Beloved radio, friends, welcome to the broadcast today. It is in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ we greet you. Pray that God will bless his truth to your heart and to your life. Our study continues in the second chapter of the Philippian Epistle. Particularly we focus our attention on that most important section in the chapter, which describes the perfect pattern, Christ himself as he lived, for the believer to live today. We have emphasized from chapter one and verse twenty one that Christ is the purpose in the Christian life for to live is Christ. Now this being so, we should know how we lived when he was upon the earth. We should know how to follow the pattern which is given to us. Let me repeat from a preceding message the only pattern for living Christian living is Christ, no lower example should ever be a believer's. The closing words of our preceding study introduced us to that pattern. We quoted from Philippians chapter two and verse five, when Paul wrote, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Now do not forget, The beloved apostle emphasized in verse three of that same chapter the need for lowliness of mind that you and I as believers may follow. So the pattern of Christ emphasizes his lowliness, his perfect humility. Now this may be, and it is, contrary to human nature, for by nature we desire to be proud. Pride is not a part of the pattern. Never. In fact, God hates pride. As James the Apostle wrote, God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble. James four in verse six. For what a terrible curse pride is, but what tremendous power there is in humility. Now let us examine Christ, our perfect pattern. It was love. Let me emphasize that. Never lose sight of the fact. It was love which motivated him to leave heaven above that he might become our Savior on the earth. But it was this humility that controlled and governed his path from heavenly glory down to the death of the cross. We read in Philippians two, verses six through eight, Christ being in the form of God, thawed in not robbery to be equal with God. but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant or a slave, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Oh, may the Holy Spirit teach you and me, from these blessed words, the truth of his great humiliation. The last step down being the final step, the death of the cross. These steps lead down, one by one going deeper and deeper, until he reaches the death of the cross. Before we go further, let me faithfully say, though you and I, my fellow believer, can never be in the same perfection as he won, never let us neglect to realize that it is his life that should be reproduced in you and in me. Remember that as believers we possess the life of Christ. Christianity is the life of Christ, one has said, communicated to the believer, dwelling in the believer, and to flow through the believer. May I repeat that? It's worth repeating. A quotation from a godly servant of God. Christianity is the life of Christ, communicated to the believer, dwelling in the believer, and to flow through the believer. Now let us consider the steps of his humiliation, Christ our great pattern, for the example of our lives. We briefly trace that path. First, we see him in his absolute deity. subsisting in the form of God? He was on a plane of equality with God, and a position that he did not grasp at. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We read in John's Gospel, chapter one and verse one. But who can describe that glory, which was His? The Lord Jesus mentions that glory in John seventeen verse five. Praying to the Father that he would be restored to the glory which I had with thee before the world was. But who can describe it? Now, going down, we find he made himself of no reputation. Properly rendered, he emptied himself. He gave up something which was his. He laid aside his visible and outward glory. There are some that would teach that he laid aside his deity, and that is unscriptural and an evil doctrine, and dishonoring to the person of Christ. For though he took a human body, yet in that body he was very God. And then the following step, he took upon him the thorn of a servant or a bond slave. Can we comprehend that? The measure of our human understanding of this mystery, of his self-emptying, is to know and to believe he laid aside all that would hinder him from being a bomb slave, in order to obtain the object of his eternal love, his blessed bride the church, and the redeemed children that he buys with his precious blood. It is a matchless. It is a mysterious love that the God of glory and the Lord of glory should stoop and take the lowest possible place for you and for me, the form of a servant or a slave. But he goes down further, as the word continues to declare, he was made in the likeness of men. Now if he had taken the form of an angel, that true would have been a humble step. For he created angels, but he takes upon him as a servant of God the likeness of men. My beloved, God becoming flesh. Well, did the Apostle Paul properly write in First Timothy chapter three in verse sixteen? Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Can I pause in a spirit of worship, sharing with my fellow believers the adoration, the worship and the homage to consider the tremendous fact that human body, that mysterious babe of Bethlehem and the boy of Nazareth, the man of Galilee and the man of Calvary, took upon him your humanity and mine. Yet we know that in that humanity which he took, in that humanity the precious body that he had, there was no sin. He neither did any sin. And as Paul as well stated it, he knew no sin. Yes, we know that he was tested in all points like as we are. But according to Hebrews chapter four as well as chapter seven, sin accepted. My beloved, what a person, the impeccable, the incomparable, but the lowly and humble Christ. But there was a further step. For that one who was the eternal Son of God, he not only became a servant and an obedient one, For he who is and was very God, in its sinless humanity. Wonder of wonders. Think it through. Meditate and worship upon the fact. He learned obedience. Though he were a son, we read, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Hebrews chapter five and verse eight. My beloved, take it in. What a stoop. For the great Lord of Glory, our Creator, to become an obedient slave, and even in his humanity, subjected to the sufferings that were his portion, he learned how to be obedient. What a mystery. All to save you and me. Yet he was obedient unto death, all the way from... Bethlehem to Calvary. Could he not say, and did he not say, I do always those things that please my Father. What an obedient, blessed person in all of his perfection of humanity. Yes, he was obedient unto death, but the last and the final stoop that was his to go down deeper and deeper to the lowest depth, even the death of the cross. My beloved, we cannot measure that depth. Down to the depths of sin and woe, the Savior coming from heaven went to save you and me. The death of the cross, with all of its judgment, with all of its penalty, the fires of eternal hell, his soul bearing, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, was the prophet Isaiah's prophetic utterance. My beloved, you stop to think who it was, whose soul was made an offering for your sin and mine. Oh, my beloved, what condescension and love, all to save you and me. and to redeem us with his precious blood. But this is our pattern, my friend. This pattern of humility, if the believers would imitate it, calls for self-denial and obedience. But it will give the child of God perfect peace and rest on the daily walk. For did not our Lord Jesus say, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls. Matthew eleven, twenty nine and thirty. But to any of my unsaved listeners, may I precede these words that we have just mentioned by the words our Savior said in Matthew eleven, twenty eight. Come unto me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest from your conscience and the burdens of your sins. Come to the Lord Jesus. He will give you rest. His precious blood will purge your conscience from the guilt of all your sin. Father, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. Bless the truth to the saints and bless the truth to the sinners and save them in Jesus' name. Amen.