Philippians 2:9-11
God’s word now, Philippians chapter
two, verses nine through 11. Therefore, and the therefore
points back to the other verses speaking of the suffering of
Jesus. Therefore, or since Jesus suffered, God has highly exalted
him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so
that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and
on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Pray with me. Oh Lord, we pray
now that your word, which we believe to be true and accurate
and profitable for us, we pray that that word, by the help of
your Holy Spirit, would be real to us, that it would be useful
to us, that it would be profitable to us, that it would be advantageous
to us, to teach us what is good and right and true, to show us
the way to live, to have right doctrine, right belief of who
you are and what you’ve done. And we pray most of all that
it would glorify Jesus, the Savior, before our eyes as he will be
exalted before the world one day. This we pray because we
need your help. In Jesus’ name, amen. A couple
of months ago, many of you know we have in our driveway a U-shaped
driveway where you could come in and go out. A couple of months
ago, the local pizza delivery man decided to come flying through
our driveway while the children were playing basketball. And
so for a little while, we had been talking about closing off
a portion of that part of the driveway where we might have
some privacy, where the children might be able to play basketball
without being run over by the Papa John’s guy. all those kinds
of things. And so this particular event
sparked the need to rise to the top of our to-do list. It took
priority with some projects we had been thinking about doing.
And so I thought, oh, sure, this will be easy. We’ll scrape up
about two inches of asphalt, we’ll dig a few holes, and we’ll
drop a few evergreens in the ground. Well, as many of my home
projects go, I bit off a little more than I could chew. And so
what I found after scraping away 2 inches of asphalt was about
8 to 10 inches of hard packed gravel. Now I could have consulted
our resident NCDOT engineer and found out that before I had gotten
into this project. I could have rented a piece of
equipment. But oh no, being a Crotts man, we’re cheap. We do it all
by hand. We do it by the sweat of our
brow. We don’t pay anybody. We don’t ask for help. We just
do it. And it’s called sweat equity, right? That’s how it
works. Well, we often don’t know what’s below the surface. We
have an asphalt driveway and we enjoy the surface. It’s good
for playing basketball. makes a great place to park cars. It’s a place where we can learn
to ride bikes and roller blade and all kinds of other things.
It’s a hard surface that provides many wonderful things, but often
under the surface, we don’t see what’s really there. We never
go digging. We never go looking. And today
in our passage in Philippians, we see one of the foundational
truths of the scripture, and that is Jesus is God. He is the
third person of the Trinity. He is the Lord over heaven and
earth. He is the supreme, the sovereign,
the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And if we miss that,
we lose the strength of the church. We lose reasons for faith and
living the Christian life when the going gets tough. And so
often we like the surface. You know, we buy a cake at the
bakery, not really for the cake that is within it, but for the
icing and the decorations. But we need to understand the
whole picture, the whole piece. We need to understand what is
underneath the blessings we enjoy. And so while we may come to church
week after week, and we may say, oh, I love singing the old hymns,
or I love hearing the organ, or I love this or that, We forget sometimes that if we
forsake the foundational things, which are often underneath the
surface, those other things really don’t matter. And brothers and
sisters of the Lord Jesus, today we are living in a time and a
culture. We’re even living in the midst of a church. that has
wholesalely rejected Jesus as king. Oh, we love Jesus as our
savior. He’s like a bus ticket or a train
ticket. And we keep that little train
ticket in our pocket. And so when the chariot swings
low one day to take us home, we say, oh, sweet Jesus, come
and get me. But largely we don’t live life
for him. because we don’t recognize him
or call on him as King and Lord. And that’s very true of pagans
who reject Jesus, but it can be very true of we in the church
who don’t often hear the message, the glory and the goodness of
Jesus proclaimed. And so the apostle Paul, when
he appeals to the Philippian church to have unity, to have
love, to have joy, to minister to one another, he doesn’t do
it based on maybe what our moms might tell us. You get along.
because that’s just what we do in this family. He says, you
get along because Jesus has served us in a humiliating way, and
now we’re gonna see him exalted. But the basis for Paul’s command
to the Philippians, as we’ll see over and over throughout
this little letter, the basis, the motivation for his command
for them to have unity and love and serve one another is because
Jesus, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, left heaven and
came to earth in a low and humiliated estate to serve us. And that’s what we want to see
today from this little passage from Philippians chapter two,
verses nine through 11. Now, what is the picture of Christ
that is given? Well, there are three pictures,
three glimpses of the glory of Christ that we receive in this
passage. The first is the exalted Christ. Therefore, God has highly
exalted him, verse nine tells us. Now, the Bible doesn’t record
for us the ceremony that must have taken place when Jesus re-entered
heaven. Now, we know about the events
of Jesus’ life on earth, his birth, the angel singing, the
stable, Bethlehem. We get some little snippets of
Jesus being born, living a young life. We get some snippets of
his earthly ministry, his life, his teaching. his service in
Judea and Galilee. And we even get a glimpse of
the cross and the suffering and the humiliation that comes. And
then there’s the 40 days after his resurrection where he preaches
and teaches and meets with his disciples and encourages them.
He issues his great commission and then he’s boom, gone to heaven.
So we get the part in the scripture where he goes up, but we aren’t
told what happens when he enters into glory. Now, we want to be
careful here and not speculate beyond what the scripture might
teach us or what might be really true, but we have to understand
in our minds that Jesus entered heaven. He re-entered glory. Now, you understand that in ancient
days when a king left his castle and he left behind all the servants,
and in Jesus’ case, he left behind all the angels and those who
ministered and served the court of the king in heaven, we understand
that there would be a goodbye. There would be a, we wish you
well. And that one day when the king returned from his mission,
and you understand they didn’t have text messaging and internet
and Skype and all those things. So they didn’t know the outcome
unless someone came and reported it or until the king himself
returned from battle. But you can imagine that Jesus
reports to the throne of heaven. He returns from his victory over
sin and death. He returns from the cross. He returns from the manger. He
returns from a world and a salvation that only angels could look into
and wonder about. But all of heaven must know that
as Jesus returns as the victorious redeemer, he must be exalted. and given that same place which
he had before he left. And so when we read of the exalted
Christ, therefore God has highly exalted him, we need to think
of it in this particular way. Jesus is returning to the spot
that was his before he left. Some may say that Jesus earned
this exalted spot. That is not the case. Jesus always
possessed it. It was always his. And so he returns, he enters
into the glory that he had left behind. And this verse, when
it says, therefore God has highly exalted him, we have to understand
that what is really taking place here is God is super exalting
Jesus. Now, if you go to the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, you’ll see on the wall pictures of the greats
of rock and roll. And some may argue that it was
Elvis who was the greatest. Others may argue that it was
the Allman Brothers. Or on and on you may go, there
could be arguments. Or go to a sports hall of fame
like Cooperstown, New York, where the baseball hall of fame. Was
it Hank Aaron who was the greatest? Or is it catfish hunter? Or is
it one of the modern guys who’s broken the home run records?
You see, there’s room for discussion. There’s room for someone to be
great in one person’s mind and another to be great in another’s.
Or think about the fighter Muhammad Ali. He just declared it himself. He ended all debate. And what
did he say? He said, I am the greatest. And he would go on
and on about how he was the greatest and no one could stop him. No
one could beat him. No one could top him. And we
see this today in social media. I mean, if nobody likes us, people
don’t think much of us. What do we do? We self promote.
We put our face out there. We promote ourselves. We talk
about what a wonderful, delightful life we have. And we call ourselves
the number one dad, the best mom, the greatest kid, the best
student. We can put those superlatives
on ourselves. But here in the case of Jesus,
when he returns to heaven, he is not achieving a status which
he has earned or deserved. He is achieving a status which
he had before he came to earth and one he has possessed since
eternity past. No one is in the running against
Jesus. for greatness. No one is in the
running with Jesus for superior status. Now, we know from the
scriptures that there was an angel. There was an angel of
light named Lucifer, and he wanted to be the greatest. But we read
in the scriptures in a veiled way that he fell from heaven.
He was cast out. And as some of you have studied
recently the book of Job, we understand that he he sought
to destroy God’s people. He still seeks to destroy God’s
people. He still seeks to hurt them. But he sought honor and
he did not receive it. And this is a good lesson to
us. This is a good lesson. It’s a
reminder to us that in all things, as Colossians tells us, in all
things, Christ must have preeminence. It’s a true statement. It’s a reality that exists. And
so what God tells us over and over in the scriptures is that
we ought to align our lives around the glorious and exalted Christ
Jesus. He has been super exalted above
all. And so there’s a question that
we must ask ourselves. And it’s a serious question.
It’s not a trite little Preacher question, he asked a question
to apply the scripture to us. It’s a real ultimate question. Is Christ super exalted in your
eyes, in your minds and in your heart? Now, what does that look
like? Oh, I come to church on Sunday
and we sing Christian hymns. Well, that’s a good start. Does everything you do seek to
glorify God and to enjoy him forever? Or another way to put
it, is your life in line with the realities that the Bible
tells us are true? You see, God is not limited to
you or I glorifying him and his glorification meter hits a high
or low like our gas tank or our voltage meter or our RPMs in
our car. And as we glorify God, it goes
up, and as we don’t, it goes down. God is always glorious. Jesus is always glorious. That
is a firm and fixed reality. But the question is this, does
your life, does it match, does it align with the fact that Christ
is most glorious? Now, what does that look like?
Oh, of course, I tend to worship. Worship the risen Christ as we
do together as God’s people. But does your daily life reflect
the glory of God? Do you do your work with excellence
as an image bearer? Do you love your family as you
ought? Do you invest in your marriage as would be glorifying
and pleasing to Christ? Do you love your neighbor as
yourself? And you see, on and on we could go. Does our life,
do our lives match the fact that God is currently has been, always
will be the Lord of Glory and the King of Kings. So we get a picture of the exalted
Christ. Secondly, we get a picture of
the name of Christ. And this is something that when
I learned it was rather mind blowing. You know, we go to Sunday
school during our lives and we hear the name of Jesus. We hear
the name of Jesus. We hear the name of Jesus. We
hear the name of Jesus. And so what is in our minds?
Well, there’s no other name. I think we even sing it. There’s
no other name than the name of Jesus. But I hate to burst your bubble.
There is a name that is greater than Jesus. And that name is
Yahweh. That name is Adonai. That name
is Kyrios. That name is Lord. And we first
encounter Yahweh or Lord or Adonai or Kyrios. We first encounter
it in the Old Testament when Moses encounters a burning bush. He’s keeping his family’s flock. He’s tending sheep. He’s what,
80 years old. And God is preparing him. He
has been preparing him after he left the prince and the palace
of Egypt 40 years behind, he’s preparing him to lead a flock,
not of sheep and goats, but a flock of Israel, a flock of God’s people
who have been called by God’s name to live for him. And in
Moses’ encounter with the bush, he encounters the great I am. He encounters Yahweh, the Lord
of heaven and earth. And as Isaiah has told us, there
is no other like him. There is none who can compete.
There is no creator or redeemer like him. And so Jesus, in this
passage, is named with the name of Yahweh. Oh yes, we love the
other names of Jesus, Jesus, Yeshua. Messiah, son of David,
son of God, son of man, Emmanuel, God with us, teacher, rabbi.
We love all those names, but there is no name greater than
Yahweh or Adonai, Lord or Kirios. And this passage tells us that
Jesus, by God himself, by the father, as he’s exalted into
heaven, it says he has bestowed on him the name that is above
every name. I think for just a moment about
what that means for us. Remember the commandments of
God. Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. What
does Moses mean when he gives that commandment to us by the
power of God? Don’t take the name of Yahweh
in vain. Don’t take the name of Jesus
in vain. Now that can mean all kinds of
things. You say, I never swear using God’s name. You may say,
I would never curse and use the name of God. That’s all well
and good. But how do we treat the way God is revealed in this
world? How do we treat the words that
we sing? How do we treat the words that
we use to describe our glorious savior? Are they trite? Or are they full of meaning?
Do we value the name of Jesus so much so like the Hebrews of
old who tremble when the name of God is mentioned? In fact, they were so scared
of the name of God, they would not utter it. They would be reading
through their scripture. And when they came upon the word
Yahweh or Adonai, Lord Kyrios, they skipped it. There was a
pause or a silence or a break in their verbiage. because they
reverence the name of God. Oh, we live in a culture that
treats Jesus like a superhero. It treats Jesus like one God
among many. We treat Jesus in a way that
shows the world that he’s not that important to us. It happens
when we misuse his name, but it happens especially when we
don’t use his name as we ought. And so the name of Christ. The
name of Christ, the name of God, the name of Yahweh has been given
to him, and we need to see Jesus in that way. This is the third
little picture that comes in this passage. We see the exalted
Christ, we see the name of Christ, but we also see the honored Christ.
And this this is a future event. This is a prophecy. It says,
so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth. This is a future event. This is the last day. This is
when, as we say, every eye will see him. Every eye will look
upon him. Every eye will say, uncle. We’ll
cry uncle and say, Jesus, I fought you in this world. I didn’t love
you in this world. And so now I have to acknowledge
you as king. Or if we have followed Jesus, it’s just a continuation
of what we have always been doing. So that at the name of Jesus,
every knee should bow in heaven, on earth and under the earth. Some of you may think back to
your high school days when They were handing out what they called,
what were they, senior superlatives, most likely to succeed, the cutest
couple, best personality and all that. And now you’re 20 years
out, 30 years out, 50 years out, 60, 70 years out of high school.
And you look back and you see, were those things really true?
And you look back and you reflect on the person who maybe was the
most outgoing, but they’re dead and gone. Or you look back at
the one who was supposed to be the most successful, and they’re
washed up in business. Or you look at the cutest couple,
and they’ve been divorced. But you see, what is prophesied
about Jesus will come true. What is prophesied about Jesus
will be absolutely true. And some of you may have had
no accolades when you were in school. And you go to your reunions
not to see how everybody else is doing, but to say, look at
me now. I was the ugly duckling. And look how beautiful I am.
Or you said, I wouldn’t be successful, but look at me. Now there’s a
vindication in that, isn’t there? And that’s what’s going to take
place with Jesus. You rejected me on earth, but you’ll acknowledge
me in the last day. And you think about how many
people rejected Jesus in his earthly ministry. Remember his
word to the rich young man, you’ve got to sell it all. You’ve got
to give it to the poor and you’ve got to serve me. Oh, but the
cost is too high. He couldn’t do it. Or you think
about the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was a poor man who lived
outside the gates of the rich man, Lazarus, who really poured
contempt on this poor man. And when Lazarus was received
into the bosom of Abraham, as the scripture tells us, he cried
out to Lazarus, Oh, I wish. I wish I had listened. I wish
I had your God, but it’s too late. And what does he say? Go
preach to my family. Don’t let them come to this end.
That is the effect this passage should have on us, brothers and
sisters. One day, every knee shall bow. One day, every tongue
shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God,
the father, and it will be everybody in the earth. under the earth
and in heaven. Every person, every created being
will one day have to acknowledge that Jesus is supreme. And so
the weight on us, the motivation for us is to be evangelists and
say, why don’t you go ahead and get your mind and your heart
and your life in line with what is true. Jesus is Lord. Jesus reigns. He is supreme. And one day you will acknowledge
him. But that day when many will acknowledge Jesus will be too
late. But today, while it is still night, while there is still
time, we must proclaim and profess Christ as supreme and sufficient. And he is the answer to all of
life’s struggles. For one day it will be too late.
Because to confess Jesus is Lord on that day is to have Jesus
with his foot upon your neck. In subjection and submission,
he said, I told you I was Lord and you didn’t believe me. And
so we see the weight and the motivation to proclaim the goodness
of the gospel. So what is the message in this
for us? What is the motivation for us? What is the needful thing
for us to take away from this passage of scripture? It is simply
this. Jesus is lifted up by God himself
on the throne of the universe. He is proclaimed as Lord and
master. That is a firm and fixed and
final and eternal reality that cannot be changed or altered
or negotiated or argued away. The question for us is, in our
service to one another, whether it be in the church or the families
or the neighborhood or the workplace or the places we volunteer or
go, does our way of life, does it reflect self-centeredness
or other focused way of living? Do we serve others for the glory
of Christ? Do we allow ourselves to go through
humiliation in order that others may be exhausted? Think of Jesus.
Why did he come to earth? Why was he born? Why did he suffer
under the law? Why did he go through the miseries
of this life, the pain of the cross, the beatings, the scourgings,
the crown of thorns, the abandonment from almighty God? He went down. And yes, he’s been lifted up.
but he came down to lift you up. And so when we serve others,
when we stoop, when we bend low, when we strap on the towel and
take the basin and serve others by washing their feet, we are
stooping and bending down in order that they might be lifted
up and served. That is the perspective that
Jesus wants us to have. Not only a perspective of his
exaltation and his glory so that we worship him properly, but
also of this humiliation that we might serve others properly. May for the glory of God this
be true of us. Pray with me. Our great God, we thank you that
you show us a glimpse of your glory, that you show us an abundance
of your grace, and that you show us the way we ought to live,
the way we ought to serve. Lord, we cannot do it on our
own. We wouldn’t do it on our own. We would continue to be
self-seeking and self-serving, self-promoting, self-honoring,
self-exalting. But we thank you that Christ
shows us a better way, that he stooped low to raise us up. So help us to stoop low in order
to raise others up. But as we raise them up, may
we show them of the great savior Jesus, who is the king of the
universe, the glory of the nations, and the one who will be worshiped
at the last day. We pray this in his name. Amen.
Let’s stand and respond to God’s word as we worship, singing number
597, Christ, we do all adore thee. It’s just a one verse chorus,
and so it’ll be played through once, and then we’ll sing it
together.