An Observation of Success

Well, it's good to be back together again this morning, and I'm excited to be with you again here, able to, able to preach and open up God's word with you guys. a few weeks ago, we were able to look at Philippians 4 together and I'm really eager about this morning, looking at, at the passage we're gonna be looking at, if you want, if you have your Bible with you, you can open up to Isaiah 52. We're gonna look at the end of Isaiah 52. And before we, before we get started, why don't, why don't I go ahead and pray for us, and then, and then we'll get going.

God, we are thankful for the morning and we come to you, we gather together on a Sunday morning, come to church. God, because we want to worship you, we want to encourage each other and, and help each other become more like you, and we want to hear from your word, God. We wanna hear what you have to tell us this morning. And God, as we come to this particular passage, I just, I just, am, am, am very much affected by this, this passage of scripture, God, and, and I feel helpless to really communicate everything that's here and, and to accurately, communicate your words out of this passage and, and God, What we have to rely on is your spirit working in our hearts as we read this scripture and so that's what I'm asking for this morning, God.

Please open up all of our hearts and all of our minds to hear what you have to say to us. Impress that on our hearts, God, and give us a clear picture of the Messiah through This passage, help us to stand back and look and wonder at what you have done and your love for us. So, God, we depend on you. You're the only one that can do that work and we ask you to do it this morning confident that you want to do that work in our hearts.

And so we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, graduation is upon us. Many of you have recently graduated or you might be about to graduate in the next month or so.

I recently finished a Master of Divinity, Divinity degree with Southern Seminary and I can attest to the fact that this is a time of both celebration and reflection. I look back over the, the period of the last 5.5 years and I say, what did I do right? How did I succeed and what did I do wrong and how can I improve on those failures? and, and I, and I see this as, as a great time of observation and, and what it is that I want to carry forward to succeed in my future.

I, I, I want to succeed. I want success in my life. I want to achieve things. I want to work hard, set goals for myself, and I do have a vision for what I want to accomplish in the coming years and I want to achieve that.

I don't want to fail. I want to lay the groundwork and know all the steps necessary to reach that goal of success in my life. And I, I think it's safe to say that pretty much everybody here, here in the room has that same desire to succeed, right? It might not be graduation or, or finishing a degree, but it might be a success in a career.

It might be a success in raising a family. It might be success, in a marriage, it might be success in, in any number of things. but you want success. I think that's safe to say that that's a common desire.

There's, there's a picture of success that's painted for us in this passage that we're gonna look at today in Isaiah 52 and 53. And I'll tell you right now, the picture that's painted here is a breathtaking picture. It is absolutely incredible. And so what we're gonna do is, is we're gonna have an observation, the title of the sermon, Observation of Success and how we're gonna do that is, Look at to know and experience true success.

You'll want to observe 5 descriptions of the Messiah. This chapter is known as the 4th servant song in the book of Isaiah. There are 4 servant songs. And And this is an especially important one because this passage, Isaiah, it starts in Isaiah 52:13, it goes to the end of Isaiah 53 and this chapter of scripture is quoted more in the New Testament than any other passage in the Old Testament.

This is the creme de la creme as it were. There are at least 10 explicit references to the passage in the New Testament. you'll find them in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans, Philippians, and 1 Peter. And I can attest to the fact, personally, that of all the passages in the Bible, this passage that we're gonna read today and then going on to the chapter 53, this section of scripture has had more impact on me personally.

In my own heart and in my relationships with other people than any other passage in the Bible. This one has affected me so deeply that it's hard to communicate that in just a Sunday morning and talking in the sermon. Martin Luther commented on this, this particular passage, Isaiah 53, and said of the, of the whole of this chapter, Isaiah 53, that every Christian ought to be able to repeat it from memory. That's how, how high he held this passage of scripture.

It's referred to by a lot of scholars as the fifth gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Isaiah. And yet this one, this gospel was written 700 years prior to Jesus' birth. That's about the time frame that this was written, 700 BC. So you look in wonder at this and say this is describing the Messiah 700 years.

If you think back 700 years before where we are today, that was the Ottoman Empire and imagine somebody in the Ottoman Empire just as it was growing, being able to say 700 years from now this leader is going to come and do these things and that's what we have in Isaiah 53. So if you look with me, Isaiah 52, starting in verse 13 and that's what we're gonna read. It says, behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted.

As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told them, they see.

And that which they have not heard, they understand. The key to these verses, these 3 verses is right there at the beginning. It starts out and says, behold, in modern English we would say, look, pay attention, listen, what I'm about to say is important. Listen to what I'm going to say, and that's what we have to do right here at the beginning of the sermon and looking at the scriptures, we have to say, we need to stop and listen and look.

And that's what I want us to do this morning. Primarily what we're gonna do is we're gonna just step back and say, what is being said here and we have to listen to that and let that affect our hearts. and then we'll talk a little bit about action at the end, but primarily this is, this is a message of listening and looking at the power of the picture that's gonna be presented. And we're gonna look at that in 5 observations like I, like I mentioned.

And the first observation that we're gonna look at is that the Messiah serves God. So, let me back up just a second, again and say what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at this success and we're gonna make 5 observations about the success of the Messiah, OK? So the first one is He serves God in your notes, if you're taking notes, you can fill that in right there and it says, he serves God. Verse 13 says, behold, my servant shall act wisely.

He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. That word servant, behold my servant, could ultimately be translated as slave. the idea is that the person is, is devoted to the will of their master and they're supposed to act in accordance with the directions they've been given. I think today we're more familiar with the idea of employment, right?

You work for an employer and so it's a little bit different than a slave or a servant because a slave or a servant, it's a 24/7 idea. You are devoted to the will of that person., sleeping, waking, working, everything is devoted to the will of that master as a slave or a servant. It was expected of servants and slaves, especially in the time that this was written, that they would be pursuing the will of their master in all things. And faithful to the instructions that the master gave.

And it's interesting, this picks up, it says, behold my servant, and it picks up on a theme of servant that's laid in a foundation earlier in Isaiah. I said this is the 4th of 4 servant songs. Isaiah is the ser or excuse me, Israel is the servant earlier on in the book of Isaiah. And Israel was supposed to be the servant of God in each of these examples.

It's introduced in the, in chapter 41, it says, behold my servant Israel. And in the following chapters, it gives those servants songs. The 1st 3 describe Israel, but also as it, as it describes Israel in those servant songs and saying, behold my servant Israel, there's also an echo of there must be somebody else involved here because this is a pretty incredible work that's being talked about in these, in these passages. The problem was Israel was a failed servant.

it lays this foundation of what Israel should do, but it talks about their failure. They constantly turned from the Old Testament law, and they constantly disregarded Isaiah as he prophesized and gave the word of the Lord. They constantly turned to their own devices. They constantly pursued their own sexual satisfaction in their own ways.

They built gods specifically in this time when Isaiah was talking, they worshiped the gods of fertility, of power and of control. Those are the things that they worshiped and they got that from neighboring nations and they refused to honor God. But it was a little bit deceiving because in that time, Israel was really in a time of peace. It's really interesting when you look at that period of history, Israel seemed comfortable.

Things weren't going that bad and so they assumed, oh, we have the blessing of God. But really they were turning away from God and Isaiah came and prophesized and said, and, and so we have to back up just a little bit from this, this passage and say, the context of Isaiah, the book as a whole, OK? So Isaiah as a book is divided into two large pieces. the first is Isaiah 1 through 39 and that section is a section really of speaking judgment and saying, you got, Israel, you have disobeyed and this is the judgment that's gonna come.

These are the exact things that are going to happen to you. And that closes on Isaiah 39 by saying, you will be carried away captive into another country. Lo and behold, 100 years after Isaiah spoke that prophecy, Israel was carried off to Babylon in captivity. It came through just as, just as he had spoken.

But then the incredible thing is, Isaiah 40 through 66. those chapters are messages of hope and promise and saying when you're in exile, Don't be despair, in despair because I'm still with you, I still love you. I will still redeem you. I will bring you back to me.

But this is the punishment that you've earned for the things that I said. If you disobey me, these things will happen to you. So the context here of this, saying this, behold my servant is, Israel has been a failed servant and they haven't followed what they were supposed to do. And we, and we hear about that leading all the way up until Isaiah 52 and then it says, behold, my servant.

shall act wisely and that leads us to our second observation that he succeeds brilliantly. This is a turn, you hear what I'm saying? Israel has failed, they didn't do the right things as a servant and now he says, no, my servant will act wisely. Depending on the, on the, Bible translation you have, it might say he will act wisely, it might say he will act prudently or he will prosper or he will succeed.

the idea for that word is success. He will do what is necessary for success. John Oswaldt, did extensive study and, and, writing on On the book of Isaiah and specifically on this passage, Isaiah 53, and he says this. The word is usually translated be wise or prosper, but neither of those translations really gathers up the full sense of the context here.

To act with such wisdom that one's efforts will be successful. Thus, the text is not saying that the servant will merely be a wise man, even more so it's not saying that the servant will be a rich man. Rather it's saying he will both know and do the right things in order to accomplish the purpose for which he was called. The servant and the world should know he will not fail.

we get to this verse and it's almost like God says, I'm gonna tell you a story. And it's gonna get bad. But just know up front. He will succeed It's almost a little bit of a spoiler alert, right?

Like, hey, I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen. The Clippers are gonna win today. No, I'm just kidding. that spoiler alert of indicating what's coming, right?

And even beyond that, It's almost like a shot across the bow, saying, I don't lose, I win. My, my brother and I, I had just finished college and my brother and I went up to visit some friends up in Washington. Two other friends up there and, and we all loved paintball and we had all this gear and we had the full camos and everything and so we were gonna go out and, and have a good time paintballing. Four of us went to a paintball park up there in Washington and, and we, and we spent, spent the day there.

After about halfway through the day, another group approached us and said, hey, we wanna, we wanna battle, with you guys and so we said, yeah, of course, we'd love to do that and we agreed to the, agreed to the, war or whatever. We, we turned to each other and we're like, we're gonna win. We're gonna dominate and, and we did. never mind that they were junior high students.

But we won, we won. That's, it's almost like God is painting that picture saying I will win, but this isn't, this isn't a small little paintball match, right? This is the God of the universe talking and saying, I don't lose, I win. He will succeed.

He's flexing his muscle a little bit right at the beginning. Isaiah 40, just a few chapters back. God says in that passage, and, and it gives a picture of who this is that's speaking. God says, to whom will you compare me that I should be like him?

The nations are like a drop in a bucket. Like the dust that settles on a set of weighing scales. That's what the nations are to me. I'm the one talking and I'm saying, this guy, he wins.

After he says that, he goes on to describe that success. He says he will succeed, he will be high and lifted up and exalted. That phrase high and lifted up and exalted is, is an Isaiah phrase. He uses it several times in the book in Isaiah 2, and Isaiah 6, in Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 57, he describes high and exalted and we're familiar with one of those, right?

Isaiah 6, that's a familiar passage, right? And in that we read about what it means to be high and exalted. let me read, let me read the description that's there. In Isaiah 6:1 through 4, it says, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up.

And the train of his robe filled the temple, and above him stood the seraphim. Each had 6 wings, with 2 they covered their face, with 2 they covered their feet, and with 2 they flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy. is the Lord of hosts.

The earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called. You see that picture? That's the success that we're talking about.

This is not, this is not money. This is well beyond money. This is well beyond power. This is well beyond influence.

The Psalms say the stars proclaim his glory, the mountains shake. That's the success we're talking about, an extraordinary level of success. Needless to say that Jesus is, is the most influential person in history, right? If we even want to look at the physical aspect and say there's no other figure that can compare with his influence in history, that's the success.

If any of you, kids are taking notes on a clipboard, this would be a good picture to draw. You could draw a picture of that throne, a huge throne surrounded by angels. So our second observation is that he, the Messiah, succeeds brilliantly. After this incredible picture of success and we're just, we're just glowing, right?

With man, look at that success, it's incredible. And then the story takes a sharp turn. Look at the next verse, verse 14. And the 3rd observation.

is that he suffers greatly. Look at that verse, it says, as many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, beyond that of the children of mankind. That first phrase, as many were astonished at you. I, I read that phrase and I say astonished at what?

Astonished at what, what does that mean astonished at you? Who's he talking about and what does it, what does it mean? But if you look in, if, if you have the context of Hebrew scriptures in mind, there's a lot of significance invested in that word astonished. You can alternately say, That, You, you could replace that word astonished with appalled or devastated or Cut off from life, uninhabited, deserted.

It's a really, it's really a bleak picture painted there. And the terminology comes from what God promised he would do if his people sinned. Leviticus 26 is a, is a chapter that gives promises from God, says if you do what's right, I'll bless you and do all of these incredible things, and it goes on and on with these incredible, beautiful blessings. And then it also says, if you disobey me, These are the things that will happen to you, and it's a horrifying picture.

And that's what it draws on here. Leviticus 26. Yeah, Leviticus 26:27 to 33. I, I, I'm just gonna read a summary with, with bits and pieces through that passage.

It says, if you will not listen to me but walk contrary to me, then I will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. I myself will devastate the land so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. Have you guys ever felt that in an area of your life? I know, I know I have.

There have been periods in life where I've looked at an area of my life and I've said, I'm astonished. I'm appalled at what I've created in this area of my life. and I can trace that. I know this sin and the results of that sin and the consequences that came as a result of that, and it's pretty astonishing.

And there's an echo of that being portrayed here. As many as were astonished at you. His appearance was just like that. Now I don't want to oversimplify here.

granted there's different kinds of difficulties in life, not everything is tied to a particular sin, right? sometimes we just experience difficulty and that's just a part of the human experience. But there are some difficulties that we face as a direct result of decisions that we make or sins that we commit. And, and I think in, inside of this passage, it says, as many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred and it doesn't necessarily say this is sin.

There's a little bit of, a little bit of holistic capturing in that picture that says it's just astonishment at, at the, at the setting and what's happened. And so I think it captures a lot of that within that picture. But if you read continue reading on in Isaiah 53, it doesn't just stop with this, it goes on to describe in more and more detail exactly what that what that picture of suffering is. If you go on, I just collected all the scriptures that you can find in the rest of chapter 53 about Jesus' suffering.

It goes excruciating detail and if you stack them up, this is what you would hear about Jesus and his experience of suffering. He was marred beyond human semblance. Beyond recognition as a human. He was despised, not esteemed.

Afflicted, wounded, pierced, crushed. As one from whom men hide their faces because of the horror and embarrassment of looking on it. It takes a lot to be embarrassed to look at something, right? you, you guys feel that it If you look at something and it, you're embarrassed to look at it, that's a pretty horrible sight.

And that's what it describes in Isaiah 53. Jesus would experience a broad range of emotional and physical pain. Right alongside our experience. In Hebrew poetry, which is what this is, a servant song is poetry.

In Hebrew poetry, one of the common methods they used was parallelism. You'll paint a picture about this one thing here and then you'll paint another picture right alongside of it. To point out the similarities and the differences. And that's what you have here.

As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred. And, what he's doing is he's trying to give us a picture of the incredible beauty of where Jesus is. Right alongside of you. our experience.

And our astonishing or appalling problems right there. That's where God steps in. That's where Jesus says, I identify, I chose to identify in that place. we talked about a few weeks ago in Philippians 4 that God is near, it shows up again right here.

As many were appalled at you. His appearance was so marred., appearances, can, can be a big deal and In our society. We get a little obsessed with it, right? as a, as a society and people judge your status, your, your success by a number of appearances.

Maybe what brand or label of purse you're carrying or what label clothes you're wearing, fancy cars, charming personality, what brand of computer you use. What role did those appearances play in Jesus' path to success? Not even a hint of that in this, right? His appearance was so marred.

Jesus received in his body the abuse and devastation that was promised to Israel for their disobedience. And then as you keep reading in Isaiah 53, you get a picture of why he's doing this, why he receives all that with a motive to redeem. Beyond that, it's, it's, it's just amazing to me. One of the things that has affected me personally, so much in this passage is, it says that Jesus receives all this suffering and all this abuse for us.

And then in, in Isaiah 53 7, it says, not only did he do that, he was oppressed and afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. my, my, my instinctual mindset is if I see something, maybe, maybe somebody I'm, I'm close to, you, you'll see them do something wrong and you just automatically think, yep, told you so. Right?

They go through your mind, that, that tendency of you want to just respond and That's not what we see here. It's in silence. He just steps right alongside of us and says, I'm experiencing the same thing right alongside. So that's our 3rd observation.

That he suffers greatly. Our 4th observation is that he blesses many nations. Look at that next section, verse 15, says, so shall he bless many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which was not told them they see, and that which they did not hear, they understand.

So shall. It describes this, so this, this passage just does these upside down turns. It describes his incredible success and then it turns and it says it's through suffering, and then it says suffering and then it turns again and it says that's how he accomplishes it. So shall he blessed many nations.

Kings will shut their mouths because of him. For that which was not told them they see and that which they did not hear, they understand. The word sprinkle there, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Again, a word with a lot of context and Old Testament law.

Leviticus 4:14 and 16, you can jot those down. We're not gonna go there, but as a reference, Leviticus 4, 14 and 16, they give specific instructions on how to make atonement for sin. On how to offer sacrifices to God for the wrong things that have been done. Isaiah specifically Leviticus 45 and 6 says, the priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and put it in, and bring it into the tent of meeting and dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood 7 times before the Lord.

Isaiah picks that same imagery up right here and says, this suffering that Jesus experiences right alongside of us, he'll experience that, and so shall he sprinkle many nations. Now, the thing is, this was written to Israel, right? 700 years before Jesus, and they're still thinking we're the chosen people. This is our little island.

And we are God's people, right? In the middle of that already, God is saying, I have a plan for the nations. This isn't just about you. Look with a bigger perspective and understand this is to many people.

I have a plan to redeem many people. I think, that's, that's a helpful encouragement to us to, to recognize God has a big picture for what he wants to do. It's not just isolated to one place, just us here at Cornerstone, just us here in Riverside, just us here in the United States. God has a plan to redeem the nations.

His heart is to bless the nations. He said that to Abraham. Through you I will bless many nations. And again here he says, so shall I sprinkle many nations.

And the last two phrases, look at the end of that verse, it says, for that which has not been told them they see and that which they have not heard, they understand. The apostle Paul in Romans 15 quotes that particular phrase and says, this is me preaching to the Gentiles. This is sending the word out from Israel of redemption and love and mercy. It's incredible to see that in the midst of This time of judgment and condemnation to Israel, eventually going to exile.

Already God is saying, look ahead, I've got a plan. I'm gonna redeem many nations. We are beneficiaries of that plan, right? some of, some of you might be, have, some Jewish blood in you, but I don't, and so I'm thankful as a Gentile that I received that blessing.

I'm part of the many nations that were sprinkled through this plan. So observation 4. He blesses many nations. Our 5th observation is that he silences kings.

Have you noticed that rulers and leaders like to have their say about something that's going on, right? That's, that's just a normal part of life. We expect that and I'm not saying that's bad, that, that, that can be a very helpful thing because a lot of times rulers and leaders, they have a breadth of perspective and understanding that we don't have. So they're able to pull all this information gathered together and help us to, to shape our perspective.

you can see that in a lot of current events, the earthquake in Nepal, struggle against ISIS, the drought in California, a lot of conflict over homosexual marriage. A lot of issues that we see in our modern society and rulers have their say. They'll come out and make a statement about their position and about how we should think about a particular issue. But in the midst of that, Isaiah says, when this servant comes, kings will shut their mouths.

There will be nothing to say. How can you respond to this success? Think about Pilate. when he interrogated Jesus, you remember that in the Gospels, he interrogates Jesus and And Pilate's response says he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.

What about the centurion, and the soldiers at the foot of the cross, Jesus was crucified, and he dies on the cross. And it says, when the centurion and those who are with him keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, They were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the Son of God. He silences kings and not only that, He silences our hearts. This is the thing that, that captures me about this passage.

You look at this picture, and it silences your heart. There are times I've been really upset or angry or feeling justified like I'm in the right in a relationship or a conflict and I'll think I should be justified right now. I want to state my case, lay out exactly how right I am and how wrong this other person is. you feel that deeply, you feel it like righteous indignation in your heart and say, I want to lay out my case.

And there have been so many times now where I'll feel that. And this passage comes to mind. And I have nothing to say. There's nothing to say in response to that, cause all I see is I look at this and I see a picture of Christ showing nothing but kindness to me.

How can I respond to somebody who's done a small and insignificant wrong to me, and I've done this wealth of things against God and disobeyed him so many ways, and he responds to nothing but kindness. And it silences me. I think What that does is it demonstrates through the power of that humility and kindness. An incredible success and power that only comes in that response.

It can look pathetic, and, and, and it can look weak when you respond in humility, right? Because you're absorbing a little bit. And, and putting yourself in your proper place before God, but the power that's in that. is incredible.

All throughout history, there's stories of Christians in the, in the Roman Empire. It was a common thing for some families, they, they believed in less children was better and so they would, if they had an extra kid, especially girls, they would just cast them out literally on the street and leave, leave the babies to die. And Christians were known to go and pick up those kids and care for them and love them, just in this incredible kindness and humility. And And that is what affected so many people in the Roman Empire.

That was during a period of persecution for Christians, and yet the ranks of Christians grew immensely because of the example and the power of that demonstration. Julian the apostate in that about 300 AD, he said, the way that Christians interact with each other and the and the and the kindness and the way they help each other and serve each other. He was very much against Christians, but he said that, that is something to copy. That is something to learn from.

There's a power there that we need to see in this passage. So, a quick review, we've got 5 observations, right? And then we're gonna move, move into a little bit of takeaways, but 5 observations of the Messiah's success. He serves God, he succeeds brilliantly, he suffers greatly.

He blesses many nations, and he silences kings. I'm gonna touch on two particular takeaways and then we'll wrap things up. The first one is right there at the beginning, I said at the beginning, the first word in the passage, that's the first takeaway is behold. we need, we need to just step back and take in the incredible imagery of what Jesus is doing, specifically, that suffering and humility.

This passage, Isaiah in Isaiah 52:13-15, this is a microcosm of the whole chapter of 53. If you, if you want to take some time later and read through it, it's, it's incredible how this poem is crafted because this is the first stanza out of five stanzas. This first stanza gives a picture, it says success, and then it talks about the suffering and then it talks about what you Accomplish, sprinkle many nations and redeem people. And that's what actually the structure of the rest of the poem is.

The first stanza, this stanza talks about success. The middle three stanzas talk about the suffering of Jesus and go on in great detail, and the last stanza talks about the, the success that he's going to accomplish. And if you, if you walk away with anything from this morning, I want you to walk away with that picture of Jesus, humility and kindness towards us. Read through that again later and just observe and let that sink into your heart because I can attest personally, that's the thing that's most powerful in affecting me and my relationships with people is observing just the beauty of that power.

We have to stop and see Jesus as the Messiah, as a servant bearing that crushing weight of our sins and responding in nothing but kindness. The second takeaway that I, that I want to, to leave us with. is, something that the apostle Paul saw in this particular passage. The apostle Paul was clearly really attached to this passage.

He used it a couple of times. And he uses it in Philippians 2. We talked about Philippians 4 a couple of weeks ago, right? But Philippians 2, he talks about it again.

And And he gives us a specific takeaway on how to use this passage in our lives. He says, do nothing from rivalry or conceit. But in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

How this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he made himself nothing, taking the form of A servant Paul looks at a beautiful picture of kindness and humility in Isaiah 53 and says, you see that? You see that? Do that with each other. Have that humility, that mindset of kindness and humility and service, have that in the midst of you.

But the incredible thing is he doesn't just say, go out and do that. Go out and try to figure this out, create it inside of your own head and make it happen. He says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, because you already have it. Look at it.

Jesus did this work, it's yours already. If you have committed yourself to Christ to receive his love, If you have committed for him to be the authority in your life and received the forgiveness that he offers, and it's already yours. you take that picture. of humility, what, what Paul is encouraging in us, and you start applying that into the specific places in your life, that's where we get to the hard work too, right?

Humility is not a natural response for us. We naturally want to step into our own, our own way of thinking and say, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be served right now. I want, I want these people to take care of me more than I want to take care of anybody else. I want them to respond in humility so I can be right and I can be on my high horse, right?

But this is where we see that picture of success. We're, we're observing the success of the Messiah, right? These 5 observations of, of how he succeeded. And this is one of those things that suffering and that kindness in the midst of that.

If you start applying that in marriage, in responding to each other with that humility and service, You start seeing things grow and life and success in those places. I can attest to that for myself. Man, when I respond in my own, my own natural responses with Shawna in marriage, that's when I see the devastation come and that's when I see things go wrong. But when I, when I respond in humility and that kindness, that's when I see the, the beauty of Christ and life and success come into my marriage.

And the same way responding to different relationships, whether it be with a friend. Or, or another family member. And sometimes even in the workplace. That's when you start to see this beauty come about is when we do the work of saying, I will, I will take on that mind of Christ.

And serve and live in kindness. And I think this is a, this is a really Helpful part when we go into even the care groups later in the day today to talk through some of the specific applications of that humility in each one of our lives because it's gonna be different for each one of us, right? We have a different context, a different situation for each one of us, but to talk about where does God want to apply that in our lives. And remember when you do that.

You can't turn it into, OK, I'm gonna drum this up. I'm gonna make this happen. This is my own work. You have to start with the hold.

Look, see Christ, see his humility, and then apply that in your hearts. Why don't we pray together and ask for God to do that work in our own hearts. God, we're thankful for the picture that you've given to us of your kindness. God, I'm, I'm just affected, personally in my own heart and mind, my own relationships by looking at what you have done for me.

And God, I, I want so badly for all of us to be affected by that. I want, I want so badly for all of my relationships to reflect that humility and kindness to other people. I want our church to have that That mantra among us, the mindset that we would consider each other as more significant. Now we, we would adopt a mindset of service and kindness towards one another, and that that would be our power, God is in, is in reflecting you.

God, we're helpless to do that on our own. So please do that work in our hearts. Make us more like you, help us to reflect you in that attitude of service. We ask you to do that work in Jesus.