division. They're without separation. You must understand that Jesus is now, and forever, the God man. He was the offspring of David, according to the flesh, yet he was also God, a ruler whose goings forth are from eternity, Micah, five, two. You see, a man had to suffer the punishment that only God could endure, requiring both. And a man had to drink the bitter cup of divine wrath for the elect, but only God could drink it to the very dregs. A perfect man had to die for men, but only God is holy. Human flesh had to go to the grave, but yet only God could overcome it. So both the human and the divine natures had to be supernaturally woven together. Francis Turretin, a 17th century Italian Puritan, a reformer and a scholastic theologian who followed Calvin, said this, quote, "Both natures should be associated, that in both conjoined, both the highest weakness of humanity might exert itself for suffering, and the highest power and majesty of the Divinity might exert itself for the victory."

Now let's think about it for a moment, just very practically. How could Christ be our faithful high priest? How could he sympathize with our infirmities unless he were both God and man? How could Christ be our mediator and thus bridge the infinite chasm between God and man, unless he were both God and man? How could Christ be our king, lest he become united with us as man? Yet only God can transform our sinful nature. Only God could reign in our hearts. Only God can have dominion over us and over all of his creation. Beloved, the babe in the manger had to become a man, He had to be born of a virgin in order for him to be both the Son of Man and the Son of God - to be Emmanuel God with us; the son of a virgin according to the flesh, but Immanuel God with us according to the Spirit.

Now you don't have this text on your slides, but in Hebrews 10 verses, five through seven, we read how in eternity past, the father prepared a human body for the son, a body that would never be tainted by sin, a body with no sin nature, a body that would become the perfect sacrifice, the perfect substitute for us to appease the holy and just righteousness of God, and this was the will of the Father. And Jesus came to do that will. And he knew perfectly, before he came, that he was taking upon himself, according to Philippians, two seven, that we will look at in detail later, he was taking on himself, "the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. And, "Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Now we see more of this, for example, in Hebrews, chapter two and verse nine. There we read, "But w do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone." Referring to everyone who believes.  Not just to die, but to die for us - a man that could be our substitute. And frankly, this is at the heart of the Atonement. Atonement carries the idea of providing a moral or a legal repayment for a fault or for an injury. And we know biblically that atonement always requires two things. It requires number one, satisfaction of the offended holiness of God that could only be accomplished by number two, a substitute. So it requires satisfaction and substitution; substitution for the guilty party. Have you ever asked the question, How can a holy God show mercy to sinful man? How can he do that and still remain holy? I mean, after all, all sin has to be punished. The wages of sin is death, right? How can God extend his mercy and grace to those who have violated his holiness? I mean, he can't just say, I'm just going to ignore the sin and we'll just kind of move on. He can't do that. How could he shower sinners with undeserved blessing? If he were to do that, just kind of overlook sin and shower us the guilty with blessings, he would abdicate his holiness, would he not? Yes, indeed he would. Ah, but what would appear to be an unsolvable theological dilemma finds its remedy at the cross. It is resolved at the cross of Calvary. You see, the resolution is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty himself, causing mercy and justice to unite, to come together at the cross. That's why we read in Second Corinthians 5:21 that, "He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." And in First John two, beginning in verse one, we read that, "If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." And here's why, "and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins." To propitiate means to appease or to placate, to satisfy. Jesus is the appeasement or the satisfaction of divine justice that should have fallen upon us; as well as he is the source of divine mercy and grace.

Remember, sinful man could not atone for his own sin. God's holy and infinite justice could not be satisfied apart from a holy and infinite ransom, and only by his provision could this remedy be accomplished. God, the Father, had to provide his Son. And all this points to the need for the virgin birth of the Lord. Beloved, this is why God had to become man. This is at the heart of the Christmas story. When you explain to people, what is Christmas, you might want to tell them, you know, ultimately, at the heart, it's all about atonement. It's all about satisfaction and substitution. It's all about Christ coming to bear in his body our sins that we might be reconciled to God through faith in him. It's not about vulnerability and risk. It's not about having merely an ally to help us when we have problems.

So to understand Christmas and John 3:16, consistent with Martha McCallum's question, we not only need to understand the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus, the eternal Son that I've just given you a little overview about, but secondly, we need to understand the self emptying of the eternal Son. This is what's called the "kenosis," and that is drawn from the Greek word for "emptied Himself” - comes from the Greek verb, kenóō. And this speaks of Christ's voluntary self-surrender of the independent use of his divine attributes. We read about this in Philippians two, beginning in verse six. We read, "...although He existed in the form of God, did not require equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself..." there's the term from kenosis, "...emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Now I want to give you a brief exposition of this. I'm not going to go into detail of every single word, but notice first that it says he "existed in the form of God." The term "form" in the original language is "morphē." Our English word form tends to convey the idea of outward, the outward appearance of something. But what the Greek is referring to is the inner substance, or the very nature of something. That's what the Greek "morphē" expresses. So Jesus didn't just merely take on the outward appearance of God. No, he existed in the form. In other words, having the inner substance, the very nature. He was God, very God. He existed in that way, and he did not require "equality with God a thing to be grasped." So indeed, he was fully God. And notice, "morphē" is used again in verse seven. He took on the here it is "form of a bondservant." It doesn't mean that he merely dressed up like a slave, that he merely took on the appearance of a servant. He didn't merely just look like that, or just pretended to be something that he really wasn't in his heart. But no, just the opposite is true. What that term means is that he took on the very essence of a slave's nature. He took on the inner substance of a servant, the continuous and and full expression of a servant, state of a servant, condition. And notice it says he did not require, or "he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped" in verse six.

Now, this is very important. This does not mean that he somehow relinquished his status as God; that he gave up equality with God, and thus became, shall we say, a lesser God, or less than God? No, no, no. I mean, we know that biblically, that God is self-existent, he is pre-existent, he is eternal, he is immutable. He's still omniscient, omnipresent. So what Paul is saying is simply this, though Christ is co- eternal and consubstantial, meaning he is of the same essence, and co-equal with the Father, nevertheless, he laid aside his right to the full prerogatives and benefits of his coexistence and equality with God. He laid them aside, but he did not surrender any of his divine essence.

And furthermore, we see that he took on human flesh, and it says that he did not grasp, in other words, he did not try to hang on to any of the privileges and rights that were rightfully his. Rather Jesus, verse seven, "emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant." Emptied Himself. Now this does not mean that he divested something from himself, that is out of himself, thereby becoming less than God. No, it's very, very obvious here, he emptied himself. He poured out Himself. Now, what does this mean? Well, the verb "kenoō" in the original language, to empty; I might say, first of all, it is used exclusively in a metaphorical sense in the New Testament, and it never means to pour out as if Jesus poured out some of his divine attributes, as some heresies would argue. If that were Paul's intent, he would have used another Greek term, "ekcheō." For example, it's in Luke 22:20, "...this cup," which is here, it "is poured out for you, is the new covenant in My blood." John 2:15 Jesus poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. So he would have used ekcheō in order to express that. But that's not what he uses here. The inspired apostle employs the term kenoō - to make void, to nullify, or to make of no effect. We see this, for example in Romans 4:14, "For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void" - there is that term, "...and the promise is nullified." In other words, if righteousness came by obeying the law, faith would be nullified. It would become of nought.

So here in Philippians two seven, what we see, and I want you to grasp this, this is just absolutely amazing. Christ Himself is the object of this emptying. He made himself void. He nullified himself. The King James says, "He made himself of no reputation." Now, how so? How did that happen? By taking on human nature, by adding himself full and true humanity. So actually, this is addition, not subtraction. I want you to understand. He lost nothing of his divine essence, nothing of his divine nature, of his divine qualities, his divine attributes. He remained fully God. He remained fully omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, immutable, and on and on it goes, even though he chose not to access some of those prerogatives, some of those attributes in his humanity. Bear in mind that even while Jesus was part of the zygote in the womb, even when he was in Mary's womb, he was still upholding all things by the Word of His power, because Christ is Spirit. And so all of those attributes were still there. But what we see in this emptying is that he chose not to exercise, to the full limit, all of the attributes during his earthly life as the incarnate Jesus. He emptied himself again by refusing to access his rights and privileges. He made void, shall we say, certain rights of his divine prerogatives. Although, I might add, he did not forsake his divine power to perform miracles or to forgive sins, to know the minds of people and so forth. But it's amazing that in the kenosis, he took on in addition to his full divine nature, a full human nature, and he took on the form of a slave. This is the self-emptying of the son. So technically, nothing is subtracted. But rather, he poured himself out by adding to himself the nature of man.

Think about this, the nature of man is created. It is limited. It is a finite human being, and as a result, the full manifestation of his deity is restricted or limited. Why? Because of his human nature. So his divine glory was veiled in his humanity, and he voluntarily refused to exercise some of his divine attributes. I have heard on several occasions the analogy of a great king. Think about this, there was once upon a time a great king, great, powerful king, wealthy king, and he saw paupers in his kingdom, and he wanted to understand more how they thought, how they how they would think. And so he decided to secretly live a life of a beggar, of a pauper. And so although he still reserved all of the rights, possessed all of the rights, and the wealth and the privileges and the power of a king, he nevertheless took on the qualities of a beggar. And so he would eat the same foods, he would have the same friends, the same shelter. If he needed medical care, which was basically, they didn't have any he would have to, he would have to be that same way. And so what would happen then is in order for him to truly, sincerely, understand how the paupers lived and how they thought, he had to become like one. But at no time did he divest himself of any of his prerogatives and power and authority and wealth as the king? So too, Jesus took on the form of a bond servant. A bond servant - literally a slave. A slave who owned nothing and who existed only to do the will of his master.

Now, while that analogy will break down on several levels, it does, I hope, provide some measure of understanding of this inscrutable, supernatural mystery that we have before us. And to think, isn't it amazing how one person can have two full and integral, that is necessary, natures - one that is created and finite and fully human, and the other that is uncreated, that is infinite and fully divine. But this is at the heart of the incarnation. Paul summarized this well in Second Corinthians eight and verse nine, "Though He was rich, yet for your sake, He became poor."

Now, back to this self-emptying of this of the eternal Son, Albert J McClain said this, "Jesus not only emptied Himself, stooping from God to humanity, he also humbled Himself, stooping from humanity to death." Now this was the ultimate reason, or shall we say, the ultimate purpose, of his self-emptying, so that he would become obedient to the Father to the point of death, even death on a cross. Notice again, Philippians two verse seven, “...taking the form" there it is, the morphe, "of a bond servant.." that is, taking on the very essence, the very nature of a slave, "and being made in the likeness of men." Likeness in the original language refers to that which is made like something else, not just in appearance, but in reality, but found in appearance as a man. Appearance in Greek is "schēma", and it refers to the outward shape or the form of something. So, he was, "found in the appearance as a man," and then it says, "He humbled Himself." Humble: the Greek term carries the idea of self-renunciation, of a deliberate, willful, voluntary depression and rank; making oneself lowly. "He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." "Tapeinoō" is the word for humbled. And for those of you theologians, the kenosis refers to how he emptied himself, and what's called the tapanosis, is that he humbled himself. And for this reason, Jesus said in Matthew 20 and verse 28, "the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. And folks, what is absolutely fascinating here is that the Father planned this redemptive work of the Son in eternity past, and the Son submitted to and obeyed all that the Father commanded Him. In fact, in John 638, Jesus said, "'For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me."

So, back to Philippians two, verse eight, "He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Now folks, this is obedience unlike anything he had ever known. He had never before suffered rejection, torture, certainly not death, and yet this is why he had to become a human. So again, remember these things when somebody asks you what Christmas is all about. So we've seen the virgin birth of the eternal Son and the self-emptying of the eternal Son. Finally, and again, this is largely going to be an introduction, the spirit empowerment of the eternal Son. And again, we want to ask the question and answer it, was Jesus perfectly obedient to the will of his Father because he availed himself of the resources that were intrinsic to his divine nature? Was he obedient because he was fully divine? If so, if this obedience was empowered by his divine nature, how can we not, having a divine nature, obey the commands to be like him? For example, in First John two six, we read "The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked." So there seems to be a dilemma here, unless we understand what really happened with Jesus, because I don't have a divine nature. I can't be like Jesus, if Jesus only used his divine nature to be obedient. First Peter two, and verse 21 and following, "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats." Now, let me stop there. I fail on every one of those, and you do too. How can we do this in our humanity? Well, folks, the answer is in the next phrase. "But kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously."

But I want you to understand is that Jesus obeyed not out of his intrinsic divine nature, but out of his human nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is such a wonderful truth with enormous implications for every believer. Think about this. Yes, Jesus possessed the fullness of deity in his incarnation, and he continues to do so as he is seated at the right hand of the Father, but when he came into this world and took on human flesh as the God man, he lived out his life and his divine calling as the Spirit, empowered spirit, anointed Messiah. Isaiah chapter 11, I'll not take time to get into all of this, but notice what he says, beginning in verse one. This is the prophet of Jesus coming someday. It says, "Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD." Now let me pause for a second. Why would he need that if he was just solely using His divine nature? Well, the fact is, he was operating in his human nature in order to be truly like us. He goes on to say, "...and he will delight in the fear of the LORD, and He will not judge by what His eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear." Then it goes on to yet future, a time yet future, "But with righteousness, He will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; and He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips he will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins and faithfulness the belt about His waist."

You must understand that Jesus, right now, is at the right hand of the Father, and he looks like us. At some level, he is still the God man, both human and divine. Isaiah 42 beginning in verse one, "'Behold, My servant whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street, A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed until He has established justice on the earth; and the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.'" I find it interesting in Luke four, after Jesus was tempted by the devil, Luke says this in verse 14, that Jesus "...returned in the power of the Spirit" to Galilee, and then when he got to his hometown of Nazareth, he went into the synagogue. And here's what happened, according to Luke four, verse 17 and following. "And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And he opened the book and found the place where it was written, 'THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE HAS ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO WERE OPPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.’ “Then we read that he "closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down, and the eyes of all and the synagogue were fixed on Him. And he began to say to them, 'Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'" In other words, I am the Messiah. And a number of you have been with me on the cliff where they took Jesus to try to throw him off. Indeed, Jesus was born of the Spirit, right? He was conceived in his mother's womb by the Spirit, and at his baptism, we read in Luke 3:22, "The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven. 'You are My beloved Son; in You I am well- pleased.'"

And remember what Peter said to Cornelius in Acts 10:38, "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him."  In his great and seminal work, "The Presence and the Power, the Significance of the Holy Spirit in the Life and Ministry of Jesus,” Gerald Hawthorne said this, and I quote, "The Holy Spirit's presence and work in Jesus life is one of the most significant biblical evidences of the genuineness of his humanity. For the significance of the Spirit in his life lies precisely in this, that the Holy Spirit was the divine power by which Jesus overcame his human limitations, rose above his human weakness, and won out over his human mortality." Oh, child of God, don't miss this, in his humility and in his humanity, the eternal Son incarnate accepted the role of living a life of total dependence upon all that the Spirit of God would provide for him, as he did perfectly the will of the Father. And while the Holy Spirit did nothing to contribute to his deity, he did everything to contribute to his humanity. And what I want you to understand beloved is we have the same supernatural resources if we belong to Christ; the divine enablement that he had is available to us.

And I would say to those of you who are struggling with your faith right now, or those of you who are waffling in your obedience, those of you that are discouraged or lonely or angry or afraid, or whatever it might be, please know that the same resources that empower Jesus to do the Father's will, to humble himself, by become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, those same resources are available to you. It's available to everyone who is truly united to Christ in saving faith. But as we will learn in coming days, we must avail ourselves of the means of grace; those spirit empowering resources that are revealed to us in Scripture, and then we understand what it means to really walk by the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit, and all of those magnificent truths. And the next time, I will expand upon this brief introduction concerning the spirit, empowerment of the eternal Son. But what I want you to hear today is that these are the great truths that are at the heart of the Christmas story.

Now I know, as a theologian, I'm giving you all kinds of things that you will have to wrestle with and think about, and I don't expect you to know all of these things right away, but if I can put it to you very kindly and very forthrightly, I do expect you to master these things. I'm not up here to just give you a bunch of great theology, and then you walk out and say, "Oh, that was interesting." No, this is God's way of communicating to you the magnificent truths of his self-disclosure in Scripture so that you can master them, understand them, proclaim them to your children, to your friends, that Christ might be exalted. Now, certainly, as we look at these things, we find ourselves overwhelmed, right? I have a hard time trying to explain things that I don't fully understand. I'm just telling you what the Word says. I mean, there's nothing in our life experience that compares to anything like this. I mean, do you know of anybody that's got two natures, one divine and one human? I know a lot that have human natures, and you're looking at one, but certainly, like the angels in Luke two, we can celebrate this. I don't think you have this on your screen, but we read that, "An angel of the Lord suddenly stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord." With the angels, with the shepherds, let's celebrate these magnificent truths. Amen?

Father, thank you for revealing these things to us in your word, and I pray that by the power of your Spirit, we would be able to grasp them in such a way as to change our life, so that we would be so overwhelmed by the transcendent glory of what you have accomplished on our behalf, that we would certainly be a greater witness, a bolder witness; one that others could see in such a way as to say there's something different about that man, that woman, that boy, that girl, so that the gospel can go forth from us with power, with clarity, that many might be saved. Lord, that is the desire of our heart. I ask all of this in the precious name of Jesus, our Savior, our Lord and our King. Amen.