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Good morning, boys and girls. I brought along one of our friends today that I thought you would enjoy seeing. His name is Wally Wheelbarrow. Wally is a fine fellow. How many of you have ever worked with something like Wally? (let them answer) What do you do with Wally? (let them answer) You haul dirt in Wally. Some of you picked up rocks and a few of you have even carried some wood in something like Wally. Wally Wheelbarrow has been a lot of places and has done a lot of things. A lot of people don't take care of Wally and they let him sit outside when it rains and he fills up with water and gets rusty. Wally doesn't like to be rusty but there isn't much he can do about it. Some other people I know let Wally sit for days with a load of dirt or rocks and they forget to empty him. That hurts Wally because Wally can't work when he is full of water, dirt, or rocks. Wally has to be empty before he can be used. That's the secret with Wally. You keep emptying Wally and he will keep working for you, but if you let him stand full of something he can't do a thing. The best part of Wally is that he likes to be used.

Did you know that Wally and Jesus were a lot alike in this way? Jesus was the Son of God and because he was the Son of God, he was filled with all kinds of things. Jesus knew everything there was to know. Jesus was filled with power and there wasn't anything that he could not do. But because Jesus was coming to save us from our sins, he had to be one of us. He could not be a superman, he had to be like you and me. Jesus could not be God while he was here on earth so he emptied himself and became our servant. That's why I said that Jesus was a lot like Wally Wheelbarrow. Wally can't serve us when he is full of things, and Jesus cannot be our servant when he is filled with power. Both of them have to be empty if they are to be our servants.

That is what the Bible teaches us and it is something for us to remember. We wonder why Jesus let soldiers kill him on a cross when we know he had such great power. We wonder why he let people make him suffer when he could have stopped it in a minute. But Jesus emptied himself of all God's powers so that he could be like one of us and know what it is like to be a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. Jesus was helpless when he was empty, and he was hurt because of it. But he was glad to be empty so that he could be our servant and die for our sins.

The next time you see a friend like Wally, I hope that he is empty and if he is, then you can think about why Jesus emptied himself so that he could be our Savior.