Mysteries of the Kingdom, Part 1

 As I start this new series, I want to make sure that you understand that some of the things that I will share with you are my opinions; my interpretations. Some mysteries will never be fully understood until Jesus comes back. I will attempt, with my limited understanding to shed some light on these, but I stand with the Apostle Paul who said, " For now we see through a glass, darkly" KJV Still, I pray that this will be helpful to you as you struggle to interpret the mysteries of the kingdom.

Phil 2:4-11

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death —

even death on a cross!

 

1 - Look not to your interests.

·         We tend to look at the world through the prism of what we like, what is best for us.

·         We judge others based on what we believe and what we think is best.

·         We try to convince others of our rightness.

·         We measure things by our experience and what those experiences have taught us, both good and bad.

·         We cannot even begin to understand why anyone would think differently than the way we do.

2 – Look to the interests of others.

·         What happens when we put ourselves in other people’s shoes and try to look at life through their eyes?

·         What is it like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes?

·         What does it look like to put someone else’s needs, wants and desires first?

·         How would we live differently if we wanted someone else to succeed more than ourselves?

3 – Follow the model of Jesus.

·         One of the great mysteries of the Christian faith that was agreed upon early on in Church history is the fact that Jesus is wholly man and wholly God. This is not something that is easy to grasp.

·         Did He achieve what He did because He was God, or because he became fully man?

·         These verses inform us of how Jesus accomplished His mission on earth.

4 – Attributes of God      (These are only three of many, but they are the most well known)

·         Omnipresent – this means that God can be present anywhere and everywhere at any time.

·         Omnipotent – He is all powerful and is not limited in that power.

·         Omniscient – God knows all things; all the knowledge of the universe is contained in Him.

5 – Emptied Himself

·         “Being in very nature God”. He did not stop being God just because He chose to come as a man. What He did do was submit Himself to the Father fully knowing His place in the hierarchy of the Trinity.

·         I like the way the NASU version reads: “but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”

·         While Jesus was still fully man, He chose not to take on the attributes of God. So, He emptied Himself of the omnipresence of God and limited Himself to being in one place at one time, just like us humans are limited.

·         He chose not to be omnipotent and be fully dependent on obedience and dependence on the Father for His power. Please note that it wasn’t until after He was baptized and the Holy Spirit came upon Him, and after His testing in the desert, that His ministry fully began. (Regardless of the made up of stories of Jesus performing miracles as a child in the apocrypha)

·         He chose not to be omniscient and knew and did only what the Father showed Him. He chose to be a human and as human His brain could simply not contain all the knowledge of God. So, He became dependent on the Father to reveal to Him what He needed to know in the moment.

·         He became a bondservant. A bondservant is someone who became someone’s slave for a period of time in order to pay off a debt. Once the debt was paid off, the master set the slave free. On occasion, either because of the good treatment they received at the hands of their master or because they had no other prospects, a freed slave would choose to stay and work for the master. At that point, they would basically poke a hole in their earlobe and put in an earring In it. That said this person was officially a part of the master’s household and could charge things to the master’s account. Jesus, who was part of the Godhead chose to become completely subservient to the Father and become completely dependent on Him.

 

What I compare it to is packing a suitcase for a trip. You may have a lot of things at home that you choose not to pack for your trip. It doesn’t mean that you don’t own those or can’t use when you please, I just means you left them behind for this trip.

When I was a kid living in Brooklyn, NY, I remember going for a walk with my Father. At that time, I couldn’t have been any older than 5 or 6 years old. It is one of the few memories I have of that time. My father was well over 6 feet tall and had long legs. However, he took me by the hand, and we went for a walk. I felt that I needed to almost run in order to keep up with him, and that is with him really having to slow down his normal NY gait. He could have covered a city block in no time if it weren’t for me. He purposely slowed down and changed his gait so that I could keep up.

Think of it this way, if you wanted to save a colony of ants by becoming one of them, what would you have to give to take the form of an ant? Let’s start with independence, ants are a social group who work together without independent thought for the good of the colony. Now compare the size of your brain, your knowledge, your abstract thinking; you would have to give all those up. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

After His ascension, Jesus gave up the limitations of a man and once again took up the mantle of the Son of God; except now He had fully experienced what it is to be a man. He once again was part of the Godhead that makes one God. He again was omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. He was not limited to time and space, but He also had firsthand knowledge of what it is to be human.

Fully God – Fully Man.