The Old Testament reading this morning is from Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6-7. Another reading of God's Word. For to us a child is born, and to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. And now to our New Testament reading. It's found in Philippians chapter two in verse five through 11. The sermon text will be specifically verses five through seven. 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. Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him 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, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Almighty God, At this Christmas time, let us not be so easily distracted from the centrality and the amazement of the birth of Christ, an event that has changed the world. Let us be like those shepherds who came and marveled at the birth of Christ, glorifying God in the highest. Let us not be unmoved. Let us not be cold-hearted. Let us not remain the same. May the Word of God this morning be a blaze in our hearts. Be glorified, Great God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was a promise, a promise of God. It is found all the way back in Genesis 3, verse 15. This promise is given immediately after Adam fell in sin. That's in the Garden of Eden. And here we find that God says to the serpent in chapter three and verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. This promise is actually the first announcement of the gospel in all the Bible. Promise is good news of Christ in seed form. It's the most remarkable news that Adam or Eve could ever wish to hear. It's the hope of salvation. The hope of salvation from sin and from now being under the curse of sin and subsequent death. What we don't find in this text is we don't find details of the cross. We don't find details of the empty tomb. Those will come later as we see the Old Testament is unfolded. But what we do find is that Eve's seed, one of her offspring, would triumph over the serpent, one who would come, born of a woman, enter into this world, and fatally crush and bruise the devil. In the end, the serpent would not triumph. And scripture shows us that another Adam, one far greater than the first Adam that is found in the Garden of Eden, that he would come into the world. And in coming into the world, his purpose was to crush the head of the serpent. This second Adam would be born of a woman and so have her nature. He would be made in the likeness of man. This would actually be the fulfillment of what was first spoken about all those years back in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15. And this prophetic declaration of God is spoken into the context of darkness. The most tragic of events, man's fall into sin, has taken place. And with this, sinful man has been put out of the garden. He is no longer in the garden, enjoying the presence of God. He is alienated from God, from His good and His perfect Creator. Not only has man, as the pinnacle of God's good creation, been marred by sin, with some aspects of what it means to be the image of God now being lost in sin, all of creation now groans, groans under the curse of God because of Adam's sin. And in some senses, what we find is because of sin, the world is no longer as it once was. And so, in the first proclamation of the gospel, the promise of light into darkness is found. Instead of immediate death, Because of Adam's sin, we see that God's common grace is found so that, in time, the Messiah would come. The Messiah would come and save his people from their sins. This was, in fact, the deep longing of God's people. This is what the Old Testament looks forward to. with a palpable expectation and hope for the day when this child would be born, when this child would grow up and overcome what the first Adam had done in his sin. What we find in the Old Testament is that the Old Testament revelation of God is progressive. God does not tell all the details of the story right up front. But in Genesis chapter three and verse 15, we find the gospel in seed form. Over the years, as God speaks prophetically to his people, more detail and more color is given to show the remarkable promise of salvation in the Messiah to come. And so what we find is that as the Old Testament is unfolded, we begin to gain a better understanding of who this anticipated king and conqueror would be. What are some of his characteristics? What would he do? Even what was the context of his birth? And ultimately, how would he die? In time, God reveals that the Messiah to come would be from the tribe of Judah. He would be a descendant of David, but he would also be greater than David. He would be both David's son and David's Lord. And the question then arises, how can this be? How can the one promised of, who would be the offspring and seed of the womb, how could he be both David's son and David's Lord? The answer is both quite simple and also like something that has never been heard in the world before. We could not imagine this, is that the one who is born of a woman, the one who is of the woman's offspring, is not only in the line, the royal line that is, of David, he is also God's son. And as such, in coming into the world, he would be called Immanuel, which means God with us. He would be born in the little town of Bethlehem. More details would be unfolded in the Old Testament. His birth would be miraculous. It would be of a virgin. And he would come, not as a king initially, he would come as a servant. More specifically, a suffering servant. His birth, would be predated, preceded by a prophetic messenger, who would be John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for the Messiah's coming, for the consolation and the comfort of Israel. And as such, this Messiah to come, this hope of Israel, would restore the fortunes of God's people. This was their hope. This was the long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free. The Bible tells us throughout history, from Adam and Eve, to Seth, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to Moses and Joshua, from the period of the judges to Samuel and the various prophets and kings in Israel, God's people had anticipated a Savior. They were looking forward to a Messiah, the Messiah to come. We find the patriarchs, such as Abel, Noah, Abraham, they all looked ahead. They looked ahead to the future, greeting the promises of God from afar. They were people of faith. They were looking for something that the naked eye could not see. When we think of the covenants, those covenants that God made with his people, each and every one of them is dependent upon the Messiah to come. God's covenant with Noah evidences God's promises not to destroy the world again by water. Why? So that there would be a realm wherein God's saving grace would be at work. This covenant provides, then, the needed stage for the covenant with Abraham and David, each of which would look ahead for that great fulfillment in the New Covenant, in which the Messiah would in fact come, and the Kingdom of God would come on this earth. In that New Covenant, God would write His law upon their hearts. He would turn their hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. So friends, when we think of the birth of Christ, it simply didn't come out of nowhere. Christmas, in this sense, is a very big deal. A big, big deal. For thousands of years, God's people longed for this day. They longed for when one born of the woman would enter into the world as God's Son, as Immanuel, God with us. And the Son of David was the Son of God, who was to be born with the intent purpose that He would be bruised on the cross. And in the bruising of his death, he would crush the head of that serpent, seen all the way back in Genesis 3, verse 15. Friends, without the birth of Christ, there is no gospel. Without the birth of Christ, there is no salvation. There is no reconciliation between God and man. Without God incarnate, there is no way for man to eat the fruit of the tree of life, which is guarded by those angels who have flashing and flaming swords. There is no deliverance, there is no deliverance from the mastery and the wiles of the serpent without the birth of Christ. There is no redemption from under the curse of the law without the birth of Christ. Without the birth of Christ, there is no hope. There is no joy. There is no freedom. There is no eternal life. And this morning, as we consider this text, this Philippians 2, and verse 5 through 7, we do so through the lens of three summarizing words. And I've used alliteration to help us. Those three words are anticipation, condescension, and salvation. Now we've already considered the first point in my sermon this morning, anticipation, that longing, that expectation, that hope to come. And so let's turn now to my second point, condescension. Philippians chapter 2 and verse 6 through 7 says of Christ that though he was in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. This is some of the most remarkable language in all of Scripture. This is a profound, profound text of Scripture. He who has the very form and nature of God took to himself a human nature, and he became man. And in becoming man, the Son of God did not lose His deity, and so ceased to be God. In the Incarnation, the Son, the eternal Son of God, became the God-Man. In taking a nature, a human nature that is, to Himself, the deity and the humanity of the Son, His two natures were not mixed. The Son did not become a third thing. His humanity and His deity are united to His person, such that when we speak of Christ and we think of Christ, He is both God and man. This, friends, is a profound, profound mystery. We cannot with our finite minds fully comprehend it. We can't grasp it in our entirety. Our minds are given to wonder, but at the same time, when we think and contemplate the mystery of the incarnation, in some senses, our minds almost turn to mush. Why? Because it's so difficult for the finite to contemplate and fully grasp the infinite who is beyond us. And of this mystery, we affirm that it took place, but we cannot comprehend how it took place. Friends, remember that the distance between God and man is so great. It is not quantifiable. It is not measurable. There is no difference of degree. How does one measure the difference between the finite and the truly infinite? When we consider the relation of man to God, one is not simply a little more or much more than the other. God is not merely better, bigger, wiser, stronger than us. God is of an entirely different order of being. He is transcendent. He is eternal. He is uncreated, unchanging, unmoved, and perfect in being. When we think of God, God is simple. He is incomprehensible. He is infinite in His power, in His presence, in His knowledge. He is God, and we are man. When we get but a glimpse of who the eternal Son of God is in His deity, and then we cast our eye to Christ as a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger, as we see in Luke chapter 2, we get a glimpse of divine condescension. He who exists before all ages as God becomes man. taking to himself a human nature, and thus is one person in two natures, very God and very man. See, friends, the language of incarnation simply means to be in the flesh. It comes from the Latin. It simply means in flesh. And so when we speak about the incarnation of Christ, we're speaking about the enfleshment of the second person of the Trinity, the enfleshment of the Son of God, the eternal Son of God. And this is exactly what we read when we read in John chapter 1 verse 14, that the Word became flesh. That is, that He was made man by taking to Himself the form of a servant. being born in the likeness of men. In the incarnation, there is no change in God. He is both God and man at one and the same time. So who is Christ lying in that manger? Who is Christ? one so dependent upon his mother and his father in his infancy. He is the God-Man, Emmanuel, God with us. He who is eternally generated of the Father's substance is now conceived in time within the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. See, this is the marvel of the birth of Christ, that He who upholds the universe by the word of His powers, simultaneously enters into this world that He upholds. And He enters as a babe, veiling His glory, not losing it. Which is, this is exactly what it means to empty Himself, in Philippians chapter 2. And this is why the scriptures can say in the New Testament two things at one and the same time, though they say it in differing respects. What I mean is, firstly, is that the Father is greater than the Son. The Father is greater than the Son. And secondly, the scriptures also say that the Son is equal to God the Father. The Father is greater than the Son, And the Son is equal to God the Father. It's a profound mystery. And Augustine beautifully comments in this regard, and he says the following, he said, It is not without reason that the Scripture mentions both, that the Son is equal to the Father, and that the Father greater than the Son. For the first, the Son is equal to the Father, is said on account of the form of God. Remember Philippians chapter 2. And the second, that the Father is greater than the Son, is said on account of the form of the servant. And this without any confusion. When we consider the birth of Christ, it is both proper and true to say that God is man and man is God. That is to say that in Christ, in the Son of God, the Son of God is true God and true man. Friends, this story of the birth of Christ is no ordinary story. This is no humdrum Christmas tale. This is the miraculous doing of God. This is the one about whom all the Old Testament prophets prophesied. And in His first advent, the kingdom of God is at hand. That's what takes place. This leads us to our third and last point, salvation. Why did the Son of God come? Why Christmas? Why was it necessary for God to become man? In Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21, Speaking of the Virgin Mary, read that she will bear a son, and ye shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. The name Jesus was actually a very common name in first century life. And such that we see that the name Jesus or Jesus himself is distinguished by being Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the Galilean. Distinguishing him from others who are called Jesus. The name Jesus simply is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua. Joshua means Yahweh is salvation. You see, the one born of the Virgin was God's means of salvation for a world that is now under the rule of the serpent. When Adam sinned in the garden, he wasn't just doing something wrong. He had defied the Almighty and the Living God. He had defied the Holy God, who in His goodness had perpetually set His face towards Adam and Eve, doing so in blessing and in love. And God had made Adam very good. And out of all creation, God's love was unique in how He loved Adam. And so it's within this context what we find is that Adam then, knowing the love and the blessing of God, sets himself up as Lord over his Creator. In his sin, Adam now determines that he will determine what truth is. He is the one who will now give meaning to the world, not God. In his sin, Adam functionally set himself up to be God. But in doing so, in his sin, he came under the power of sin. Sin is not neutral. As a power, it desires to be a lord, a master. And so in his sin, Adam lost intimacy with God. He was judged and cursed instead of blessed. And he became enslaved, enslaved to the mastery of the serpent. And it's into this world, friends, that Jesus comes. He doesn't come, firstly, as a judge to condemn the world. But rather He comes, firstly, as a Savior, clothed in human flesh. He comes into the world to save His people from their sins. This is the provision of God for a broken and fallen world. This is God's provision. What do we need at such times? What is God given to us? We might ask for this or for that, but in Christ, in the birth and entrance into our world, and through the birth of Christ, we have all that we need. And as Jesus says, here's the way. He is the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. There is no higher provision or greater provision than God Himself in human flesh. This is true of Christ, perfect God and perfect man, as the Athanasian Creed says. And this incarnation, in accordance with the will of God, is what is necessary for our salvation. Jesus came with the express purpose to seek and to save the lost, those who are lost in their sins. He never came for those who had no need of a Savior. He came for the sick. He came for the helpless. He came for the poor. He came for the captives. He came for sinners like you and I. We listen to Jesus' words in Luke chapter 5. He says thus, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Christ is the promised Messiah. The name Christ comes from corresponds to the Hebrew word for Messiah. Christ's entrance into the world was not marked by typical fanfare of a king to come. In His first advent, the Son of God came into the world as a servant. He came in humility and of low estate to save His people. But in the second advent, in Christ's second coming, he will come as a righteous king. He comes as a judge, a ruler of the nations, to rule those nations with justice. And in that day, if you or I do not acknowledge Christ as Savior and Lord, if we have not acknowledged Christ, who came in His first advent as Savior, It will be a terrifying day when he comes in his second advent. See, I close with this, is that what transpired? We ask the question, what in fact transpired in the birth of Christ? On the one hand, it was a very ordinary birth. Another Jewish boy entered into the world. But on the other hand, it was the most awe-filled, world-changing event the world has ever known. Heaven broke into earth. God became man, conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And the promised Messiah from millennia before had come. The long-expected Jesus had come. The birth of Christ was the defining point in history, a defining point in the recreation of the world, a world that was lost in sin, a world that groans under the curse of God and had no hope, a world that has no hope save the grace of God, a world that needed to be made new again. See, the Old Testament people of God had longed for this day, a day that ushers in the kingdom of God in the here and now. The future has arrived in the present. The kingdom of God has already come. It has not come consummately, but the kingdom of God and of His presence has come. He came as a servant. born without much fanfare, and he will come again, this time as a king, not just any king, but the king of all kings, in splendor and in majesty. This morning, let our hearts be moved, let it be stirred to bow down and to worship this king, this one who came first as a servant. for you and I. And if you do not recognize him in his first coming, he will not recognize you in his second. Let's pray together. Magnificent Savior, our great shepherd king, born of a virgin, the true Emmanuel, that this Christmas time be one in which Christ has captured our hearts May our lives reflect this in praise and obedience and in gospel witness. We ask this in the name of our great God, Emmanuel, God with us, Christ and Christ alone. Amen.