Dec. 21, 2025

He Gave up Everything out of Love

Introduction - If I were to identify a purpose which God is trying to achieve in this sermon, it would be to give us a deeper appreciation of the love which it took for Jesus to decide to obey His Father and come here to to the earth.  This is similar to the love it took to go to the cross in our behalf, but different in the way the sacrifice was made.  Both were  magnanimous, which is the complete opposite of selfishness.  They were the  absolute highest expressions of love ever seen in the universe.  Let’s hopefully take a deeper look at what Jesus gave up to come down here as baby Jesus: 

Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: 16for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. NASB

These verses refer distinctly to Jesus, God’s Son.  When it comes to the Godhead, we are told only so much in the Scripture, so be a little careful when you begin expounding on who God is.  We can safely say that God is three Persons, yet one God.  We are also told that “Great is the mystery of godliness.” (1 Timothy 3:16).  We can safely say that Jesus created all things and existed before anything else did.  That last term is a mind boggler, even if we let an understanding of the creation wait for a while.  We simply cannot comprehend that one idea, that Jesus is eternal and always was.  Our entire life is lived within fixed boundaries.  We live only so long, a year is so many days, a day is a fixed number of hours, etc.  Even the size of the universe, which is probably the largest expanse we can imagine (sort of) is something mankind only guesses at.  The most widely accepted theory of the nature and size of the universe is that it is flat (not similar to the flat earth theory), circular, and expanding infinitely.  Jesus knows the precise makeup of every speck of dust in it.  He designed every star and planet keeps them in perfect order through gravitational attraction (which science can’t explain).  Here’s as close as mankind can come in explaining why gravity works:  

“Science explains gravity as a fundamental interaction that arises from mass and energy, described by Newton's law of universal gravitation and later refined by Einstein's general theory of relativity, which views gravity as the curvature of spacetime. Despite these theories, gravity remains one of the great mysteries in physics, with ongoing research aimed at fully understanding its nature.” (US Department of Energy)

Jesus knows the largest creations in the universe as well as the smallest. He numbers the hairs on our heads and knows when a sparrow falls, literally.  He made the heart of the smallest bird, knows the molecular structure of a virus, all of your kids names and favorite foods, and carefully monitors every trial you encounter.  He knows the cure for every disease and can provide wisdom to guide us into healing and blessing while we are on this otherwise sin-damaged planet.  

Jesus left a very lofty position to come to earth and live a legitimate, perfect life as a man so He could eventually become the savior of the world.  Why did He do this?  The answer is simple:

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.  NASB

Christmas, our holiday which commemorates the birth of Jesus, is really celebration of the love of God displayed toward all of us.  It was the beginning of a complex process to give God a good reason not to completely destroy the earth and all the people on it, forever ending the human experiment. He could have done that, and we could have (had we lived to see the results in retrospect) concluded that we’re not in pain and that the whole idea never existed, except that it did, and whether humans were kept alive really did matter to God.  The plan was to take His righteous anger out on a suitable sacrifice, the only one being His Son, Jesus.  A whole future for you, which has only just begun, will be lived out in wonderful fellowship with God, where He includes you in the projects in His universe which are most precious to Him, takes you out from under the punishments connected with original sin, and enjoys wonderful, frequent fellowship with you in the New Jerusalem, forever.  New, rich, exciting—no human concepts can even describe the wonder that the life God has planned for redeemed mankind is like.  Jesus coming to be baby Jesus started it all.  

To really appreciate Christmas we need to examine what love impelled Him do.  He never ceased being God, but took on the nature of man.  He emptied Himself of all of the prerogatives to exercise divine attributes:  the essential attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, self existence, eternality, and moral attributes of holiness, righteousness, love, and faithfulness.  He became a bond-servant to his Father, who only allowed Him to be used in those attributes as He directed.  Most of us are trying to succeed and spend a lifetime working to better our living situation, pay bills, stay healthy, have a career or business, save for retirement, etc. These are all commendable goals.  If they are commendable for us, they are commendable by God’s standards.  In fact, God is interested in having His endeavors (such as the human experiment) or the expansion of the universe) succeed and be self-sustaining.  So, for Jesus to voluntarily step down as the sustainer and creator of all things, handing over the daily control of the universe to His Father, was a major start.  We don’t spend much time thinking about the first 9 months of His life and then the 33 1/2 years He spent before Crucifixion.  We just see Him as another human, toughing it out in Nazareth.  What lay ahead for the Creator was 9 months in a water-filled sac.  He was put on the earth in a time when there were no Hospitals or prenatal care.  He could not conduct any universe-business during this time and His human memory was not recording any of his experiences in the womb, as we might think.  He was born out of His amniotic sac and experienced all that we do in the air-breathing world: hunger, cold and heat, irritations, tiredness and energy, collisions with objects, the need to have his soiled diapers changed, the accumulation of dirt and the need to bathe, the skills of crawling, walking and running.   He had to learn to clean His teeth.  He had to develop the ability to experience joy and sorrow, learning letters and words, and learning how to say sentences to communicate. He had to learn which plants and animals to avoid and which foods to eat and how to cook them. He had to get the same basic education given to other children, probably including how to count and do math.  He had to learn to obey His earthly father and mother and respect his family members.  He had to learn how to hear His heavenly Father and get directions in the starting of His ministry of when and where to exercise omnipotence.  He had to hear with precision about when and where to start His exposure to the public, especially his encounters with the Jewish hierarchy and the Roman authorities.  He had to learn what to say as he was being interrogated.  

Jesus chose to go through this earthly life, the Creator giving up his plan for His life for 33 1/2 years and nine months in Mary’s womb.  All this because he “so loved the world.”

Conclusion - Philippians 2:3-8 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; 4do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.