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This podcast is a production of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas, USA. Watermark exists to be and make more fully devoted followers of Christ, looking to God's Word as our only authority, conscience and guide.
Hey, it's great to be with you. I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. It's hard not to be doing so well after a morning like this. That "Year in Review" video is amazing. Right? Just to see all that God has been doing, not just _to_ us but _through_ us, as we've sought to serve people here not only in our city but around the state and the nation and the world. It is incredible.
I love that we got the chance this morning to reflect a little bit on where we've been this year. December kind of does that to you, doesn't it? It kind of puts you in your feels and makes you think a little bit about all you've experienced in years past. I know it has been doing that to me, specifically.
This week has had me nostalgic, personally, because it was two years ago this week that I accepted the offer from TA to come here to Watermark and be the director of The Porch. It has been the joy of my life, such an honor to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of young adults. So, that's one thing I've been thinking on recently.
The second thing I've been thinking on recently, as we've kind of slipped into Christmas… John was right at the top of the morning when he said, "It just kind of sneaks up. It sort of takes hold of you." Yeah. December 1 was Cyber Monday. You don't get a chance to rest when Christmas is knocking at your door and telling you to get after it.
Yet of all of the memories we might reflect on as Christmas really gains speed and builds traction in our lives, there's one that stands out most meaningful to me, or at least most memorable to me. It's the first time I ever spent the holidays with my wife Brooke's family, for a couple of reasons.
First, because, well, I had never been invited before. They finally decided to extend the invitation, because they had a strict rule that no boyfriends were allowed at family gatherings. I just saw several dads lean forward and say, "Wait. I might take notes on this one." They had a strict rule of "You've got to ring it to bring it, bro." Like, "You cannot come to the family gathering if you've not put a ring on her finger."
So, it was a significant, memorable holiday for me, because in that moment I realized I had finally put a ring on it, so I got access to the rest of what the family was doing. But it wasn't just that. The second reason it was so meaningful for me was because they take Christmas very, very seriously. As some of you yourselves know, family tradition is a big deal around Christmas, and they have some family traditions.
They do everything from making gingerbread houses and hosting competitions to wearing matching pajamas. Not just the kids. That made sense. But the adults were in on it too. They're rolling around and prepping sticky buns (aka monkey bread) the night before. Some of you do that. It's like the best dessert in the world, and it's rightfully reserved for only one morning a year because it is calorically dense.
Then we move out of that, and we start opening up stockings on Christmas Eve. You get to Christmas morning (which you can never get to Christmas morning unless you first watch _Christmas Vacation_), and you have big family dinners and massive, rowdy gift exchanges. On Christmas morning, we go one gift by one gift by one gift by one gift. "For the love of God! Do we have to watch what every single person is opening at the same time?" Yet it is awesome, because it kind of stretches the merriment out over the course of the morning.
They have so many family traditions they are very serious about, but there was one tradition that stuck out most notably to me because, as serious as this family is about all of their traditions, there's one they looked forward to the most. It was reading the Christmas story on Christmas morning before they did anything else. By "Christmas story," I don't mean the one about Ralphie and the Red Ryder BB gun; I mean the one about Jesus born in a manger.
You see, it stuck out to me, not because it's new to me. I knew that story. In my family, we would have devotionals ourselves growing up. It stuck out to me because it communicated to me about this new people I was about to be a part of. They got it. They understood. They knew what this was all about. They got the fact that as wonderful as all the pageantry of Christmas is, the real wonder is found in the person of Christmas himself. It's found in Jesus.
The reason I share that with you this morning is because when the holidays roll in, we all lean in. Most people buy into this thing at some level. Some of you are low-key about it, and that's okay. You're willing to host dinner with the family or exchange some gifts. Maybe you've put up lights and decorations because it's a great holiday, but there are other holidays that maybe you prefer.
There are others of you who are high-key about it. You have been preparing for this moment. You have been watching the 25 days _before_ the 25 days on Hallmark, their Countdown to Christmas, because you cannot wait to see the same story over and over and over and over and over again.
Or maybe some of you couldn't wait until after Thanksgiving, which would be the appropriate time to put up your Christmas tree. Instead, you decided to pull it out of the attic as soon as the first cold front blew through Dallas, which…spoiler alert…was just a tease. There was a hot front that came in right afterward. Yet you have a Christmas tree up in your house because, "Well, we can't really enjoy it unless we get it up early enough, because it's going to have to come down after the start of the year."
I know, for me, I've even leaned into it a little bit more. If you were here last Sunday, TA encouraged us (it might have been threatening us) to get our Christmas lights in order. So, last Sunday was actually the day I was putting my lights up, and they have never looked so good. They are in perfect alignment, because I want my neighbors to walk down the street and be like, "Yeah, man. He's one of us."
We all buy into it at some level, but here is the danger, and there _is_ a danger at Christmas. If all we see is the _cultural_ reality of Christmas and we do not see the _spiritual_ reality of it, we will have missed out. You can have all of the holiday, and you can still miss it. I don't want you to miss it. So, my hope today is to help you catch all of the spiritual weight that undergirds this season, why it is so significant.
I want to help you grasp, very briefly in our time together, a high-level theology of Christmas. To do it, we cannot look at it from our vantage point; we have to get to God's vantage point. We need his perspective, not our perspective. The best place to catch that perspective is in the book of Philippians.
If you're here and are new to Watermark, welcome. We're so glad you're here. We have been journeying through our Year of the Word as a church family. We have been reading from Genesis, and we're all the way on to Revelation at the end of the year. This week, we found ourselves beginning to move through the theological epistle of Galatians, but then we embarked on the Prison Epistles, those letters from Paul that he wrote when he was incarcerated.
We still have Philemon to catch, but we got through Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. There's so much good text to teach from, so much I could have picked to give you this morning, yet wanting to help you understand why Christmas even matters, it felt like one passage stood out most of all, and that is Philippians 2, specifically verses 5-11.
If we're going to understand the significance of Jesus' birth, we cannot solely do so from where we stand at an earthly vantage point. That's kind of what you get when you read Matthew and Luke, amazing accounts of his own birth. But there's another account from a heavenly vantage point, and it's found right here. This is God's perspective on everything we celebrate in the season. It tells us specifically three things that are really significant that I want you to walk away with.
1\. _Jesus was born to reach a lost world_. We pick it up starting in verse 5. Let's read it together. **"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."**
Now, it's important… Before we keep going and dig all the way through verse 11, we need to stop, because Paul just said a massive statement about Jesus. He just said that he is in the form of God, which is a big claim. He just told us something about the intrinsic nature of who he is. Think about it like this. Maybe it's a cheesy analogy, but I'm the one with the microphone.
If Jesus were wearing his high school letterman jacket (you know, "Nazareth High") and had all of the patches down the sleeve, he'd have "Friend of sinners," because he did well at that one. He'd have "Prophetic teacher," because he did well at _that_ one. He'd have "Miracle worker" right below it, all of which account what he did.
But on the back, in big cursive letters, the way a letterman jacket would read, it would say, "Son of God" with "John 3:16" tucked right underneath it, because you have to have a Bible verse on your letterman jacket if you're a Christian. Jesus would want you to know, "This is who I am. All of this, all the patchwork, tells you what I did, but the back of my letterman jacket tells you who I am, that I am the Son of God."
That's what Paul means when he says he is in the form of God. It doesn't mean he's a suitable substitute to the big guy. It doesn't mean he kind of looks like God from time to time. It means he is intrinsically and essentially God. In all of his most fundamental attributes, so Jesus is, because to be in the form of something is to have an outward expression of an inward essence. That's what Jesus is saying.
Hebrews 1:3 is another amazing passage that communicates this idea. It tells us, **"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…"** How wonderful is that? You should not be able to hear that and move through Christmas and think, "Yeah, man. I put the Christ back in this thing." That should compel you to think about the songs you sing and the stories you've read and to realize, "This is awesome. He's inspiring. This is jaw-dropping."
This is the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night, not because you're anxious but because you're so excited, because he who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature has stepped into our story because he wants to reach us. He wants to meet us. If we just took that away today, that would be plenty.
Some of you need to be reawakened to the reality that he's not just a babe in a manger; he is God in a manger. That's profound. I have a 1-year-old, and I'm looking at him like, "Huh?" It is just compelling me to realize how real this thing actually was for him. Yet Paul doesn't stop there. He doesn't just say that he was in the form of God; he tells us that he emptied himself.
Now, there's a lot of theological discussion about what that means, and I don't really have time to go through all of the particulars of it. What you need to know is that word _emptied_ means he poured out of himself. Not his divinity nor his deity. He did not cease to be what he has always been, is today, and will be forever. He did not become less than God. He poured out his equality with God. Meaning, he sidelined his supremacy. He punted on his privileges. He gave up his glory.
For a moment, all that was rightfully his he wrongfully set aside, because he wanted to pursue a people who were unworthy and undeserving of him. Isaiah 53:2 would describe it to us like this: **"…he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him."** A good way of thinking about this is if Jesus were to walk into Watermark today, he would look like you. He'd look like me.
There would be no aura about him. There would be no halo over his head. He wouldn't float through that parking lot that is cluttered with traffic and through our Town Center into a seat within our auditorium here. He wouldn't do that. He emptied himself completely. He didn't hedge his bets. He didn't have one foot in and one foot out. He was all the way in on becoming like you and me. He was born like you. He was raised like you. He grew like you. He learned like you. He ate like you. He was tired like you. He worked like you.
He was all the way in on becoming like you. He was in the form of God, yet he took on the form of us. Yet Paul doesn't stop there. He keeps going. It says he even condescended into the form of a servant. That's intentional language Paul is using. He wants you to see form of God and then form of servant and be like, "Huh?" It should prompt within you this question of "What does that even mean that he's in the form of a servant?"
For so many of us, we read that and think, "Yeah, man. Jesus kind of did that thing. That was his play. He ran it all the time. He served people, showed up, and gave a lot of himself for the sake of other people. I've got it." Yet this should stun us, because if we have a right understanding, a proper perspective on who he is, it would not make sense, first, that he would become man, but even if we could justify it, shouldn't he show up as a king, a royal dignitary, a senator, an ambassador, some person of power deserving to be worshiped?
But he didn't. He showed up, and he voluntarily became a servant. Meaning, he forfeited all of his rights so he could focus on all of _your_ rights. He became a servant. He took off his transcendence and took on dependence because he wanted to reach you. But even that is not enough, because as Paul keeps going, he's going to show us that he doesn't just move from condescension; he moves into humiliation.
Before we even talk about that, the fact that he would go from being God to man to servant, what we have to understand is that there's an application, an implication, on our lives _here_. How did he do this? Well, it tells us in verse 5. He had _this_ mind among himself. What was that mind among himself? It was a mind, an attitude, a heart of humility. So, let me ask you: What mind do you have among _yourself_ this holiday?
Are you stressed? A lot of us are stressed. You have the family coming in and the in-laws and the outlaws, and you can't seem to wrangle the crew together. It seems like nobody ever shows up on time. Everything is always perpetually in chaos, no matter how hard you plan in advance. You're just stressed out. You so badly want things to work, yet all you find yourself is stressed. There's too much to do and not enough time to do it.
Some of you think about the holidays and are frustrated, because this season doesn't remind you of everything you _do_ have; it reminds you of everything you _don't_ have. People are hanging out with their fiancé. You don't have one of those. People are spending time with their big family, but your family left you. People are waking up and opening gifts, but you're not able to provide. I'm not knocking on the difficulty of that, but that is not the mind available to you in Christ Jesus. There is a mind you can have in him that transcends circumstance. It pushes into the gift he came to give, which is a humility the world cannot understand.
So, where are you called to be humble this holiday? He's inviting you to do it, not on your own strength, but again, by way of his…Jesus, as most humble of all. In a world that is racing to the top, he raced to the bottom. When he had every right to look out for his own, because he is actually deserving, he didn't. He looked out for yours, because that's how great the love of God is for you. He chose to reach a lost world.
2\. _Jesus was born to rescue a broken people_. It says in verse 8, **"And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."** Do you get that? Jesus didn't just come to relate to you in life; he came to liberate you from death. That's the wages of sin. That's the price to be paid. It is death. Yet you did not die it; he died in your place. Paul says he did so via the cross.
I read that, and I think, "Yeah, that's normal, man. That's typical. That's pretty standard." I've grown up in the church, and the cross is a big deal. We know that's not just true in this room; it's culturally true in our world. The cross has become so basic to belief, so common to Christianity, it's synonymous with home decor. Some of you are wearing it as an accessory right now around your pretty little neck. Others of you have it decaled onto your car.
It's an amazing thing, because the cross _is_ significant, but often we don't realize _why_ it is significant. It has become too common. Yet that statement from Paul to the church at Philippi would not have been common in the slightest; it would have been flabbergasting. Their jaws would have hit the floor because they did not understand why the Son of God, whom he is claiming Christ to be, would die, much less on a cross. Why is that? Well, a couple of reasons.
To the early Christian, particularly the Jew, to be executed upon a cross, hung upon a cross, would have deemed you accursed of God. Deuteronomy 21 tells us that. It says, **"And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance."**
Did you catch that? It's saying, "Hey, bury him the same day." If there was a crime punishable by death and you decided to kill him, hang him on a tree, you were to bury him the same day. Why? Out of respect for his life? No. Out of respect for the land. "That guy is cursed. Don't leave him up. Pull him down. The Promised Land is too important."
To the Gentile, it's the most despicable, most miserable means of execution. To die via crucifixion meant two things for the person being punished. It meant shame and cruelty. It was shameful. It was a public affair. All your dirty laundry, whatever you did wrong, was outed in front of the watching world.
It wasn't just shameful; it was brutal. It was cruel, because the Romans had perfected this process of executing an individual in the slowest way imaginable. There was nothing quick or merciful about it. So, for Jesus to die like that, to both the Jew and the Gentile, it doesn't make any sense. That's why Paul says he wasn't just obedient to death; he was obedient _even_ to death on a cross. That word _even_ is one you should circle, because it's expressive of emphasis.
Paul is wanting you to realize, "Hey, he even died upon a cross." Paul is so desperate for us to know, not only will we never understand the heights from which Christ left to reach us; we will never understand the depths he endured to rescue us. Like, he isn't just God become man. You get that. He isn't just God become man; he's God become servant. But he isn't just God become servant; he's God become sacrifice. And he isn't just God become sacrifice; he is God become sin, sin for you and for me. We talked about that last week.
When TA was preaching, he read 2 Corinthians 5:21, which says, **"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."** That's how bad things were for you and me. Have you ever seen that movie _The Nightmare Before Christmas_? It has zero relevance in terms of content to this talk, but the title is an appropriate description of our existence before Jesus showed up in our story. It was a nightmare because we, like sheep, had gone astray. We were dead in our trespasses and sins.
Yet Jesus stepped into our story, not just to shine a light into the dark recesses of your soul and tell you, "Hey, man, that's pretty bad, and it's going to take some time to work that one out. Good luck." That's not what he did. No, Jesus stepped into your story because he wanted to free you from your failure. He wanted to save you from your sin. He wanted to rescue you back into relationship with God, which you had lost under the penalty of your sin. He came to rescue a broken people. His sacrifice changed everything for you.
So, let me ask…_Where can your sacrifice change something for someone else?_ Here's the truth. Christmastime is a really good time to put this one into practice, because it is really easy, in the spirit of the season, to be selfish in this season, to just hang out with that portion of the family you really like and avoid the portion of the family you don't really like. A sacrificing spirit would say, "I will forego that which would be to my benefit, and I will seek the benefit of someone else."
Some of you are coming to the end of your year. What if instead of using all of your PTO up right now because "Use it or lose it, bro…" What if instead of doing that, you chose to take on someone else's work, someone else's project, so _they_ can take time off and they might receive the love of Christ by way of your sacrifice for them?
Others of you, make it a family exercise. Take your kids and say, "Hey, instead of giving you one more gift, we want you to take that money and give that gift to someone else." Learn what it means to sacrifice, even at great cost to yourself, for the benefit of somebody else, because that's the heart of Christmas. Jesus didn't just come to serve; he came to sacrifice.
He descended. Catch this. This is what this is all unpacking. I am hammering it because I want you to know it so badly, big believer. He descended from God to man to servant to death, even death on a cross. Do you see it? It's an infinite humiliation for him so you might _ascend_ from death to life to right relationship with God to child of God to eternity with him forever forward. That's the exchange on the table. That's the gift of Christmas.
When we know that, when we know he was born to reach a lost world and born to rescue a broken people, what should that do in us? I don't know what that does in you. I know that fires me the heck up. It makes me want to sing in just a moment. It makes me and it should make _us_ do what God himself did.
It tells us, starting in verse 9, **"Therefore God has highly exalted him…"** That's the right response to all of this. **"…and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth…"** That is every knee. No knees left out in _that_ one. **"…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."**
3\. _Jesus was born to reign over you_. He was born to reign over all things. It says that God has given him the name that is above every name. So what's the name? _Lord_. He has given him the name _Lord_. Now, it's important, as we understand that, to also understand that Jesus never ceased to be Lord. He never stopped being the Son of God. He never once sidelined his deity or his sovereignty. He has always been who he has always been, and he is still today the same.
But when it tells us that he is Lord, it's saying something really important, that through his humanity, he lived, died, rose, and conducted himself in such a way that it proved he is who he says he is. Not a single one of us could ever look at the life we've lived, whether short or long, and say, "I'm lord." No, you're not. You may be lord of your cubicle, but you're not lord of all. But in his humanity, when you look at _his_ track record, when you consider _his_ résumé, he _is_ Lord of all. He is who he says he is. He is Lord.
That's why every knee bows and tongue confesses. That's not just a nice idea; that's a callback from Paul to the prophet Isaiah from Isaiah 45:22-23. **"Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn…"** I love that. There's nothing greater for God to swear to, so he's like, "By myself I've sworn." **"…from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.'"**
I love that. It doesn't ask the knees bent or the tongues confessing for their consent. He is so Lord that whether you are willing or unwilling, you will acknowledge him. We should rightly acknowledge Christ ourselves, because if this is the proper response to God, knees bent, tongues confessing, and it's saying that it should happen to Christ also, what does that tell us about who he is? That not just in his condescension, not just in his humiliation, but in his exaltation, Jesus is God. He is King. He is Lord.
As a result, it should change things for us, because though he was born like one of us, he is more than any one of us. He was born like one of us, but he is more than any one of us. I love the way Abraham Kuyper says it. Some of you have heard it, but you need to hear it again. "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, 'Mine!'" That includes every square inch of _your_ life too.
Jesus is Lord of all, yes. But hear me. He is Lord of _you_ too. Jesus wasn't just born to reach a lost world; he was born to reach a lost _you_. He wasn't just born to rescue a broken people; he was born to rescue a broken _you_. He wasn't just born to reign over everything; he was born to reign over _you_.
That's the beauty of Christmas. Christmas is not just generally wonderful; it's personally wonderful. It is a declaration of the love of God for your life. I'm begging you to see it by way of God's Word. I'm asking the Spirit right now, "God, please, would you help my friends to see this is true?" That's what would lead him to do all that he has done, all that you know, Christian.
It's the same reason my brother-in-law proposed to my sister the way he did: on Santa's lap at the Longview Mall. He had returned from his study abroad and surprised her in the process. He came home early for Christmas. To commemorate the occasion, he thought, "Why pay for photography when you can get free photography?"
So they went, and as they were sitting there, enjoying all the festivity of Christmas, he bent his knee, and it became obvious to my sister, "This moment is about so much more than Christmas merriment. This moment is about a man who would travel so very far to get to me, who would, at great cost to himself, give everything for me. But not only that; he wants to stay with me, reign with me, forever and for always."
Jesus has looked at you, your groom to you his beloved, and he said, "There's no length I wouldn't go, there's no price I wouldn't pay, and there's no length I would not live to be with you forever." That's the wonder, the theology of Christmas. Do you want wonder, not just this month but for your whole life long? Then place your faith in him. Let me pray that you would.
God, I'm so grateful for this time and the chance to sit under the authority but also just the sensitivity of your Word. It meets us right where we're at. It speaks, God, not just to a room this big but to individual lives where we are. So, God, I pray, I ask you, move amongst us now. Help those of us who need to be reminded you reached for us when we _were_ lost, and some of us feel we _are_ lost, and you're reaching for us today.
Help us to be reminded, God, you rescued us when we were broken. Some of us are in some broken places, and you're wanting to rescue us right now. Help us all, God, to know you reign over it all. You are Lord. You are Christ our King. We have only one right response. It's to sing to you. It's to exalt you. It's to come to you who has come to us. So, we're going to do it now, God. We love you, and we pray, Lord, that we would love you more over the course of this month. It's in Christ's name, amen.