The Greatest Mystery of All: When Infinity Became Infancy!
An Eight-Part Series Exploring Jesus’ Lifesaving Incarnation
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Part Five
As One of Us, Jesus Reveals
God’s SERVANT HEART for Us
David Bryant
Introduction Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
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The world hosts a pantheon of ancient deities! They come in all shapes and sizes—and attitudes—and claim all kinds of abilities and influences in the world.
But none of them can begin to match the God of HUMILITY that Jesus shows us—that Jesus was and is.
India, for instance, offers as many as 33 million gods, we’re told. From my experience traveling among its more than one billion citizens, I’ve discovered that nearly every village and town has adopted its own idol, a divinity upon whom they depend for protection and fertility.
During the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, mythical giants also dominated the lives of many among the peoples of the Roman Empire.
Take these, for example: Zeus, was considered the king of the gods, who ruled over Mount Olympus as the god of thunder and lightning, as well as law and order. Hera—called Juno in Roman religion—reigned as the wife and sister of Zeus and is regarded as the queen of the gods. One deity receiving high worship was Apollos, whose powers were associated with the sun, music, archery, prophecy, and healing.
But none of these characters—who remind me of superheroes from Amazing Comics—ever took on flesh literally and appeared among those they had come to deliver. None of them revealed a predisposition—let alone a passion—to become a servant to lost and lowly people who had wounded them and walked away from them.
Well, get ready: PART FIVE introduces you to the most radical “god” that ever was or ever shall be.
Jesus outshines all divine pretenders as he opens our eyes to the one and only true God, who has an eager resolve to come to our aid, to lower himself to raise us up, and does so, paying every cost himself.
The Incarnation reveals a profound quality of God’s nature:
Jesus shows us the servant heart of the Father.
God so loved the world that he GAVE! The omnipotent maker and manager of the universe is by nature a God who GIVES, who seeks the best for others, who turns promises into deeds, and who did not hold back his own dear Son but sent him to lay down his life for us.
Christ came into the world, not like a conquering superhero but like a compassionate slave—a slave claiming no advantages, rights, or privileges.
His mission was focused on this one thing: ministering to our deepest needs for God’s greatest glory.
Scripture records:
Here is my servant. I have chosen him. He is the one I love. I am very pleased with him. I will put my Spirit on him. He will announce to the nations that everything will be made right (Matthew 12, emphasis added).
Jesus put it like this:
Even the Son of Man did not come to be served. Instead, he came to serve others. He came to give his life as the price for setting many people free (Mark 10, emphasis added).
The Spirit of the Lord is on me. He has anointed me to announce the good news to poor people. He has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners. He has sent me so that the blind will see again. He wants me to set free those who are treated badly (Luke 4).
The supremacy of Jesus is revealed
most significantly in the humility of Jesus.
We cannot understand Christ’s sovereignty over all things without first understanding the scope of his submission for the sake of all things. They are inseparable, as Scripture proclaims:
[H]e lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ (Philippians 2, MSG).
To come down to us, God’s Son emptied himself—one even might say he donated himself—to become a servant to us, for us.
He didn’t empty himself of any thing. Rather, he emptied himself. In this single act, we see unparalleled, unconditional selflessness.
Do you remember the generosity of Jesus Christ, the Lord of us all? He was rich beyond our telling, yet he became poor for your sakes so that his poverty might make you rich (2 Corinthians 8, PHILLIPS).
Behold, this is our God forever!
Jesus was constantly at the Father’s disposal, ready
to serve as required for our restoration.
He abandoned himself to the Father’s will, renouncing any claim to final, personal control over the outcome of his ministry. He yielded to the Father’s will because he knew in the end that he would triumph by the Spirit’s power; his Father’s desires would prevail.
His was a “defenseless superior power” (Hendrikus Berkhof), as he endured for us, as one of us, the breadth of sufferings to which the Father called him for our sakes.
Jesus explained:
The Son can do nothing by himself. He can do only what he sees his Father doing.
What the Father does, the Son also does. This is because the Father loves the Son. He shows him everything he does . . . I can do nothing by myself. I judge only as I hear.
And my judging is fair. I do not try to please myself. I try only to please the One who sent me (John 5).
A few days before his crucifixion, Jesus shared this servant-hearted prayer in the midst of a crowd who listened in:
Should I pray, “Father, save me from this hour”? But this is the very reason I came! Father, bring glory to your name.
Then a voice spoke from heaven, saying, “I have already brought glory to my name, and I will do so again”(John 12).
No turning back. No holding back. A servant from start to finish.
We must never forget this: There would have been no valid sacrifice for our sins apart from Jesus having lived, from his first cry, an earthly life of sustained, unwavering, covenant-keeping, moment-by-moment obedient service to the Father’s word and will and ways. Therefore, he was offered as “a lamb without blemish” to take away the sins of the world.
In other words, as one of us, he served us by how he flawlessly, perfectly, sinlessly lived out God’s uncompromising righteousness, what we sinners—we unrighteous ones—could never do on our own. In turn, this made his death for us totally sufficient—but only because he first lived perfectly before God’s face on our behalf, in our place, as if he actually were us.
And the chief hallmark of that solitary life that has transformed the course and hope of mankind was not his miracles of healing, nor his courageous confrontations with religious leaders, nor his prevailing over Satan in the wilderness, nor the temporary peek at his glory one day on a mountain, nor his perceptive teaching on godly relationships. His chief hallmark was his unceasing display of the Father’s servant heart.
But then the right time came. God sent his Son. A woman gave birth to him. He was born under the authority of the law. He came to set free those who were under the law. He wanted us to be adopted as children with all the rights children have (Galatians 4).
Even so, when we join all the saints to feast forever on heaven’s bounties, that gathering will be called not “the marriage supper of the King” but “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19). Jesus, “the lamb slain before the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13), truly offered the ultimate service—when “man lays down his life for a friend” (John 15).
The Servant of all:
the identity Christ Jesus took for himself—
and still does to this very day.
Hours before he was arrested, Jesus met with his disciples for one last meal together.
During their conversations, he reminded them very clearly (John 14) that to see him and know him was the same as seeing and knowing the Father who had sent him.
During that same exchange, as they were eating the Passover feast, Jesus decided to provide them one more unforgettable revelation of the Father’s servant heart—the identity that was his as well. We read in John 13 (from The Message):
Jesus knew on the evening of Passover Day that it would be his last night on earth before returning to his Father . . . Jesus knew that the Father had given him everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. And how he loved his disciples!
So, he got up from the supper table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his loins, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he had around him . . .
After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? You call me ‘Master’ and ‘Lord,’ and you do well to say it, for it is true. And since I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet.
“I have given you an example to follow: Do as I have done to you. How true it is that a servant is not greater than his master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends him. You know these things—now do them! That is the path of blessing.”
Even so, there was a moment in time and space and history when God’s Son got up from the everlasting banquet that had been shared by the Triune God, took off his privileges and exalted place as God, wrapped himself with our lowly humanity, and for 33 years poured out his life (and blood) for us like water into a basin. Then, he washed us (and washes us still), inside and out, wiping us clean in his righteousness.
When he rose from the grave and ascended, he resumed his rightful place as Lord, sitting down at the Father’s right hand, taking up his role as King of kings. But he did so to bring all who belong to him to be “seated with Christ in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 2). World without end. Amen!
May the incarnate, self-giving, other-centered, unrestrained ministering love of Jesus—the servant heart of God—become the glorious Christmas message we celebrate this year as we continue to live it out in our lives throughout the coming year.
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About the Author
Over the past 50 years, David Bryant has been defined by many as a “messenger of hope” and a “Christ proclaimer” to the Church throughout the world. Formerly a minister-at-large with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, president of Concerts of Prayer International (COPI), and chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, David now provides leadership to ChristNow.com and Proclaim Hope!, whose mission is to foster and serve Christ Awakening movements. Download his widely read ebooks at ChristNow.com. Enjoy hundreds of podcast episodes. Watch his vlogs at David Bryant REPORTS. Meet with David through Zoom or in-person events through David Bryant LIVE!