The Gift of Humility Philippians 2:6-8

Christmas reminds me a little of that show, “Undercover Boss,” where the owner of the company would go and work among the, “little people.” There is just something disarming about having a very important person who is willing to do a job that society deems as unimportant or beneath them. The same goes for the very famous in our world. It’s always interesting when huge celebrities are caught doing ordinary people things like pumping gas or shopping for groceries. We forget that no matter how high up the chain you go, people are still people just like us. When Jesus came from Heaven to Earth, it was similar to a heavenly episode of undercover boss in that all humanity finally got to have the question answered, what if God was one of us. The answer we got was, He would be perfect and mankind would rise up and try to destroy Him regardless of how perfectly He treated us. Jesus knew the answer before He came, but He showed up anyway.
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Our passage this morning tells us that Jesus held nothing back, He was entitled to all glory honor and praise yet He retained none these for our sake. He emptied Himself and put on flesh, He took on the form of a servant. The One all of Heaven bowed before became One that would appear to be beneath all others. Jesus went from having angels at His command to being led by the hand. He went from the throne of heaven to a dirty manger among the poorest of the World.
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Jesus humbled Himself by becoming a servant of all. He was obedient to the Father’s will all the way to the point of death, even the worst death imaginable, death on the cross. True humility is not thinking badly of yourself, true humility is forgoing your rights to the honor and privileges you deserve. Every Christmas we are celebrating the fact that our Lord, Jesus, displayed the greatest humility this world will ever know. He gave up Heaven’s praise to walk among the people of this world as a servant. And He allowed Himself to be subjected to ridicule even to the point of being hung from a tree like a common criminal. He never defended Himself, though He could have. He never force the pain and suffering and shame to stop though one word from His mouth would have ended it all. As Loretta Lynn used to sing, He could have called ten thousand angels,” but he suffered in silence and allowed His creation to mock and humiliate Him until they murdered Him for simply being good.
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Our passage today comes in the middle of Paul the apostle pleading with a group of people to show humility to one another and get along. He said in essence, “hey guys, have the same mindset that Jesus had by coming and dying on the cross,” “if you are wondering how to be humble and get along, look at what Jesus did for you!”
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Let us praise God today for the mindset Jesus had to come and die in our place for the His grace to live with such humility in all our dealings with one another.