Part 4 - Humility   Php.2:3c-4

Review 
In the past few weeks, I’ve probably stepped on some people’s toes.  In the next few weeks, there’s a good chance I’ll step on most of the rest of the toes.  We are going through a passage of Scripture that tends to hit very, very close to home.
One of the most uncomfortable things for us is when someone comes along and starts exposing selfishness and pride in our hearts.  In some ways it is kind of like being diagnosed with cancer.  At the time of diagnosis you may not even feel sick, and yet it is deadly, and you know it is going to be an uphill battle to have it excised from your heart.
Pride is hard to deal with, because it will drive you to respond the wrong way when you discover it in your heart.
The more our pride and selfishness is exposed, we tend to fall into one of two errors:
1. We may become defensive, and try to justify it (which is just more pride)
2. We feel tremendous guilt, and then instead of that guilt driving us to repentance, Satan will try to use it to get you to dwell on that and become self-focused about your guilt over being self-focused!
Our enemy knows that this issue of humility is the battleground where he must win if he is going to have any success in destroying your lives, and so this tends to be the hardest area for us.
And so I want to remind you of the motivation that began the chapter.
Php.2:1-2  If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my 
joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
“If God has ever shown you any love at all, and that love for you means anything to you, be unified and humble.”
Paul appeals to their relationship with God.  Think of what Paul could have done instead:
* He could have cited the law 
* He could have listed a bunch of ways selfishness would hurt the church body
* He could have set out a catalogue of rules on how to treat one another
But instead of any of that, he appeals to our relationship with Christ.  That kind of a motivation of works on spiritually mature people, because it won’t have any effect unless your relationship with God is very precious to you, and you take it seriously.
…which is why I think it will be effective on this church.  
Here is the point: When you sin against the unity of the church (or when you commit any sin for that matter), don’t think of it primarily as a sin against an institution, or a violation of a code, or a transgression of a law…
It is not primarily that you are violating a system of religion, or a canon of theology or a creedal structure.  It is  not that you are going against the structure of the church.
When you sin against the unity of the church, see it for what it really is – a very personal violation of a relationship – your relationship with God.
When you bring discord into the church, you violate not so much the Church, and not so much the doctrine of unity, but your relationship with Christ.
Paul: “Are you so unmoved by the constant flow of love and tenderness from God, that you would inject the poison of disharmony and strife into the body of Christ?”
  
If so, then know where your sin is placed.  
It is  not that you have upset a doctrinal idea or committed a social faux pas, 
it is  not first a sin against the church, it is  not a sin against doctrine, 
it is  not a sin against moral law, 
it is  a sin against your relationship with Christ, and it is  a violent display of ingratitude toward the One who has poured out love and tenderness toward you from the first day you came to know Him, and it is a disregard for the great desire of the heart of Christ for His Church.
David understood this.  When he sinned with Bathsheeba, he understood that he sinned against her, against Uriah, against the people of Israel, against his own family, against God’s Law, against societal standards… but the cry of his heart in repentance was, “Against You, and You only have I sinnned…”
So Paul appeals to their relationship with God.  This is very different from what you see in other letters – like Corinthians, where Paul talked about pulling out a whip.  Sometimes you see this motivation in the Bible, but not all that often.  Much more often you see warnings of punishment.
The appeal to love is the highest motivation, but it doesn’t work on most people, because most people won’t live at the highest level.
So we are given a strong, high motivation to be unified.  The Philippian church was as godly a church as your will find in the Bible, yet this was a real concern.  No matter how unified a church is, no matter how well the people get along, no matter how much the folks love each other, no matter how polite everyone is – at any moment strife can leak in.
It is  conceivable that someday we could begin to slide from our high view of Scripture, and to begin to depart from the fundamentals of the faith.
It is  conceivable that someday Creekside Church would abandon our commitment to God-centered worship, and move toward entertainment.
It is  entirely possible that eventually, we could cool off and lose our first love, and drift into apathy.
It may happen that we would pray less and less.
But if any of those things ever happened, it would have to be a gradual change.  I can promise you none of those things will happen by next week or next month or even next year.
However, we could very easily go from almost perfect unity, to disharmony literally overnight.  It is like driving a car – you may be miles from certain dangers, but no matter what highway you are on, or what direction you are going, you are only one moment away from crashing into the ditch.  
All it takes is for a little selfishness to leak into someone’s heart.  You come to church, work hard, and someone makes a comment that indicates that they are not grateful.
In fact, not only are they not thankful, they don’t even seem to notice all your hard work.  
And you notice that guy over there seems to do nothing but create more work for you.  And come to think of it no one appreciates what you are doing.
And what about that her – why doesn’t she ever help?  Do I have to do everything?
And what is that look supposed to mean that woman just gave me?  What signal was that terse little greeting supposed to send?  What’s her problem anyway?  What does she want from me?
You can’t say anything to her, because she hasn’t really done anything concrete – and she would deny it anyway.  
So now you are just cool toward her.  She picks up on that, and now she’s cool toward you.  And when that happens, you think, “Now she’s showing her true colors,” and you are even more unhappy with her.
You begin to notice only negative things about her – never good things, and somehow they seem to come up in conversation with other people.  Now your friends are a little cool toward her, and her friends are a little hesitant around you – let’s get the whole church involved.  
It can happen overnight.  It just takes a little dose of selfishness.
And there is one guardrail that will keep us out of that ditch, and one only – humility.  
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit 
But in Humility…
1. Key to Entrance into the Kingdom
2. Key to Greatness in the Kingdom
Mt.18:3-4 3 And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 
3. Key To Success in all Relationships
You cannot have success in any relationships without humility.  If you are selfish, rather than humble, you will find friction in your marriage, at work, in the home, and at church.  
Very often people have what seems to be a terrible crisis in some relationship, and they assume it must be some deeply rooted, complicated, complex psychological issue from the past that might take months of professional counseling to properly diagnose…when in reality, it is nothing more than a problem with selfish pride.
Right now we are all pretty nice to each other, because we tend to naturally be polite when a relationship is new.  The test will be once we become familiar with one another.
Prefer others
consider others better (NASB more important) 
The term translated others is “one another.”  It is referring to believers.
What a unique community the church is!  Where no one is looked down on, and everyone is looked up to!
And instead of the needy being marginalized, their need becomes the very thing that lifts them to a point of receiving higher consideration.  Since we are all on the lookout to meet one another’s needs, those people with great needs are lifted to the top.
If you can just get yourself past the fear of being taken advantage of, and embrace this way of living – how much superior it is  to the natural way of living.  The world says, “Look out for #1.”  So they do, and the result is you have one person looking out for you.
To be a part of the church you have to give that up, and it is scary.  Because if you don’t trust God, you will think, “If I don’t look out for my needs, they will go unmet.”
But if you can just get past that fear, and trust God, and give up watching out for yourself first, think of how much better off you are.  Instead of having one person looking out for you, and having to fight everyone else who are all looking out for themselves, you come here and you have 100 people looking out for you.
The word consider means to calculate or reckon.  This is not something that is going to come naturally to you.  It is something that will require you to discipline your mind to place yourself in a frame of mind to treat others as though they were your superiors. 
more important
hupereko  The same word is used in Php.3:8  I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, 
It has to do with the idea of importance or priority.  There may be other important things, but the importance of knowing Christ trumps anything else.
So it is not that you think of people as being intrinsically better than you (Jesus didn’t do that.  Besides, it wouldn’t even be true).  
It is the attitude that your needs trump mine.
Your desires trump mine
I have legitimate interests, but yours are the priority for me.
Your opinions more important than mine
4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 
No matter how humble you become, you will always look out for your own interests.  And to some degree, that’s necessary.  It is not wrong to brush your own teeth, or to put clothes on your body, or to get yourself a drink of water.
To some degree you have to take care of yourself if you are going to be able to serve others.  But our temptation is to make taking care of ourselves the priority, and here we are called not to do that.  
A great example of this is Timothy.  Skip down to v.20  I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. 21 For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
What a tragic statement.  All the believers in Rome were so consumed with all the little details of their own lives and their own concerns, they couldn’t be bothered with advancing the Kingdom of God.
Notice how in vv.20 & 21 looking out for others’ needs is equated with looking out for Christ’s interests.  You can tell how close a person is with God by how well they get along with people.  There is no such thing as a person who has a healthy relationship with God but who can’t get along with people.
This will involve limiting your freedom for others (Ro.14)
take a look at   Ro.14
What does it look like to put this into practice?  There probably isn’t a soul here who would disagree that we ought to defer to others and be humble, but when the rubber meets the road with some practical examples of what that’s like, that’s when we see if we are willing to do it or not.
As a Christian, you are free to do a lot of things.  But if you are humble, and give priority to the interests of others, that will involve setting aside some things that you are otherwise free to do, just for someone else’s benefit.  
Ro.14:13-22
13 …make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 14 As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is  unclean. 15 If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. (explain) Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. 
19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is  wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is  better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. 
This doesn’t mean you have to conform to every little weird hangup someone might have.  It depends on how much spiritual danger is at risk.  
But why do I want to go on doing something that offends people needlessly?  If I discover that people are offended by the way I dress, why not dress differently?  If people are offended by the way I talk, why not talk differently?  
Pride: “But I have my rights!!!”  Really?  You have certain rights?  Is that a biblical idea?  If we think we have some right to be more concerned with our own comfort and preferences than we are with others, we better think again.
Now, if someone is offended by something I do as part of my calling, there is nothing I can do about that.  And we don’t want to let some legalist come along and force us into a big long list of spiritual rules that are not biblical, just to satisfy his legalism.
Satisfying some legalistic standard is not a good enough reason to give up the things you want to do, but if someone is genuinely offended by something, and you can give it up without compromising your calling and ministry, why not give it up?
And if someone’s spiritual well-being is at stake, you must give it up.  If I go on doing something that jeopardizes your walk with the Lord, that is inexcusable.  What kind of arrogance says, “I’m going to continue on with my little pleasure – even if I run the risk of ruining you spiritually”?
When is that the case?  Whenever some behavior, while the behavior itself may not be sin, that behavior is connected with a sinful lifestyle.  
In Paul’s day, eating meat sacrificed to idols was an issue.  The idolatry of the pagans involved all kinds of immorality at their worship – even orgies.  And the whole thing was driven by drunkenness.  They believed that when they were drunk, they were lifted to some higher spiritual plane.
So one of those pagans becomes a Christian and turns his back on that whole, sinful life.  Then after a while he is in church and sees a mature Christian at the discount market buying meat that had been sacrificed.  
That’s not a sin for that guy.  He’s a strong believer.  He knows that idols are nothing, and meat offered to nothing is just meat.  
So that new weak believer sees that, and says, “It is OK for a Christian to dabble a little bit.” (because a weak believer can’t distinguish between a single activity and the whole sinful lifestyle – it is all one package for them)  “It is been several months.  Maybe I’ll just drop by the Temple of Aphrodite just to say hi to a few of my old friends…”
The next thing you know that guy isn’t in church any more, he drops out of fellowship with believers, he’s hanging around bad influences, and soon he is right back into the whole immoral morass that he turned his back on before.
1Co 8:9-13  Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? 11So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall. 
Do we have anything like that today?  Are there any things that may not be inherently sinful in themselves, but that are connected with a sinful lifestyle that may be a great temptation to certain people?
* Drinking – Are there people who were saved out of a sinful lifestyle that revolved around drinking?  Yes.
* Smoking – There are Christian high school students who are struggling with the temptation of becoming involved with a bad crowd that would lead them down a destructive road, and in some cases the decision to smoke is not a decision to put a chopped up weed in your mouth and burn it up while it sticks in your mouth – it is a decision to move closer to becoming involved with that group, and starting down that wrong path.
Now if there is a Christian student struggling with that temptation, and he sees you smoking a cigarette, his flesh is already working overtime trying to rationalize this sin, and seeing you may be just the thing that will give them the rationalization they need. 
* Frequenting certain bars or social places that are an enticement to people who were saved out of those settings.  “But they have the greatest burgers in town.”  So you are willing to plunge a child of God into temptation and possible shipwreck their faith so you can get a good burger?
If you don’t agree with those examples, ask yourself – how would you apply this principle?  What would be an example of a freedom that a Christian ought to be willing to give up for the sake of a weaker brother?  If you can’t think of anything, perhaps you have interpreted this passage so narrowly that it doesn’t mean anything.
Objection: “Isn’t it better to just keep going with that behavior, so those weaker brothers will learn that that behavior is not necessarily sinful?  I’m not doing this to be selfish, I’m doing it to teach my fellow weak brother not to be weak anymore.”
What does the Bible say?  It couldn’t be more clear – if there is an issue with a weaker brother, you give up that behavior.
Ro.14:13-23
Insisting on your freedoms is a failure to love.
15 If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.
Insisting on your freedoms will blockade the weaker brother’s progress
13 …make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 
Insisting on your freedoms can cause your brother to stumble spiritually.
14 it is  wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.
Insisting on your freedoms can cause your brother to fall spiritually.
21 It is  better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. 
Insisting on your freedoms can destroy your brother.
15 Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 
20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.
The term destroy is a very, very strong term.  By insisting on your freedoms, you can bring devastation into another person’s walk.  Catastrophe.  You can plunge them into a pattern of sin they may not be able to recover from.  Is that worth it?
It is not just an issue of teaching them that the behavior is OK, because for them it is  not OK.  It is sin.  
14 no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is  unclean.  It is ALWAYS a sin to violate your conscience.
22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin. 
There are three stages to spiritual maturity in the area of freedom.  At the first stage, you have very little understanding of freedom.  But as you grow and mature, you begin to appreciate more and more your freedom in Christ.
It is just like a little kid growing up.  When our kids were toddlers, we mostly just had external rules: “Don’t hit.  Don’t bite.  Don’t grab things away.  Say please and thank you.”
But now that Nikki & Faith are older, we are moving beyond rules.  Now it is not enough that they just say thank you, I want them to learn to be thankful.  It is not enough that they refrain from hitting and biting, I want them to learn to love, and to show kindness.  I’m concerned about their tone of voice and attitude.
It is the same way with your walk with Christ.  When you are first saved, especially if you come out of certain backgrounds, you may be stuck for a while at the level of living by rules.  You don’t have the maturity yet to be governed by principles, and so you just need to have strict rules – “I won’t touch this, I won’t go near that, I’ll stay at least a mile away from there…”
But as you grow spiritually, you begin to understand that Christianity is not a list of rules, and Jesus taught us that the issue is not the external standards, it is  what is on the inside.  That’s why Jesus said that the summary of the whole law is love.  If you have genuine love for God and others on the inside, from there you can do anything you want.
If you love your neighbor, you won’t steal from him.  But if you do not love him, you need the rule, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’
So the more you learn to love God, the more you can come out from under the tyranny of rules.  You move from external controls to internal controls.  
Sometimes we think those are the only two stages of growth, and when you reach the point of understanding your freedoms, you are mature.  Children think that way.
When you are a little kid, you have no freedom at all.  You can’t do anything unless someone lets you.  You can’t go anywhere unless someone takes you.  And you dream about the day when you will be an adult.  And for a little kid, being an adult means one thing: freedom to do what you want.
So as you grow, you gain more and more freedom, and you are under fewer and fewer rules, until the day finally comes when you move out of the house, and you have total freedom from house rules.  
And the child will think, “I have reached full maturity.  I can do what I want, go where I want to go.  If I feel like catching a movie, I can.  If I don’t want to come home until 2:00 am, I come home at 2.  If I want chocolate cake for supper, I can have cake for supper.  If I want the whole cake, I can eat the whole cake…”
But is that the end stage of maturity?  Is that the final point of being an adult?  No, that’s the beginning point of starting to be an adult.  Becoming an adult is the process of learning how and when not to exercise your freedoms.  
After a while your health begins to suffer, and you realize, “Even though I’m free to eat nothing but ice cream and doughnuts, maybe I ought to have something with a vitamin or two once in a while.  Maybe I need to start getting to bed earlier.”
There are other freedoms you set aside for your job.
You get married, have children and start to enjoy some of the eternally meaningful blessings of life, and you limit your freedoms even more.  You get off work, maybe you feel like going to a movie theater – but you have a family at home.  You can’t just go off by yourself every night and neglect them, so even though you are an adult, and you have the freedom to drive somewhere and do whatever, you set that freedom aside for the sake of your family.
So becoming an adult is the process not of gaining freedoms, but of learning how and when to set aside those freedoms.
It is the same way spiritually.
Maybe there are some of you who are spiritual children.  You are at the very beginning stage of having to be governed by rules.
Maybe there are others who are spiritual adolescents.  You are starting to learn more and more about your freedom in Christ, and you are not subject to a lot of rules and taboos and traditions.  You can distinguish between the sin of the heart, and some action that in and of itself may not be inherently sinful.
That’s an important stage of growth.  It is crucial.  It is the beginning point of becoming mature.  But it is tragic if you never grow out of that stage.  Some people have been spiritual adolescents for 20 years.
There is a third stage.  It is when you gain the ultimate freedom – the freedom to set aside your freedoms.  It is when you have the wisdom and humility required to subordinate your freedoms to others’ needs.
It is when you say, “I have every right to do this, but I won’t if it hurts you.”  Like Paul, who in 1 Co.10 said he had the right to get married, but even set that aside for the sake of the ministry.
This is gift-giving season.  You want to give a great gift – a meaningful one?  Spiritual maturity is when you will take some precious freedom, put it in a box, wrap it with a bow, and give it to a weaker brother in Christ.
That’s the hardest gift to give, because it requires pure love.  You may give other gifts with mixed motives.  Half your motive is love, the other half wants to enjoy the response from the person.
But giving the gift of your freedoms is hard, because the person doesn’t even know you have given it.  (If he knows, it would defeat the purpose – if he knows you do that stuff at all, it can cause him to stumble)
19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 
So out of love for one another, we must watch out for one another spiritually.  To be the agent of temptation for another person is a very serious matter.
Mt.18:6-8  if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7"Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! “But if I don’t do it, someone else will”  Jesus agrees - Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! 
This means women have the responsibility to dress modestly to make it easier for their brothers in Christ to keep a pure mind.  If a woman wants to dress to draw attention to her body to her inflate ego, (or maybe she is just careless) and make it harder for her brothers in Christ to keep a pure mind, Jesus’ curse applies to her.  Woe to that woman.
Don’t misunderstand.  Christianity is not an issue of what you eat or drink or wear – the issue is not externals.  God didn’t give us a bunch of rules and say, “Eat this, don’t eat that, wear this, not that…”  Jesus railed against that kind of externalism – it is worthless.
This issue is simply that we act in love toward one another.
Another example is physical expression in dating – one of the most deceiving temptations of all.  You love a person, and you just want to express that love physically.  God designed our bodies, when there is romantic love, to want to express that love through physical affection – and your body doesn’t know that you are not married.
The reason it is deceiving is it doesn’t seem like you are harming the other person by showing that affection, because that person enjoys it.
But if someone really loves you, would he be willing to do things that would drag you into the temptation of having lustful thoughts?  Would he do something to you that would generate urges that now you will have to try to suppress, otherwise you will sin?  Would someone who loves you be willing to make righteousness and purity harder for you?  No.
So if a person’s spiritual well-being is at stake, it is  essential that you do whatever you can to protect your brother or sister.  But even when there is not a great risk of a weaker brother lapsing into an old, sinful lifestyle, we still want to have the general attitude of giving up that which is offensive to others.
Each one of you should look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
This will effect your outlook on everything you have and everything you do.
purpose of car to serve (Last Sun – “I hope I don’t run out of gas” “I’ll follow you to the gas station”)  That’s the reflex of a humble, selfless person
 -   "     "  house to be hospitable
 - “ “ of your money is to serve
This truth must find it is way into every moment of your life.
*watching TV and phone/doorbell rings - whose going to get up & get it?
*both in bed and left the light on - who gets up?
*on the road - I'm in a hurry/you're in a hurry - who gets R of way?
*friend is moving & needs help during a Broncos game! What do you do?
This is the best marriage counseling you will ever get – right out of Php.2.  The struggles most couples have, just like the struggles between other family members, and struggles between people in the workplace – all come from selfishness.
You get mad at your spouse because he’s spending more money than you, or she’s not giving you as much as you are giving her, or he’s not doing as much around the house or to help with the kids as you…
The place to begin with all this is the home.  Try being polite to your family(!)  Treat you brothers and sisters like you treat guests.
So not only is humility the key to entrance to the Kingdom, and the key to greatness in the Kingdom, and the key to all spiritual success in your walk with God, and the key to success in any ministry…but it is also the key to success in relationships.
Take a second and think of that person you have trouble getting along with.  Picture that person in your mind.
This may be hard for some of you to believe, but there are some people who honestly couldn’t think of anyone.  If you are a humble person, you can get along with almost anyone, and there is very little friction in your relationships.
There may be some others who thought of almost everyone you know.  You need to examine your heart.

Dear friends,
I was driving down Royal Gorge Blvd. and suddenly the voice on the radio went from being background noise to being the focus of my attention.  The 20 second story was about a family who had children that needed to have their way paid through college and parents who deserved only the best retirement home.  I don't remember if the product being advertised was insurance or an investment, but one phrase stuck in my memory: "Love is expensive."
I don't necessarily agree that loving a child means giving him a free ride though college, but no one can argue with the phrase itself - love is indeed expensive.  If all it cost were money it wouldn't be so expensive, but anyone who has ever loved knows it can cost a lot more than dollars.  For example, how much is the love of a mother worth?  The decision to love a child costs the mother hundreds of nights' sleep, every manor of emotional distress, changes in the standard of living, enormous personal sacrifice, etc.  I have even heard that there is some discomfort associated with pregnancy and childbirth (!).
Motherly love is costly, but there is another love story that shows us the highest price anyone ever paid to love someone.  The lover started out rich - I mean real rich.  He is reported to have owned a cattle ranch that spread over 1000 hills.  He was a king whose palace and throne were the most ornate of any in history.  He was clothed with robes that made Solomon look like a beggar.  He lived in a city with no suffering, no sin, perfect love.  He enjoyed the blissful joy an unequaled intimacy with his father.  
Everything was fine until he fell in love.  He saw a race of people who hated him, had rebelled against him, and who had made him their enemy.  The moment he laid eyes on their determined wickedness and arrogant sin he decided he loved them and wanted to do whatever it took to make them fit to live in paradise with him forever.
He had to step off his throne, leave that beautiful city, give up the worship that was rightfully his, and descend into their corrupt world.  Having relinquished his great strength, he depended on his teenage mom to wrap him in rags.  Year after year he resisted the temptation to say, "Enough!" and re-enter his glory in his father's wonderful city.  
It began with a kiss, then fists, then a whip.  Next came nails and the agonizing suffocation that comes with crucifixion.  He hung before a mocking crowd in humiliation as he watched them gamble for his servant's robes.  Then came the costliest, most painful thing of all - the only part of this nightmare that made him cry out in pain.  His father literally turned his back on him.  The great king was cursed, and the father's wrath over sin came crashing down on him like a broken dam.
"Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that through his poverty you might become rich." (2 Co.8:9)  
Yes, love is expensive.