“Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.” – Philippians 2:17-18
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” – 2 Timothy 4:6-7
As we’ve been exploring knowing God in the many ways He reveals Himself to us in Scripture, the picture and reality of Jesus Christ being the greatest example of a life poured out in love and obedience to His Father, out of deep love for His people, is wonderful to behold and grow in understanding the meaning of. Your growth in knowing Christ in His person, His character, His Gospel, and specifically the love He has for you, and the mercy He extends to you, His people, that fueled His condescension in coming to you is to know Christ more. Seeing and understanding more of His self-sacrificial love in life, along with that faithful love being evident His self-sacrificial death only deepens your love and strengthens your endurance in imitating Him, doesn’t it?
Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 46-50 helpfully summarize the teaching of Scripture regarding Christ’s sacrificial life from birth to His burial in the grave. What does God reveal to you regarding Christ’s humiliation, or His humbling Himself?
- Being from all eternity the Son of God, in the bosom of the Father, He was pleased in the fullness of time to become the Son of Man, made of a woman of low estate, and to be born of her; with divers circumstances of more than ordinary abasement. (WLC 47)
- Christ humbled Himself in His life, by subjecting Himself to the law, which He perfectly fulfilled; and by conflicting with the indignities of the world, temptations of Satan, and infirmities in his flesh. (WLC 48)
- Jesus humbled Himself in His death, in that having been betrayed by Judas, forsaken by his disciples, scorned and rejected by the world, condemned by Pilate, and tormented by his persecutors; having also conflicted with the terrors of death, and the powers of darkness, felt and borne the weight of God’s wrath, he laid down his life an offering for sin, enduring the painful, shameful, and cursed death of the cross. (WLC 49)
- Christ’s humiliation after His death consisted in His being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day; which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, He descended into hell. (WLC 50)
This is the glorious news of the Gospel- When Jesus humbled Himself and condescended to us, He set aside His glory, took on flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Like a conquering warrior returning with the plunder of victory, Jesus as the suffering Servant will share the riches of His glory with His people because He poured out His soul unto death. Indeed, all of the blessings of the Messiah depend on His righteous life, and voluntary, substitutionary death. (Isaiah 53:12) Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God, was numbered with the transgressors and, therefore considered a criminal. (Luke 22:37) He carried and paid for the guilt of His people’s sin. He stayed on that cross until the payment was complete and His Father’s justice was fully satisfied. Wonderfully, being the risen, vindicated, ascended, and seated Lord, He not only rules and reigns in righteousness, but also continues to intercede for you at the Father’s right hand. (Hebrews 7:25)
As many of you considered Paul’s words of his “being poured out like a drink offering” with me in my sermon on 2 Timothy 4:6-8 this past Lord’s Day morning, like His Lord and Savior, Paul knew that his enduring suffering and affliction would lead to a martyrs death. And yet, as Christ declared the great joy He had in righteous service to the end, saying, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13), so too you find in Paul’s words to Philippi that he had joy and gladness in his being “poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith”.
Considering these examples, God gives you specific instruction as He calls you to understand the meaning of such love and engage in your own practice of sacrificial living. As Paul taught the saints in Rome in Romans 12:1-2 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
The meaning of self-sacrificial living is to be Christ-like in your thoughts, words, and walk. The purpose of such living is to show forth the character and love of Christ in your service to Him and others. For as your bodies were once instruments of sin, they are now to be used for service to God in holiness. This is to be true as you are of those who have been reconciled to God and have been given intimate access to Him by Christ’s sacrifice. (Hebrews 4:16) This is to be true as you are to live as priests who constantly present your whole lives in His presence as an offering to Him. (1 Peter 2:5)
Beloved, may such self-sacrificial living be more and more in the forefront of your awareness and commitment as you also carry out Paul’s instruction in Philippians 2:3-4 “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” Never forget to live today and every day for Christ in such a way so that you are also prepared to die well.
Lord willing, I will spend time in the coming weeks applying more of what such love fueled sacrifice is to look like in important relationships in your life.