First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Morning Service

There simply is no way to live in obedience to Christ and in conformity to the world at the same time. And that one hard reality is very much at the forefront of Peter’s thinking as he pens the passage before us at the beginning here of 1 Peter chapter 4. He wants us to understand and to embrace the character, the cost, and the calling of Christlikeness. 

We’ve been working our way steadily through 1 Peter together here at First Church on Sunday mornings, and one of the major themes we’ve been considering has to do with living for Christ when doing so will bring suffering, opposition, hardship. We’re going to tackle it under four headings. First, in verse 18, we learn about Christ our substitute. Christ our substitute. Then in verses 19 and 20, in the second place, we’ll learn about Christ our preacher. Christ our preacher. Then verse 21, Christ our rescuer, in the third place. And finally, again in verse 21 - excuse me, verse 22 - Christ our victor. Christ our substitute, Christ our preacher, our rescuer, and our victor. 

Now if you would take a Bible in hand and turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 3 on page 1016 of the church Bibles. We have been working our way through 1 Peter together on Sunday mornings. We’ve come to 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 13 through 17. Peter has given us some counsel on how to navigate opposition. He wants to help us face the possibility of suffering for the sake of the Gospel, and he continues to reflect on that theme in our passage this morning. 

And if you look at the passage, verses 8 through 12, you’ll see it focuses on Christian behavior in three directions. First, Peter has counsel for how we are to live toward one another within the local church. There in verse 8, do you see that? “Finally, all of you” - he’s writing to the church - “all of you who hear this letter read or read it together, have unity of mind,” and so on. How the Christian is to relate within the local church. Then verse 9, secondly, how we should relate to those outside the church, to the world, especially those who oppose the Gospel and persecute believers. “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.” How the church is to live toward one another. How Christians are to live toward the world. How Christians, in the third place, are to live - verses 9 through 12 - toward the Lord. He takes everything he’s said in verses 8 and 9 and brings it into the larger context of living under the gaze of God and in relation to the Lord. How we live toward one another in the church, how we live toward the world, and how we live toward the Lord.

The reality of time as God has created it will propel us forward into 2020, whether we want it to or not. Both, they and we, are bounded by God’s promise to do good to those who belong to Him. With that in mind, I want to look at three things from our passage as we prepare to read it. One is, “What does the passage teach us about faith? What does our passage teach us about unbelief? And what does the passage teach us about our responsibility to one another?” 

And that means of course that we are, today, at verse 8 where we’ll think together now about “The Cost of Christmas.” “The Cost of Christmas.” It takes us, verse 8 takes us from the manger all the way to the cross. And that may seem to you to be an unusual move for the Sunday before Christmas to be talking about the thirty-three year old Jesus hanging on a Roman gibbet on Golgotha instead of talking about the infant Christ nursing in Mary’s arms, laid in a manger in Bethlehem. But it could not be more important. It could not be more important for us to understand that while the nativity scene is, no doubt, more picturesque, more romantic, more Christmasy, that the nativity really makes no sense, none, apart from the cross.

And now this week as we turn our attention to verse 7, we’re going to look at the very heart of Christmas. The words of verse 7 take us into the core of the Christmas story, into the heart of the Gospel, and the glories contained there. And we’re going to unpack them under three headings, really three apparent paradoxes that you’ll find in verse 7. If you’ll look at it closely, you’ll notice the first we’ll call “subtraction by addition,” the first paradox; “subtraction by addition.” You see that in verse 7? “He emptied himself” - that’s subtraction. “He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant” - that’s addition. “Subtraction by addition,” the first paradox. The second paradox, “the Lord became a slave.” The Lord became a slave. The one Paul says is “in form God,” is found in form a servant. And then finally the third paradox, “the Creator is born a man.” The Creator become a creature, born of the virgin and laid in the manger.

Well this morning we continue in our Advent series looking at Paul’s use of Philippians 2:5-11. We began looking at this together last time. You remember it is sometimes called “The Carmen Christi,” “The hymn to Christ,” used in the churches during Paul’s day, and Paul is quoting it here in Philippians as an apt summary of the significance of who Jesus is and what He came to do. 

And to guide our thinking, we’ll be working our way line by line through Philippians 2:5-11. It’s a famous passage, sometimes known as the “Carmen Christi,” the “hymn to Christ.” It was probably sung or used in some way in the apostolic churches, and Paul is quoting it here in the context of his letter to the Philippians as an apt summary of the message about Jesus’ person and His work - who He is and what He came to do. And our plan over the next several weeks is simply to take one line at a time so that, God willing, over the course of the next four weeks we will tackle “The Call of Christmas,” that’s today in Philippians 2:5, then verse 6 next week, “The Plan for Christmas,” then on the fifteenth of December, verse 7, “The Heart of Christmas,” then on the twenty-second, “The Cost of Christmas,” then finally on Christmas Eve we’ll look at verses 9 through 11 and consider “The Point of Christmas.” 

This morning we’re turning to Leviticus chapter 7. Leviticus is unfamiliar territory for many of us. We are thousands of years away from these regulations. We’re not accustomed to grain and animal sacrifices and the cultural differences between this culture and our culture may seem like more than thousands of years. But my hope is from this passage as we think about the thanksgiving sacrifices that it would give us a fresh angle on Thanksgiving and it would teach us something of what it means to live a life of sacrifice and a life of thanksgiving. And so our two points to help us understand this passage will be “A Thankful Sacrifice” and “A Sacrificial Thanksgiving.”