Implications of the Incarnation

This is the second outline for the preaching series, “Deeper Dive into the Incarnation.”

First Week – Incarnation and Identification

Implications of the Incarnation – Phil. 2:5, 6-8

• Last week – Incarnation as identification
• Paul teaches us to have the same mind as Christ.
  • He then goes on to show us the downward descent of Christ in the incarnation.
  • If God so humbled himself and identified with us, shouldn’t we follow the same pattern and reflect the same attitude in our relationships with others?
• First, it teaches us to serve.
  • Husband to the wife and wife to husband, parents to children, teachers to students, employers to employees, Christians who want to evangelize, and Christians toward others.
• Secondly, it teaches us how to preach and teach.
  • T.S. Eliot said that the purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.  However, the job of preachers is to turn ink back into the blood. The words of our sermons must take on flesh.
• Thirdly, it teaches us how to share the Gospel.
  • Not from afar but close up.  Right in the neighborhood.  
  • Hudson Taylor and the china inland mission in 1854.
  • At the age of 21, he landed in shanghai china during the middle of a civil war.
  • He made a great impact because he adopted the culture of the people.  He incarnated the Gospel.
• God is not without a physical presence on the earth.  
  • The phrase “the Body of Christ” is a common New Testament metaphor for the Church (all those who are truly saved). The Church is called “one body in Christ” in Romans 12:5, “one body” in 1 Corinthians 10:17, “the body of Christ” in 1 Corinthians 12:27 and Ephesians 4:12, and “the body” in Hebrews 13:3. The Church is clearly equated with “the body” of Christ in Ephesians 5:23 and Colossians 1:24.