Pastor David reflects on Christ’s descension into service and how his examples is a model for incarnational ministry.

<p>Pastor David reflects on Christ’s descension into service and how his examples is a model for incarnational ministry.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

Downward Mobility

On the screen I have a picture of Jose Rojas.

He is the former North American Division Youth Director.

He tells the story of how he was invited to the White House when President George W.

And as he was waiting in the waiting area, there was a group of other individuals that were waiting there with him.

1 of the White House aides walked into the waiting room and mistakenly assumed that Jose Rojas was not an honored guest but was 1 of the butlers in the White House.

And he looked at Jose and said, you there, why don't you get everybody water in the in the waiting room?

He got up, started getting water for everybody, served everyone a glass of water and made sure that everyone was taken care of.

Bush walks into the room and says, Jose, I'm so glad you're here.

The White House aide's face just drained as he recognized that he just treated the honored guest of the president like a servant.

Because if I was in that situation, I would have been tempted to say something.

Do I look like a servant of the White House?

And today I want to reflect on a challenging passage as it has implications for us as to what it means to be a Christian, a Christian leader for that matter.

I want to invite you to open your Bibles if you have not already to Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 through 8.

This is Paul's theological reflection on the incarnation of Jesus Christ and this time of the year we do celebrate the incarnation, the birth of Jesus on this earth over 2, 000 years ago.

I want to read through this, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 8.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." There's a lot in here, but just a brief reflection.

I don't think throughout the I don't think throughout the ceases ages of eternity we will fully comprehend the notion of the chasm that Christ condescended Going from God to a human being.

That chasm is wider than humanity to an insect.

Doesn't even fathom the chasm that God went down.

The Bible says that we were made lower than the angels, so you can argue that there's God, angels, humans.

And just to help us a little bit grasp the nature of how vast God really is, I mean God is big, for the lack of a better word.

Here I have a picture on the screen of the Milky Way galaxy, galaxy in which we reside.

They say that traveling at the speed of light, it would take you a hundred thousand light years to go from 1 end of the Milky Way galaxy to the other.

This is just unfathomable when you look at the vastness of the universe.

This is a picture of a cluster of galaxies just like our own.

They estimate that there are over a hundred billion galaxies, just like our Milky Way galaxy.

Now we throw out these words like billion and trillion, especially in reference to the national debt.

But when you think about 1000000000, if you were to sit down and count to a billion, I don't recommend you do this, by the way, it'd be a waste of time, and you would average 1 number a second, it would take you 95 years to count to 1 billion.

So this is a cluster of galaxies, 100 billion galaxies, and they say there's 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone and this God that created the universe Condescended they say that it is estimated that the number of stars in the universe is greater than the number of the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world, according to Carl Sagan.

And this illimitable eternal God condescended and became human.

This is what we reflect on every Christmas season.

And The Bible says he did not take on the form of the elite of Humanity the Bible says he became a servant and it's like us becoming an ant And we're not even an upper-class ant or a common ant I Mean that I mean, it's it's just incomprehensible even to become an upper class ant.

When you think about the ineffable, illibitable God of the universe condescending and becoming a human.

I mean, we think that being human is not bad, but to God it is condescension to become as 1 of us.

And the Bible tells us that he became a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

In your relationship with 1 another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.

This is a quote from the Greek lexicon talking about this concept of emptying himself to completely remove or eliminate elements of high status or rank by eliminating all privileges or prerogatives associated with such status or rank to empty oneself to divest oneself of position.

You have the Greek words there for emptying himself found in Philippians 2.7.

The path of Jesus was to go from the throne of God and condescend.

It was a downgrade and you can see the trajectory in these verses I have here on the screen.

God was with, The word was with God and the word was God, John 1.1.

Emmanuel, found in the book of Matthew, literally means God with us.

Jesus descended down to serve our needs, John 1.14.

And in John chapter 13, He knelt down and washed His disciples feet.

This is the trajectory of Jesus and Paul says we are to have this same mindset of Christ.

Stan Patterson, 1 of my professors at the seminary, summarized it in this way in his reflections on Philippians chapter 2, precisely because he was God, he became a servant.

Therefore, the essential nature of God is to be a servant.

Being a servant is not an exception to his nature, It is His nature.

The essence of what it means to be God is not the desire to ascend.

This is so foreign to our understanding of what leadership means.

And I find in my own Christian experience in relationship to service and ministry, just a window on what it means to be a pastor and with my colleagues, there's often a discussion sometimes where 1 of my colleagues says, you know, 1 day I want to be conference president.

You can see that this idea even filters down even into those that are in ministry that, look, I don't wanna descend.

No 1 wants that small church in that podunk district out in the middle of nowhere.

You want the large church in Berrien Springs or in Loma Linda.

And I wanna tell you that it entered into my consciousness when I said, look, I'm going to Alaska.

And some of my friends say, why are you going there?

And this notion of descendancy, we don't want it.

I wanna invite you to turn with me to a contrasting passage.

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Downward Mobility

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