<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <strong><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> Scripture:</span></strong> <strong><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Philippians 2:3-11 </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Who, for us and for our salvation came down from heaven,  and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried;  and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father… </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> John 17:5 </span></em></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> John 17:24 </span></em></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> "...the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us...lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter Sunday message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of Incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man - that the second person of the Godhead...took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human. Here are two mysteries for the price of one - the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus." – JI Packer, Knowing God.  </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <strong><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> + The Triumph of the Son's Obedience</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Luke 2:51 </span></em></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> "What Christ saw in Gethsemane was God with the sword raised. The sight was unbearable. In a few short hours, he would stand before that God answering for the sin of the world: indeed, identified with the sin of the world... Consequently, to quote Luther again, 'No one ever feared death so much as this man.' He feared it because for him it was no sleep, but the wages of sin: death with the sting; death unmodified and unmitigated; death as involving all that sin deserved. He, alone, would face it without a 'covering', providing by his very dying the only covering for the world, but doing so as a holocaust, totally exposed to God's abhorrence of sin. And he would face death without God, deprived of the one solace and the one resource which had always been there. The wonder of the love of Christ for his people is not that for their sake he faced death without fear, but that for their sake he faced it, terrified. Terrified by what he knew, and terrified by what he did not know, he took damnation lovingly." – Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <strong><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> + The Triumph of the Son's Cross</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Colossians 2:13–15</span></em></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Hebrews 2:14–15</span></em></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> "When Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, was nailed to the cross, Satan thought that he had won the day. The old serpent had stung him to death, vainly imagining that all was over with him. I think I see the arch-fiend gloating over the awful agonies of the dying Savior, and maliciously taunting him as he hung there apparently forsaken by God and man. "Ah!" says he, "Seed of the woman, I have indeed bruised thy heel. I have made men reject thee and put thee to death; I have vexed and tormented thee, I have scorned and scouted thee, and thou hast not a word to say for thyself, and now thy soul must soon depart out of thy body." Yet as the devil was still pouring out his vainglorious boasts and taunts, with a mighty voice the expiring Savior cried, "It is finished;" and in that moment his soul sprang upon the enemy and utterly routed him forever." – Charles Spurgeon, Christ Triumphant.  </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <strong><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> + The Triumph of the Son's Exaltation</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Ephesians 1:20–23</span></em></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Isaiah 45:22–25</span></em></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <strong><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> + You must decide about Jesus; You cannot be neutral about him</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <strong><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> + You must imitate Jesus. You cannot confess him but refuse to conform to him</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.0pt 0in 9.0pt 0in;"> <em><span style= "font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Brandon Text Regular',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; color: black; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> 2 Corinthians 8:9</span></em></p>