This sermon delves into the profound truths revealed in John chapter 1 and Philippians 2 about Jesus Christ. It explores His pre-existence, role in creation, revelation of God's character, incarnation as a man, and the response of the world to Him. The speaker emphasizes the need for believers to emulate Christ's unselfishness and humility, reflecting His love in their interactions with others.

Before I pray, I just want to express our appreciation to you, Steve, for the work, time, prayer, everything you put into these sessions. They are just an incredible blessing, and I've probably gotten more out of the study of Acts and Paul and Revelation than anything I've ever experienced here at Pure Life, so thank you for putting your time and heart, more than anything, into these things. So let me open up this study in prayer. Lord, we come to you once again on our knees, really, in our hearts, just begging you to ask you to reveal yourself in a greater way. This is eternal life to know you, Lord, in this great mystery that's unfolding as you reveal just a little bit more each day of yourself to us. But we're expecting great things from these weeks, Lord, both for Steve as he studies and prepares, and for us as your servant shares what you show him and what you speak through him to us. Lord, it is our heart's desire to know you. Lord, we are so limited in our perspective, our flesh gets in the way, so often I ask you to subdue our flesh during these sessions so that we may receive from your Holy Spirit whose entire ministry is to reveal Jesus to us and make us like him. God, please help us. Please, Lord, speak to us, convict us, and change us, and make us like you, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Thank you, Tom, I appreciate that, words of encouragement. We will be in John chapter 1 and Philippians 2 this morning, here in a little bit. As Tom mentioned, this is the beginning of another series, this one on the life of Christ. We're going to spend 20 weeks again covering his life and teachings and so on, but as John said at the very end of his gospel, all the books on the earth could not contain the knowledge of this tremendous and deep and immense subject of who this being is, the Son of God. So I'm under no illusions that I can handle it, you know, cover it in a comprehensive way in 20 teachings, but I do believe that if we will approach these with a humble spirit and a hungry heart, that the Lord will open up his heart to us and give us a fresh sight of Jesus Christ. It is one of the functions of the Holy Spirit to exalt and glorify Christ and to reveal him, to disclose him to people's hearts, and that's what we want. We don't want it to just be this dry, bland conveyance of academic information, you know, because I did some kind of study in the Word. If that's all I got to offer, and I will be offering that, but if that's all I have to offer, it's just a waste of time because it just becomes head knowledge. But I am believing God, if we will approach it in the right way, that he's really going to make Jesus real to us. Now, there's two ways I could cover this vast subject. If I tried doing it verse by verse, there's over 3,700 verses in the four Gospels. If I tried doing that verse by verse, to get that done in 20 sessions, that would be 188 verses a session, all I would do is stand up here and read. And of course, there would be a blessing in that, and it's God's Word. But I decided to, rather than try to do that, I'm going to take 20 aspects of his life, or incidents, or teaching discourses, however you want to say it, or however it pans out, and really try to look at those in depth. So that's my hope, and at least that's the approach I'm taking with this series. Today will be introductory, and it may get a little technical at times, but today is going to lay the foundation for the whole series. So it's important what is being shared today because it's going to come out in the life of Christ as we examine the way he lived his life. These truths will kind of prepare the way and help you to have a greater appreciation for some of the things he did and said that we'll look at later. So let's just start by reading these two passages of Scripture, and then I'm going to share some things. So we'll begin here with John, and I'll read the first five verses in chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Okay, and then Philippians 2, which is really going to be more of a support passage. Really, we'll be in John 1 the whole time, but let me read these verses starting with verse 5. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. All right, now I want to look at seven truths that can be seen here in John 1. Seven realities of the Son of God that we can derive from this chapter, and the first is this, Jesus Christ existed before his birth in Bethlehem, and of course we know that. In fact, there's nothing I'm going to tell you as far as these seven truths that you don't know, but my guess is you don't know why you know them. It's just kind of like common knowledge in the church, these things are true, but we don't really understand why it is we believe what we believe a lot of times. But anyway, yes, he existed before his birth in Bethlehem, and we see that in these first three verses, in the beginning was the Word, etc. Notice the past tense, in the beginning was the Word, etc. All in the past tense. In other words, he existed in some previous state before he came into being through the womb of Mary. Now, I have some verses. I'm going to just mention a couple of them because I'm not going to read them, so if you want to write them down, you'll have them. John 3.13, John 6.62, and John 16.28. I'm not going to read those, but let me go over a few other ones. Philippians 2.6, we just read, he existed, past tense, in the form of God. John 17.5, this comes out of the high priestly prayer Jesus prayed on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was. That is a powerful, amazing statement. The glory that he had with God the Father before the world existed. I'm going to stop now, and I'm going to read a verse out of Isaiah 6, this little passage, because this shows us what that glory was. You all know this passage. It's familiar to you, but I'm going to read it just to establish the thought strongly in our minds. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of his robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. All right? Now, in John 12, 41, this is what John said. These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory. Jesus, that's who he's referring to, is Jesus. Because he saw the glory of Jesus Christ, and he spoke of him. That passage in Isaiah 6 is Jesus Christ on his throne. That is how he existed on earth. Well, I mean in heaven before earth was even formed. And you know, throughout the Old Testament history, and all the while until he departed heaven, he, you know, he descended from heaven. It says in John 3, you know, that is what his existence was. And why is that important? Because I want it to be real to all of us what he gave up, the price he paid to come down here. And I think of the price that you guys pay to live in Kentucky, to do without, to give up, to sacrifice, to give your life to these men in sexual sin. There is a price to pay. But think of the price that Jesus paid, what he left. And then another passage I'll mention, John 8, 58. This is Jesus speaking, before Abraham was born, I am. I mean, that just shows his eternal existence, his co-equality, his co-existence with God, the Father. And then this one, Luke 10, 18. I was, past tense, I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Now, consider this for a minute. We don't know exactly what heaven was like before earth was formed and so on. Well, we don't really have a super clear picture of it, although you can if you read some, like, Randy Alcorn's book on heaven will really give you a much better, clearer understanding of it. But it's a country, the book of Hebrews tells us. And, you know, yes, it's a city, but it's also called a country. However that geographically lines itself out, I don't know. But I suspect there were billions, there are billions of angels, one third of which, you know, went into rebellion and were thrown out of heaven. But consider this vast domain. Think of earth, you know, with six billion people in it right now. You know, you have entire cities and people in all kinds of ranks of life, different personalities, different characters, you know, different jobs, different tasks that they do, different dwellings they live in, different neighborhoods, all that's involved with this world. How much more so heaven? And, you know, Jesus was in his temple high and lifted up, ruling that vast domain. And there was a hierarchy, and we're going to see a verse here in a little bit, we'll get to it. But there were thrones set up, and there were these angelic beings on these thrones. Jesus reigned over all of that vast domain, all of those principalities and rulers in heaven. He reigned over all of that. That was his existence before he did what we read in Philippians. You know, he existed in the form of God, but did not regard equality with God a thing to be held on to, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant. That's what he gave up so that you and I would not have to live our lives in the subjection of the law, the bondage of the law, constantly, you know, behind the eight ball in a certain respect. He gave all that up so that we might have life. All right, let's get on to the second one. Jesus Christ is the revelation of God's character. This is also another big point here, and it's going to be revealed to us in two Greek terms. The first one is logos, the word, you know, as we've read in the beginning, was the word, etc. Now, what is a word? Think about that for a minute. A word is a way to express a thought, right? It's not the same as a thought, but of course, you have to have thinking behind a word. Well, that's not always true, is it? How many times have we said things that we weren't really thinking through? But anyway, it is an expression of our, it's a means of communication. That's what a word is. It's, you know, if I speak, I'm transmitting information. I'm expressing myself. I'm making my will and desires known to the listener. You know, I'm imparting knowledge. It's all those kinds of things. Every time I open my mouth and I speak, something is being conveyed to anyone who happens to want to listen to me. But anyway, you know, you can recognize a person by how he looks, and that is the main way that we recognize each other is by looks, but it's by the way people talk is how we get to know them, right? I mean, I could look at any one of you and not really know hardly anything about you. I mean, I could make a few guesses, you know, basically your general age range and so on, but until you open your mouth, there's really not much I know about you. But as soon as you open your mouth, then I start to get a sense about who you are. Why is that? Because speech opens up the inside world of a person to those who are listening. You know, it's through the act of speech that we are able to articulate and convey what's in us to other people. Okay, so you know, there are people who tend to be more closed, who don't speak very much, and you feel like you don't really get to know them very well. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you have those who talk a lot, you know, maybe too much. But anyway, it is through speech that we open ourselves up, and there is a vulnerability involved with that, isn't there? When you open yourself up to other people to see what's really inside you, you reveal your character. And I think that that's what Jesus meant when he said, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. I don't think it's the actual things you say that are going to send you to hell or send you to heaven. I think that it's what's being revealed. You know, yes, we have to confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. You have to do that to be saved. You have to, but you have to believe it inside first, and then you confess what you were already hold to be true inside you. So Jesus, when you're talking about Jesus being the Word, the Logos, he is communicating the character of this invisible God. I'm making you really think this morning, aren't I? This isn't just one of those wispy, emotional type sermons that gets you riled up. I'm making you think about who this being is, and we need to think about this stuff. He is the spokesman of the Trinity, right? The spokesman of the Trinity. He's declaring the essence of God, the will of God, the character of God. That's what Jesus came here to do on earth, at least one of the main things that he did while he was here. In one sense, the life of Christ can be compared to the Bible, because, you know, of course, both are called the Word of God. They both reveal God's character. They both express his will. They both make known his perfections, and they both lay bare his heart, right? The Word of God, this, does that through everything that's in it, and Jesus Christ, the way he lived his life. They do it in two different ways, but they're doing the same, performing the same function, really. Jesus displayed God's power. He communicated his wisdom, manifested his holiness, made known his grace, and unveiled his heart. Only Christ is the complete revelation of God. And he did this so perfectly that he could say, he who has seen me has seen the Father, John 14 9. Let me just read something the biblical expositor said. God's Word is his will going forth with creative energy, the source of life and being. It is apparent, then, why John chooses this title to designate Christ in his preexistent life. No other title brings out so clearly the identification of Christ with God, and the function of Christ to reveal God. It was a term which made the transition easy from Jewish monotheism to Christian Trinitarianism. Do you understand the difference? The Jews believe there is one God, and they held that truth sacred. But when Jesus came, a greater revelation of God was given to mankind, and it was that, yes, there is one God in three persons, or revealed through three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And, you know, this makes that comprehensible. And actually, I don't have time to get into it, but you could do a study on the Word of God in the Old Testament, and you would see that the Jews already comprehended that concept. All right, the second way that we see that Jesus revealed God is through the word light. Look at verses 4 and 5. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. All right, I'm going to have to get moving on. I'm kind of running behind. But let me just share a few verses here, things we see in Scripture. In James 117, James called God the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In 1 Timothy 6, 16, Paul said that the Lord alone possesses immortality and dwells in inapproachable light, or unapproachable light. And we could all, I mean, we could sum it all up with what John said in his first epistle, 1 5. He said, God is light. And in him, in this great being, there's no way to put a boundary on it, but within that great being there is no darkness at all. So when Jesus says later in John 8, 12, you notice how many of these passages come out of the book of John. It's because, you know, each of the four Gospels are revealing a different aspect of Christ. Matthew reveals him as the Messiah, Mark as the servant, the suffering servant especially, Luke as the son of man, John as the son of God. So that's why you see these kinds of expressions mostly coming out of the book of John, as far as the Gospels are concerned. But anyway, in John 8, 12, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. You know, it's amazing. I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. Now, what is light? You know, biblically speaking, light kind of corresponds to the knowledge of God, whereas darkness is ignorance of God, or rebellion to God, or a disconnection from God. It's Satan's domain, is the domain of darkness. So Jesus left the world of light and came into this world of darkness. It says, in one of the prophets, it says, the people were sitting in a great darkness and they saw a light. It's an amazing thing. Jesus came into the world and enlightened every man, it says here in this passage. He brought the realities of the kingdom of light to mankind who was sitting in darkness. You know, so put these two together and what you have is Jesus Christ coming to earth largely to reveal God to mankind, to help mankind understand what God is like. Okay, number three, Jesus Christ is a distinct person apart from God the Father. Some of these I'm just going to have to breeze through because we're, you know, getting a little behind here, but this you see in John 1, 1. He was, or the word was, with God, and that word with, that preposition emphasizes the relationship of two different people, a distinct existence, apart that each of them had separately in one sense, but together in another sense. You know, like Kathy and me, it could be said we're one flesh, but we're separate individuals. You know, it's the same sort of thing. 10, he says, the preposition with, in the phrase, the word was with God, indicates both equality and distinction of identity along with association. The phrase can be rendered face to face with, you know, and that's, yeah, that's right. So there Jesus is, separate and yet one with God. Okay, number four, Jesus Christ is a member of the Trinity. It's kind of the same thing we're saying here. Says it right there in verse 1, still in verse 1, the word was God. The word was God. It doesn't get any plainer than that. The word was God. How can you get any plainer? And there's many statements that imply the deity of Christ in the New Testament, but this is probably the most clear-cut statement you'll find about the fact that Jesus Christ is, in essence, God. And in his pre-incarnate state, he had all the attributes of God. He was omniscient, he was omnipresent, he was omnipotent, he was holy, he was eternal, etc. He had all the attributes of God the Father in his pre-incarnate state and does now as well, as Paul said in Philippians 2, he existed in the form of God. The pulpit commentary says the word form here is the sum of its essential attributes. When St. Paul tells us that Christ Jesus, being first in the form of God, took the form of a servant, the meaning must be that he possessed originally the essential attributes of deity and assumed, in addition, the essential attributes of humanity. That helps to explain it a little bit, what little we can comprehend with our finite minds. Number five, Jesus Christ is the world's creator. Look at verse three. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. Now, there again, just a statement. You could spend a whole session easily teaching on that. I would love to. I would love to go back to Genesis. And, you know, in the beginning, what's it say? In the beginning, God spoke, you know, etc. Yeah, it would be a wonderful study. And in Proverbs 1, or Proverbs 8, I mean, where it's taught, there he's revealed as the wisdom of God was with God in creation. It's the same thought, wisdom of God, word of God. It's the same. It's the same. But we don't have time to get into all that. But let me at least read a couple of verses to you. Colossians 1, 16. For by him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth. This is the verse I was referring to before. Visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. In other words, not one single thing has been created outside of Jesus Christ creating them. And Hebrews 1, 2. In these last days, God has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. Now, the Jehovah Witnesses want us to believe that Jesus is kind of like this glorified angel, that when he says he was the firstborn, you know, that that means he was created, etc. And I can't go into all that firstborn stuff and what that means. I just don't have time here. But I think I did cover it in that revelation study. But anyway, let me just say a couple things about why that's wrong. I mean, just two things that stand out here. It says not one single thing was created outside of him, including the entire realm of angels that we just read about. All that vast realm of angels, created beings, were created not in addition to Jesus Christ, but by Jesus Christ. And here's the even more important thing, is that only God can create something out of nothing. Only God can do that. And we can, Bill can get out there and create things with his hands, you know. He could build whatever and these other guys, they can build stuff, but all they can do is take products and put them together in certain ways or whatever and make something. But, you know, that's all that an angel or man... Listen, there is no angel, there is no man, no anything that can create anything, not even an insect, out of nothing. It's just impossible. Only God can take nothing and create something. So, you know, if anyone ever tries to tell you that he's the first angel or something or other, you just tell them they don't know what they're talking about. All right, number six, Jesus Christ is the source and dispenser of eternal life. See it in verse four, in him was life. Now, there's two Greek terms that are translated into the word life in the New Testament. The first is psyche, and that's referring to the vitality or the animating influence of every, you know, living being, mammals, insects, I suppose even trees and plant life and so on. Every living being has that vitality of life in them. We say something is alive and then it's dead. You know, its heart has ceased beating or, I don't know if insects don't have hearts, do they? But whatever, they probably should. They have a better time in life. But anyway, they do have life in some sort of a way, and if you smash the thing, it quits living. And the second term is zoe, and that's the term that's used here. In him, was zoe, in Jesus Christ. So, it is kind of the same thing, vitality or an animating influence, but spiritually speaking, big difference. The one is physically speaking, the other is spiritually speaking. That Jesus has, he possesses, he dispenses this thing, this animating influence. In John 14, 6, he said, I am the way and the truth and the zoe, this animating spiritual influence. In John 17, 3, this is eternal zoe, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And when Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, 5, even when we were dead in sins, God hath quickened us together with Christ. I want to read what Godby wrote about that, it's really fascinating. He says, quicken is, ah, here's one of these Greek words, zoe poeo, zoe poeo, from zoe, life, and from poeo, to create. Therefore, the regeneration of a sinner by the Holy Ghost is an actual new creation, as literal and unequivocal as the creation of a world out of nothing. Hence, the human spirit of a sinner is as dead as a devil in hell till divine life is actually created in that spirit by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost comes into the dead soul with the same de facto creative power which flung worlds from the creative fiat into ethereal space. You know, that's, wow, you could spend a couple hours thinking about that, and we don't have the time. You know, again, we're just trying to relate what John said about Jesus Christ here in these first few verses that will pave the way for our 19 following studies. Number seven, the obvious, Jesus Christ lived on earth as a man, and we see that in verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Now, the word dwelt literally means to pitch a tent or to dwell temporarily, and it's probably an allusion to the divine Shekinah glory that dwelt in the tabernacle in the wilderness, you know, the place where man would meet God. And the Jews certainly understood this because this goes back to the formation of the Jewish nation when they were out on the wilderness, and at first there was a tent where they would meet God, the tabernacle, and God lived in that tabernacle, and, you know, He's just so humble as we heard this weekend. God is so humble, and so He would dwell in that tabernacle. Of course, He also, the Holy Spirit dwelt in that pillar of fire, pillar of smoke, but He would allow man to, you know, put all that stuff away and close it up into whatever it is they put it in, some kind of carrying instruments, and they would move about the wilderness, and then they would open it up, and then He would fill it up again with His presence. So, He lived in that nomadic experience and existence with His people. He dwelt with His people. He tabernacled amongst His people, tabernacled literally, but what John is saying is that He tabernacled in a human body now, which is different than tabernacling in a tent. That's what Emmanuel, what, you know, when Isaiah prophesied about the coming Messiah, He called Him Emmanuel, God with us. That's what He was referring to. The God-man would enter human history and would become a part of it and would create history, really. Of course, His life was the pinnacle of mankind's history. Now, think about this a little bit further. Man has always had a desire to see God, you know, and one of the complaints, one of the accusations against God is, why don't you just reveal yourself to us? You know, of course, that would completely take away the aspect of faith, wouldn't it? But, you know, Jesus Christ living on earth was really the fulfillment of that desire. If you want to know, I've said this many times, if you want to know what it would be like for God to live as a man on earth amongst other men, just read the Gospels, because that's what that story is. It's God in a human body living out His existence. And what's going on in heaven is the same sort of stuff you saw here on earth in the life of Christ. It's not, He's not a different person up there. He's the same person. You know, He's in different circumstances. You don't have sin, and death, and disease, and all those things for Him to deal with up there, but it's the same God of love, God of compassion, God of power, etc., is in existence up there like He was here, except more so without any restraints. What an amazing thing it's going to be to live in His presence up there where He doesn't have to hold Himself back in any way. Paul said, you know, really kind of fleshes out this life of Christ, God in human form. Read it again, Philippians 2.6, Jesus, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be, excuse me, grasped or held on to, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. All right, so what we see here is the Lord, as I said earlier, laying aside some of His divine attributes. In other words, like omnipresence. He was no longer omnipresent. He was right there in a body, and that was it. You know, somehow, I don't understand what that means exactly. No one does, but He somehow emptied Himself of certain of His attributes to take on human attributes. The Pope commentary says the word emptied involves a previous fullness. You know, think about that. A glass, well, I have this, full of water. If I was really a good preacher, I would just turn this upside down and empty it just to really make my case, you know, that it's full, but then it's emptied. And that was kind of how it was, except it was only some of His attributes, of course. The divine majesty of which He emptied Himself was His own. His own rightful prerogative. And His humiliation was His own voluntary act. He emptied Himself. He used His equality with God as an opportunity, not for self-exaltation, but for self-abasement. Man, that is just amazing. You want to know God's character, that's it right there. And let me read also this man, Kent. I don't know where I got this quote at, but, the one who was existing in the form of God took on the form of a servant. The word taking, laban, does not imply an exchange, but rather an addition. The form of God could not be relinquished, for God cannot cease to be God. But our Lord could and did take on the very form of a lowly servant when He entered human life by the incarnation. The word likeness stresses similarity, but leaves room for differences. Thus, Paul implies that even though Christ became a genuine man, there were certain respects in which He was not absolutely like other men. So, He was man. He dealt with all man's issues, hunger, thirst, cold, pain, suffering. He dealt with all those things that we deal with. And yet, He was so different from us. All right, to wrap up then, I just want to say a couple things about man's response to God in flesh. Look here at verses 10 through 12. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, that means the Jewish people, of course, and those who were His own did not receive Him. They rejected Him, mostly. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. You know, so cosmos, the world, is the human race apart from God. It is mankind in its rebellious condition to God's authority. It's mankind's mindset taking on Satan's mindset, for the most part, to one degree or another, but definitely living in an existence apart from God. That's what the world means, that word cosmos. And so, Jesus created, you know, the earth, the planet, people, and so on, and it became corrupted, infused with this disease of sin, which raced through mankind. You know, we have the Ebola thing going on right now, and it goes from person to person, and that's what happened with sin, except every single person apart from Jesus was infected with it, born. You know, you hear babies that are born with disease that their parents had. That's what happened to mankind. And so, Jesus came, and even though He was the creator, He became an inhabitant on this earth, in the midst of this God-forsaking world. He came to them. He represented this lowly, loving God, and they rejected Him, for the most part. But it says here in verse 12, but there were those who received Him. You and I have received Him as the Lord of our lives, as the Savior. We believe in Him. That's what we're asked to do, is to believe in Him, in His character, that He is who He represents Himself to be. We believe in Him, therefore we obey Him, and we follow Him, and we do our utmost to emulate Him. Paul says, let this mindset that was in Christ, this way of thinking, let that way of doing life be in you, and affect, and influence, and animate the way that you do life on earth. And so, now I'm going to read a couple of quotes here. He bids us, this is pulpit commentary, He bids us mind the things which the Lord Jesus minded, to love what He loved, to hate what He hated. The thoughts, desires, motives of the Christian should be the thoughts, desires, motives which filled the sacred heart of Jesus Christ our Lord. We must strive to imitate Him, to reproduce His image, not only in the outward, but even in the inner life. Especially here, we are bidden to follow His unselfishness and humility. Now, you know, it's not that we have the ability in ourselves to be unselfish, to be humble. I mean, we do to a certain degree. We can kind of act those ways, and we should. We're called to act those ways. It is that as we do that, we put ourselves in a position for the Holy Spirit to animate us through Zoe, the life of God, the life that is found in Jesus Christ, to allow that life to shine forth through our lives, to fill our minds and hearts with His thoughts and motivations and impulses. That's why we can do what we do here at Pure Life Ministries. It's because Jesus Christ indwells us and lives out His life through us. All right, and then this quote by the biblical expositor really says it all, and I'm going to close with this. We cannot receive Christ's love without communicating it. There are men who by their own sin keep themselves continually in the mire. There are people with whom we are tempted to have nothing to do with. We are exasperated by the discomfort they cause us. The anxiety and vexation and expenditure of time, feeling, and labor they require. Why should we be held down by unworthy people? Why should we have the ease and joy taken out of our life by the ceaseless demands made upon us by wicked, careless, ungrateful people? Why must we postpone our own desires and interests to theirs? Simply because the love we depend upon and believe in as the salvation of the world we must ourselves endeavor to show. Recognizing how Christ has humbled Himself to bear the burden of shame and misery, we have laid upon Him. We cannot refuse to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. That's what we're called to do. You know, Jesus Christ paid such a price to leave the land of glory, to humble Himself, to come down here and to live in this rotten, sin-plagued, demon-infested world, to live out His life courageously in the face of all that, completely selflessly, completely humbly. You know, He came and did that and He left us an example of how we ourselves should live our lives. Okay, so that is our first session. Next week we're going to take a look at His life before He began His time in ministry. God bless you. See you next week.