Jesus Christ Is Lord

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Philippians 2:5-11

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That's why I'd like to take you this morning and say in that, turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Philippians.
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This will be the last sermon I'd like to preach on this until God willing later on.
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Then we're going to return back to John chapter 7, next
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Lord's Day. Let me say this before I read this wonderful text from chapter 2 of Philippians, chapter 2 verses, we're looking at 5 through 11.
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Commentator G. Walter Hansen said this, the entire letter to the
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Philippians asserts that Christ is the one common subject that unites and binds believers together.
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When Christians declared that to live is Christ, Philippians 1 .21,
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acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, Philippians 2 .11, and desire to know
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Christ above all other things, Philippians 3 .8 -10, then they will be of one mind because they will all be worshiping and serving together, the one whom
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God exalted to the highest place, Philippians 2 .9. And then he says this, in other words, being like -minded and one mind means more than simply being agreeable, it means agreeing that Jesus Christ is
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Lord and submitting to His Lordship. And that's what we're looking at this morning, the humiliation and the exaltation of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what this text actually speaks to us in this wonderful epistle, in this unity through humility, verse 1 to verse 4.
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But now today we're going to look at the humbled and the exalted Christ, the humbled and the exalted
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Christ. Let me begin by reading verse 5 of chapter 2.
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Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not choose at robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taken the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men and being found in an appearance as a man,
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He humbled Himself, became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
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Therefore, God also has highly exalted Him and given
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Him the name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven, those on the earth and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. Please bow with me in prayer.
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Father, we thank you. Hallowed be thy name. Lord, we pray.
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We pray that wonderful prayer that is given to us in Samuel. First Samuel.
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Lord, speak for thy servant hears. For thy honor and thy glory in Jesus' name.
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Amen. This is no doubt one of the greatest portraits in Philippians chapter 2 in this portion of scripture in which
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I've read to you the portraits of Jesus Christ to be found in the entirety of the word of God.
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Once again, I'm shortening it up, but quoting from his book, Miracles, C .S.
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Lewis says of the miracle of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, quote, the doctrine of the incarnation is emphatically at the center of Christianity that the
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Son of God came down. He came down, and he goes on to say, no seed ever fell so far from a tree into so dark and cold a soil as the
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Son of God did when he came, end quote. John 1 .14,
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the word became flesh. He dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory.
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The glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth. 1
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John 1, verse one and two. The apostle John says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life.
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The life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the
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Father and was manifested to us. Praise his name.
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What an assurance that we have of the record of the testimony of the apostles that gives of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. This is our desire here at Redeeming Grace Church is to exalt him that in all things, he may have the preeminence.
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Jesus Christ himself asked the single and most important question during his ministry to the apostles, and it's paramount of what he speaks from the gospel record from Matthew, I believe it's 16, but he says, who do you say that I am?
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Who do you say that I am? And the question, who is Jesus Christ? Still remains the single most important question to be answered.
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Just what do men say that I am? Then Jesus says, then of course some responded,
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Elijah, some say Jeremiah, one of the prophets they were thinking since Jesus was a great preacher and a teacher, they related him to Jeremiah, the weeping prophet to Elijah, the fiery prophet.
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But then Jesus in his perfect wisdom, he asked the great question, but who do you say
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I am? Who do you say I am? He gets very personal. And again, on behalf of the apostles, as you know the story, the apostle
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Peter says, you are the Christ. You are the son of the living
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God. That is the confession of the church. And by revelation, the father revealed this.
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Jesus said this to Peter, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. You didn't think it up.
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Jesus goes on to tell Peter, but my father who is in heaven has revealed this to you.
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It came through revelation. And beloved, that is the great question.
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That is the great confession of the church. We should live and die by that confession.
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The Nicene Creed says it like this, in defense of Christ being fully God and fully man, we believe in one
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Lord Jesus Christ, the only one son of God, eternally begotten of the father, God of God, light from light, true
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God from true God, begotten not made of one being with the father through him all things were made.
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And for us and our salvation, he came down. That's the humiliation there.
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He humbled himself. He came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the
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Virgin Mary and became fully human. For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
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He suffered death and was buried. On the third day, he rose again, according with the scripture, accordance to the scriptures.
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He ascended into heaven. He's seated at the right hand of the father. He will come again and glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.
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Praise his name. That's what the creed says based upon the scriptures, according to the scriptures.
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This is who Jesus Christ is and what he has accomplished for our salvation.
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Now, this is the wonder of wonders that our Lord Jesus Christ came down from the father. He comes from God, the father, sent from the father, from the highest throne of the universe, comes down, condescended to earth, came to live among us, born of the
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Virgin Mary, lived a perfect life. He, again, he's entered into the womb of the
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Virgin Mary, becomes flesh, made man, yet without sin, without the sin nature, lives a life of perfection, a perfect righteousness, fulfills the law to its perfection, lives a life of perfect obedience to the father, to his holy will.
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He dies a perfect death. He suffers death under Pontius Pilate.
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He's hung on a cross. He became a curse for us. He takes and becomes sin upon himself as the lamb of God, becomes a sin offering for us, our sake and our salvation.
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He takes the full penalty of our sin wages. He endures the crushing blow, the wrath of God upon him.
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He endures all the way, goes to, he dies a death as a criminal, but yet he is
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God, he is man, he is fully God, he is fully man, and he is buried, and then he rose again the third day.
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Praise God. We have something to rejoice about, amen? That's the living hope.
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And take Jesus Christ out of the Bible. There's absolute darkness. Christ is the grand subject of the
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Bible. There's no way I could do justice to that. That's the introduction.
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But we're gonna look at the humiliation. We looked at it a great deal, and I'm gonna just pick up there because we will not truly understand the exaltation of Christ unless we truly understand
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Christ's humiliation. So we seek Christ's humiliation. That's my first point in verse five through eight.
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I'll briefly go and recap on that. We can't hear enough of that, can we? Consider who
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Jesus has been. He humbled himself. Consider who
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Jesus, how he has humbled himself in verse five through eight, and then we'll look at the exaltation of Jesus Christ, verse nine through 11, and we'll focus on that.
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And we'll look at a brief application before we have communion.
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Now, the humiliation of Jesus Christ, the humiliation of Jesus Christ, consider who has been humbled.
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It is Christ. And we look at this from verse five. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
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He's talking about how Christ lived, his attitude, his attitude of humility.
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He humbled himself. What mind? The mind of Christ.
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The mind of Christ. Jesus gives to us some very specific words concerning defining his character, his mind, his heart.
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And it's found in Matthew 11, 29. You don't have to turn there. It's very familiar, but Jesus says and gives the great invitation.
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I love this. He says, come unto me, all you labor and heavy laden.
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I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Learn from Jesus.
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And then he says, for I am gentle, I am meek. I'm lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.
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There is that perfect humility that Jesus speaks of himself, perfect meekness.
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Meekness, not weakness, but strength under complete total control.
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And we are to learn from him this great characteristic, this great virtue of humility.
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This is what binds the church together is the unity, but the unity in truth only comes through our humility.
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Humility. We have to deal with this constantly in our lives because we're so eaten up with pride and self.
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We have to mortify and sanctification by the spirit of God, the deeds of the flesh, our pride.
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And that's why we need to constantly go to Jesus. We need to constantly go to the word of God. This can only be done by the power of the spirit.
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This is an invitation to come to Christ. To all those oppressed under the yoke of the law, the burdensome, they find it hard to please
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God. They try and try and not trust, but we need to trust in God rather than trying to keep the law by our own power, by our own strength.
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It's totally impossible. But Jesus did the impossible. He is the one that literally earned eternal life for us by his works.
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He's paid for it. And we can rest in that. We can rest in Christ.
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Christ comes with the gospel invitation. He says, take my yoke upon you. Learn from me.
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What are we to learn? Learn from Christ that he is gentle. Learn from Christ that he's meek.
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I believe Spurgeon said it like this. I'm gonna paraphrase. You can learn more at the feet of Jesus in 10 minutes than you can for years in a seminary.
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I'm about reading all the books. Find this at the feet of Jesus. He's lowly in heart.
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You will find rest for your souls. Christ is concerned for your soul.
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He wants rest for your soul. He wants rest for my soul. He desires for your soul to find rest and my soul to find rest regardless of what we're going through, what we're up against, regardless of the stress and the distress and the anxieties and all that comes upon us.
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We find strength in Christ in prayer. And come as weak as you are, but Christ says, come.
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Just come. And then that should not be difficult. We just come by faith and we fall at his feet.
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And then he says, look, look at him. Come and look and behold him. Behold his beauty.
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Behold his greatness. Behold his lordship, his majesty.
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Look at verse six. Verse six says this, who, speaking of Jesus Christ, being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.
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So when we ask the question, who is Jesus Christ? The first thing we have to confront is the statement of scripture that is his perfect essential being, his personhood, his unchanging, immutable, unaltering nature is in the very form of God himself, the likeness and the express image of the father.
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It's powerful, isn't it? And that brings us to the issue of what does the word form mean?
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It's a very important word in Holy Scripture. The Greek actually translates morphe, morphe.
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Always signifies a form which truly and fully expresses the being which underlies it.
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That is to say it is a form true of essential nature, his nature, the nature of God.
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And here is applied to the person of God himself. Wherever the form that God, whatever the form that God takes is a reflection of the deepest being.
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So that is of himself. The essential nature and the character of the invisible
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God became visible in Jesus Christ. Jesus, this is why
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Jesus answered Philip's question in John 14, he says,
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Philip says, Lord, show us the father and it'll be sufficient for us. And Jesus said to him, have
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I been with you so long? And yet you have not known me, Philip. Now, Jesus is not saying that he's the father.
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Jesus is saying that he is the image, the reflection of God, the father, but he's still
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God in flesh. So he's saying he's deity. He's God, he's Lord.
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He is, he, and Jesus said, he who has seen me has seen the father. He who has seen me has seen the father.
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So how can you say, show us the father? Paul says in Colossians 1, 15 through 18, he is the image of the invisible
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God, the firstborn over all creation, for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him.
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And he is before all things. Don't you love the all things? He's before all things.
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He was the eternal God. He is the eternal God. He came in flesh. And then he goes on saying in him, all things consist.
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All things consist. Hebrews puts it, the writer of Hebrews says, he upholds all things by the word of his power.
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Without Jesus Christ, this whole universe will collapse. People don't know that, but we know what the word of God says.
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He is, and it goes on, he is the head of the body, the church, the church, the called out ones.
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That is you and me. He is the head who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have preeminence.
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That means first place, all things. And Jesus Christ is the very express image of God the
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Father. And now let me throw this in here too. And as the head of the church and the Lord of the church, he's gonna be the judge of the church.
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It's not gonna be any pastor. It's not gonna be any evangelist. Beloved, each and every single one of us will answer to God.
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As saved, redeemed, we are free and saved from any condemnation of the law, but we will stand before God, but we will still be judged according to our words.
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I don't know about you, that makes me tremble. And I say that because I'm not so concerned about my salvation.
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I know that's secure. I know that because of the word of God. God does not break not one promise
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He has made. You can count on that. But what concerns me is in my little short span of life, and if God gives me 60 years,
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I'm coming up 60 soon, God willing in September. But if I go 70 years or 80 years or 100, what is that compared to eternity?
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And what little time I have as C .T.
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Studds says, only one life that'll be passed, soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last.
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And I think, I don't believe I can do enough. If I had a thousand lives,
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I don't think I could do enough for Christ in serving Him. And I asked the question, why is it so difficult for people to even show up to church?
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I understand about providences, I'm gonna throw this in here. But it blows my mind that just showing up should be a simple thing.
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It should be a privilege to say, I want to come and feast on what
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Christ has given through His word and be encouraged with the body of Christ and be exhorted in that.
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I don't wanna miss a blessing, do you? I don't wanna miss, I don't wanna forfeit, I don't wanna miss a blessing.
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Now we understand. We're not, I'm not here, I'm gonna tell you this,
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I'm gonna be very personal with you this morning. I am not here to micromanage nobody. But I want to warn you,
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Jesus Christ being Lord of His church will judge each and every one of His people.
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People need to really look into this very seriously. There's a judgment day coming, and like I said, it's appointed for once man to die and after that to judgment.
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And that means God's people will be, we will be judged according to our works, what we do as a believer, folks.
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That is serious. This needs to be preached more. I don't know any other time that the church needs to be sobered about how we serve.
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We should be doing everything to outserve each and every one. We should be provoked to jealousy and love and good works in the sense, holy jealousy, to outdo one another, folks.
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But in order to do that, we gotta show up. Now understand, there are providences.
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There's sickness. My wife is very sick. She wished she could be here. She was literally crying this morning, wished she could be here this morning.
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And I understand there's providences, there's hindrances that are legit, legit, but at the same time, do we make too many excuses sometimes not to show up and serve?
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Look at all that Jesus has done for us. He has given
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His all and His best. And what little we have is
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His servants and bond slaves. And by the way, these are commands.
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It is a command to come together. But it's a privilege, a privilege.
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Look at who, we look to the text. Look at who He is. We learn about Jesus. He's essential to Christian theology, that Jesus is the essential form of God Himself.
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He is Lord. He is Lord. And scripture says He is Lord of lords.
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It takes it to another level, doesn't it? He is Lord, that says everything. He's God.
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He's the Lord of glory, the King of glory. As Psalm 24 says, but He is also the head of the church.
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He's God in very essence, unchangeable, divine being. And He never has been and never will and be any other than God Himself, the second person of the
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Trinity. Paul says here, Christ Jesus exists as His nature, as to His nature in the unchanging character of God.
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He's immutable. That's why the Bible says in Hebrews that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
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Jesus can say, only Jesus can say, I and the Father are one. And He can say, if you've seen me, you've seen the
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Father. He is the Word who created the world in John chapter one.
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And He is the Word who was with God, the Father who, He is the Word, the
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Logos who was and is God. And He is the Word who became flesh, the
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Morphe of God, the form of God made flesh. That's what this text is saying. This is the wonder, the mystery of the incarnation.
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First Timothy 3 .16, I love it. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
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God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the
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Gentiles, believed on in the glory, received up in the world, received up in the glory, praise
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His name. I believe they sung that too, like they sung Philippians 2 here as well.
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That's where we start. Secondly, if you go back to verse six from that glorious presentation of the deity of Jesus Christ, the apostle
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Paul begins to track the incarnation. He establishes that He is God, He is
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Lord. And as scripture clearly says in many places, and now he says, even though He is
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God, although He is God in true nature and essence, He secondly says, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.
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He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.
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And here we begin to see the condescension take place. He grasped, the word grasp actually means just that, stated out of a word meaning robbery.
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The robber runs in, you know what a robber does when he comes and breaks in, right? What does he do?
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He grabs, he grasps, he runs. Clutching, he clutches, he clutches something and he's holding tightly to.
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He starts out with the robber who is hanging tightly to whatever he has stolen.
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Well, Jesus in the very being of God in every sense equal with God is saying
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He refuses to clutch to that, to cling to that equality, refuses to cling to the privileges, to the rights to go along with the equality.
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They refuses, in other words, He refuses to clutch to the heavenly glories.
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He lets it go and willingly comes here and condescends in great humility to become a man.
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It all begins with Jesus being willing to go to, of the, to let,
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I'm sorry, to let go of the glory and the privileges of heaven. It's powerful.
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He was there, He let it all go. The Father, He was with the
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Father in great majesty and He lets it go.
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In Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17, that's why He prayed, now, oh Father, glorify me together with Yourself.
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Notice what He says, with the glory, with the glory which
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I had with You before the world was.
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He is completely, utterly unselfish. He lets it all go.
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He gave it all up. And He did not clutch to it. He did not cling to it.
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And in His unselfishness, we come to the third statement, verse seven,
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He emptied Himself. It keeps going. Now He empties
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Himself, made Himself of no reputation, no reputation, taken the form of a bond slave.
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Coming in the likeness of men, that's another step down in humility. And please understand when it says
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He made Himself of no reputation, emptied Himself, that does not mean that He emptied Himself of His deity.
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He did not do that. He did not exchange His godhood for manhood,
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His deity for humanity. Basically it's saying He is eternally God and nevertheless
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God. But even when He was on earth, according to Matthew seven and Luke seven, records that He took
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His disciples up to the mountaintop and one of the occasion, He pulled back.
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The apostles had the privilege on the Mount of Transfiguration, as it's called, to see in His humanity a glimpse of Christ's glory.
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I like to put it this way, it's like a blazing light of glory bursting out of Him. And they saw it.
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Peter, James, and John were the witnesses there and they fell on their faces and they saw it when they fell in trauma.
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They were traumatized by what they saw and Jesus never exchanged His deity for humanity but there they had a glimpse of it.
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The way He will be in His exaltation. It's powerful. He did not cease to be
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God, even hanging on the cross of shame in the midst of suffering, even in the moments when
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He was under the judgment of Almighty God because He became sin, took our sin, then
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He absorbs in three hours of darkness that we would never understand, folks, of the crushing blow of God's wrath on Himself because God, the
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Holy God, must punish sin. And He did it on Christ. And when we start to think, and as I speak to you as a worm and a created being, and you are a created being, this is the
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Creator that took this into flesh. MacArthur says this, the issue is not that He divested
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Himself of deity but that He did not demand
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His rights as deity, end quote. In other words, perfect humility.
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He set aside His prerogatives when He said that I have the right, I have the power.
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He had all power. I have the authority to do things as I do and not do because of my humiliation.
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But see, He chose to let it go. He chose to let it go.
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Such love. Verse eight. And being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled
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Himself, became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Even the
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Son of God, the Son of Man, had to learn obedience through suffering. He humbled
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Himself all the way to become a servant. Again, MacArthur says this, great quote here.
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He was always borrowing. He had to borrow a place to be born. He had to borrow.
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He said to lay His head down. He had to borrow a boat to ride in and preach from.
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He had to borrow an animal to ride into the city of Jerusalem. He had to borrow a room for the
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Passover. He had to borrow a tomb to be buried in. And He is all of people who ever lived, the one who had the greatest rights, but waived them.
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He is the heir of David's throne. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, but He came to serve
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His Father and those who were His Father's children by faith, He borrowed.
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End quote. He was born to die. This is why He came.
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Jesus said, I have not come to be served, but to served. For this reason,
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Jesus Christ came to save sinners like you and me. Hallelujah. Folks, He humbled
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Himself. That's what the scripture says. He humbled Himself. He was already humiliated when
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He was born, born in the feeding trough. He was already humiliated when He lived as a child, as a young man.
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He was already humiliated just as He came to planet Earth, the Earth that He created and spoke into existence.
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And then He came to be born and humbled Himself. He came down, but He wasn't humbled as far as it was going to be humbled at that point.
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He didn't come down here and say, look, that's as far as I'm going. I'm here and not going any lower than this.
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He went lower. He went to the very depths of the point of death, to the death of a cross, a criminal's cross and hung there in shame.
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How low did He go? He went to the lowest, folks. No one ever matched this.
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And if people think about Jesus as just another man on the cross, they'll never see it. But we're talking about the
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Lord of glory who created all things, who stooped and lowered
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Himself and humbled Himself. That's the difference. He became obedient to the point of death, even to the death of the cross.
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He goes all the way to the executioner's cross for thieves and slaves, riffraffs.
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This is probably the most shocking feature of Christ's humiliation, the crucifixion.
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But get this, Paul says, this is where the power of God is. It's in such weakness and in such humiliation in the crucifixion, because the crucifixion was the most horrific way to die in that time period.
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It was developed by the Assyrians and the Romans used it. It was cruel. The crucifixion was for the scum of the earth, the riffraff of the earth, the non -Roman citizens, for thieves, for low lives.
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Crucifixion was developed and perfected again by, I say the Assyrians, it's the Persians, my mistake.
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The Romans, again, picked it up in the form of execution. And it was the most painful, it was the most humiliating and the most cruel form of death known to man in that time period.
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And we would translate it in our day of going to the electric chair.
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It was a slow death. It wasn't fast. And a person that basically was nailed on a cross, was nailed in their hands and their feet to a wooden cross and then dropped into a socket, ripping and tearing their flesh, hung suspended on Golgotha's hill, the mount of a skull, like that, the body slumping, being held basically only by the nails that's pierced through his hands, his feet together, nailed, suffocating.
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So against the wounds in the feet, the victim stand hanging on the cross as pushing up, trying to catch his breath, the sun blazing, the heat, mouth is parched, dry.
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The blood loss is unspeakable through the loss of four great wounds, immense that is nailed to the cross.
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The blood loss is constant. The crown of thorns adds even more to the horror.
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This is an unthinkable, inhuman way to execute people. And Jesus did this.
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Jesus Christ chose to do this. And that's why he's called the man of sorrows.
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And that's why it says, the prophet says he's acquainted with grief. He knows the pain.
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He knows the sorrow. And folks, I don't care what kind of pain or sorrow and how deep it is in your life today.
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Jesus knows it. Jesus knows it. Folks, I stood with a man that had a six -year -old child ran over, lost two brothers in a car crash.
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And I looked that man in the eye and I said, there's only one that knows your pain. I said, I cannot relate to your pain, but Jesus Christ can.
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And folks, you could tell anybody that on this earth, no matter what kind of pain they're going through, you can look them in the face and say,
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Christ knows your pain. And by the way, Christ cares. Christ cares for you.
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Christ loves you. And he desires to save you and bring you in.
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We could say that, can't we? Because he lives, you can live also. Put somebody on the cross, it's unthinkable.
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Now, I got to move to his exaltation. We go to the exaltation.
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This is where we need to go. Look at verse nine.
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You notice after verse eight, it says he became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
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That is as far as his humiliation goes is the death of the cross. And then
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Paul says in verse nine, therefore, there it is.
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Therefore, God, speaking of God the Father, also has highly exalted him,
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Jesus Christ, and given him the name which is above every name.
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His name is above every name. And what did
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God do to exalt him? What did God do three days after he was crucified?
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The Father, some parts of the Scripture says the Father raised him from the dead. Some Scripture says
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Jesus raised himself from the dead. Some says the Holy Spirit raised him from the dead. That shows you right there, the
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Trinity was all together in Jesus' resurrection. But God raised him from the dead.
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The first point of the Father's exaltation to Jesus is the resurrection.
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He raised him from the dead. And by God the Father raising Christ from the dead,
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God affirmed the vitality of Christ's sacrifice. See, it's the
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Father's amen to everything Jesus did. His life, His death, and all. He raised him from the dead to say what
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Jesus had said on the cross, it is finished, paid in full. The second thing happened 40 days later.
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And what happened? He ascended. He sat down at the right hand of the Father.
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God raised him from the dead that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. He quotes from Isaiah 45, 23.
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Isaiah 45, 23. I'll read it to you. I have, well, let me back up.
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Look at verse 22. Look to me and be saved. The look.
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This is the scripture that a young Charles Spurgeon heard a layman preacher preach in a small little church about probably the size of ours.
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And Charles Spurgeon went and heard a layman preacher preach this text and he was saved by the power of God.
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Look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.
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I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return.
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And to me, that to me, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess, shall take an oath.
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And he shall say, surely the Lord, I have righteousness and strength to him men shall come and all shall be ashamed who are increased in sin.
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I'm sorry, who incensed against me, him. And in the Lord, all the descendants of Israel shall be justified and shall glory.
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Paul's got this scripture in mind right here, especially the latter end of the text of verse 23.
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To me, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath and that one day every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord. He is Lord. The Bible says that when he went to heaven, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high and he took the place with his father on his right hand of power.
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Highly exalted him, the father is highly exalted and given him the name which is above every name.
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What does that mean? That at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father.
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So that means on earth and under the earth and heaven, angels, cherubim, seraphim, 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 and thousands and thousands of angelic being will all bow the knee.
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All the saints in glory will bow the knee. All the glorified church will bow the knee. And on earth, every man and every woman will bow the knee but most will bow to him in judgment.
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The day will come when those who refuse to bow to Jesus Christ will bow on judgment day.
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If they refuse to bow here, they will bow at the judgment day and even in hell under the earth.
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Under the earth, every demon, every fallen angel will bow the knee.
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They will bow the knee. They will feel his fury.
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They will feel his wrath and everybody will bow the knee eventually. No escaping it.
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So why is people run now? Why are people trying to put fig leaves of religion of hypocrisy to hide from a holy
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God that can see through everything? There will be a confession and there will be a bowing of the knee.
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The confession is every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father and the bowing of the knee, everyone will bow allegiance to Jesus Christ because he is
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Lord. What does that mean to us now?
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What's the application now? Well, if he's Lord, that means we must submit to him. And if we don't submit to him in obedience to the faith that was once delivered to the saints, then there will be a judgment day that will eventually come and that will not be able to be escaped from because two things that will come, death and judgment.
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And we better think this through now to give our all to Jesus Christ and it should be a privilege. Everyone will confess
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Jesus Christ is Lord. Do it now to your eternal blessing or you do it later to your eternal cursing.
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The question comes back to one thing, to one question, who is Jesus Christ? He is Lord, right?
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We can't say that enough. No one can say Jesus Christ is
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Lord unless through the Holy Spirit. And now you got false teachers out there calling Jesus Christ Lord, but I'm telling you, they blaspheme his name.
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These are people that are not converted to Christ. So it's not of the Holy Spirit. They're mimicking a blaspheming
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God. But we're talking about believers. The question then is, what will we do with Jesus?
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What are we gonna do? How are we gonna live? How are we gonna conduct ourselves?
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Are we gonna truly submit and be obedient to him, to obey him? That's what it means.
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Are we going to just ignore him or are we just going to do our own thing?
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Are we going to acknowledge him as Lord and say, believe me, I'm gonna do it? And bow the knee here and submit in humble submission to his
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Lordship? Or are we going to resist him and reject him, which is the most horrible thing that can be done because he is the judge of judges.
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All of us will answer. But may we be exhorted as the exhortation from Scripture says in Hebrews.
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And let me read it. Let me go to it. And I'll close with this and we'll bow in prayer and come to communion.
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Powerful exhortation. Powerful. I love, you know, the book of Hebrews, I really believe this is one
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New Testament epistle has more warnings than any other. But can
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I add to something else there? It has more exhortations than any other as well. You can look at it.
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Here's the exhortation. Let me begin right here.
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Verse 31 of chapter 10. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
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God. That's a powerful statement, folks. It's a terrifying thing.
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It's a fearful thing to fall. God keep us from falling.
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To fall into the hands of the living God. Jesus said, He's not the
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God of the dead. He's the God of the living. And then he says in verse 32, but recall the former days in which you, which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings.
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Persecuted church. I think persecution will help purge us a great deal, wouldn't it? Partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated.
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You know what he's doing? He's exhorting the persecuted Christians. And yet he gave them a warning.
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It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Then he goes, recall the former days. And then he says in verse 34, for you had compassion on me and my chains.
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Whoever this apostle was, I'd be apt to say it's Paul, but we're not for sure.
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And by the way, somebody said, well, I asked God, when Jesus, when I get to heaven, folks, once we get to heaven, that's not gonna matter anymore.
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We'll be falling at the feet of Jesus. That's what's gonna matter. And then he says, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.
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In other words, all this on earth is gonna pass away. They're all, Jesus said, store up your treasures in heaven.
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That's what we need to be focusing on. Therefore, do not cast away your confidence.
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Here's the exhortation. Don't cast it away. And what does he say?
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Which has a great reward. There's a great reward to it.
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In verse 36, for you have need of endurance. Patience.
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I don't know about you. I need to hear that. I need endurance. I need patience. It's hard sometimes, folks.
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And I'm not talking about the way of the transgressor. I'm talking about the way of the cross. But I'd rather take that hard.
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I like when one preacher says, choose your hard. You choose the way of sin and go to hell with that hard, but choose the cross.
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But I tell you what, like Thomas A. Kippis says, you carry the cross patiently, and in the end, the cross will carry you.
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You have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God.
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Folks, that is important right there. We must make sure we do the will of God. It's everything.
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Everything. You may receive the promise. What's the promise? Here it is.
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For yet a little while. Folks, think of this. It's just a little while. It's for a season.
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I'd rather take a cross on my back, so to speak, and obey
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Jesus Christ to the end, to death, for a little while, than to suffer an agony of hell and fire under the fury of almighty
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God for all eternity. You see the greatness of this?
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For yet a little while, and then he says this, and he who is coming will come, and he will not tarry.
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He's coming. Jesus Christ is coming, and he's gonna set it straight.
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I like, Tozer had a philosophy. He says, everything's wrong until God sets it right. I amen to that.
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And shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Verse 38, now the just shall live by faith, and there it is.
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How do we do this? He's telling us how to do it. How do you endure? How do you?
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How do you? It's by faith. It's by faith. We feel like giving up, don't we?
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We feel like lying down, like we heard in Sunday school today, being dismayed. It means to lie down and to quit, but the
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Bible says, do not lose heart. Don't give up. Child of God, don't give up.
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And the just shall live by faith. And then he says this, here's a warning. There's an exhortation, a warning, exhortation, warning.
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But if anyone draws back, what did Jesus say? If you put your hand to the plow and look back, you what?
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You're not worthy or fit for the kingdom of God. Jesus said that, folks. We gotta keep this before us, and that's why we gotta look unto
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Jesus. Pastor, that's impossible by my strength. Amen, it is.
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That's why you and I must have the power of the Holy Spirit to do this. It's impossible in our own strength.
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But if anyone draws back, the Bible says right here, my soul has no pleasure in him.
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But, don't you love the buts? But we are not of those who draw back.
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Hallelujah. We are not of those who draw back to perdition.
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Listen to this, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. Hallelujah, what a savior.
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And Jesus took it all. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word this morning.
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We thank you for these exhortations. We thank you for the warnings. We thank you for the warnings that correct us and the exhortations that encourage us.
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Our soul, Jesus, lover of our soul, let us to thy bosom fly.
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Son of the living God, we thank you. From the witness of your holy word, you said of your son,
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Father, this is my beloved son in whom you are well -pleased in. And Father, if you're well -pleased in him, if we're in Christ and you're well -pleased with us, not of works of righteousness that we have done, but by your mercy, we have been saved.
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Father, may we hear him, hear Christ, because in these last days, you have spoken to us by your son through these exhortations.
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Now, Father, bless our time together as we come to the table of the Lord to remember him.