WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.300 The triumphal entry is baffling. It's a baffling event. Jesus enters Jerusalem as a triumphant 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:15.800 leader, not unlike Caesar or a general entering Rome after a successful military campaign. 00:00:16.980 --> 00:00:23.740 He is heralded as the son of David, the prophet of prophets, the Messiah himself, and yet 00:00:23.739 --> 00:00:33.060 in less than a week, the entirety of Jerusalem turns on him. In less than a week. And they 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:40.539 turn on him, not that they just turn their back on him, but they call for his death. And 00:00:40.539 --> 00:00:47.079 again, not just a regular death, but a death upon a Roman cross. They demand that Jesus 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:55.519 is crucified, which for the Jewish nation is a sign of a deep, deep divine curse upon 00:00:55.519 --> 00:01:04.480 his life. How on one end of the week is Jesus the king? He is the one who is going to set 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:11.500 everything right. And by the end of the week, they want him to die not just the most gruesome 00:01:11.500 --> 00:01:21.140 physical death, but an eternal one, cursed by God for eternity. How can the same crowds 00:01:21.140 --> 00:01:30.019 turn so quickly upon Jesus? Well, Jesus was a convenient figure. For the crowds, for the 00:01:30.019 --> 00:01:36.659 masses, as he entered Jerusalem, he was going to be the Messiah, the one that would rid Israel 00:01:36.659 --> 00:01:45.000 of Rome to reestablish the kingdom of David once again, that Israel would see glory days 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:56.579 that would make anything that came before look weak and pale and black and white. That King 00:01:56.579 --> 00:02:04.840 Solomon and his kingdom would be nothing compared to what the Messiah would do. The Messiah would 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:15.300 be King David's son. But Jesus doesn't fit that narrative. He's not coming in as a king ready 00:02:15.300 --> 00:02:23.960 to conquer Jerusalem and oust the Romans. Instead, he foretells the temple's destruction. And not just 00:02:23.960 --> 00:02:29.860 the temple's destruction, but Jerusalem's sacking. He further condemns the hypocrisy of the religious 00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:37.420 leaders and the hollowness of worship that is happening in Jerusalem itself. He doesn't set up a 00:02:37.420 --> 00:02:46.860 place of victory in Jerusalem. Rather, he laments over Jerusalem. The religious leaders plot to kill him 00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:54.800 and easily drum up the people to back their evil plan. It really is a remarkable thing in this narrative. 00:02:54.800 --> 00:03:06.200 Humanity has this innate ability to seek our own fortunes and our own glory. And in failing to find 00:03:06.200 --> 00:03:13.680 that vision in our minds, collectively, individually, of what that fortune and glory and the good life, 00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:19.540 whatever you may call it, failing to find that, we don't just shrug our shoulders and move on. 00:03:19.539 --> 00:03:36.819 We hurt and abuse, destroy, lambast those that get in our way. Or put another way, we vainly seek our glory 00:03:36.819 --> 00:03:42.579 out of selfish ambition. And as a result, we destroy anything that stands in the way. 00:03:42.580 --> 00:03:51.020 This almost certainly results in humanity's suffering. And not just suffering, but suffering humiliation. 00:03:52.720 --> 00:04:00.960 In short, this is pride. Why does the crowd turn on Jesus so quickly? It's because he doesn't fit 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:07.460 their vision of what the Messiah is to be like. They don't submit themselves humbly to God's word, 00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:16.360 but their pride wells up, and they turn on Jesus. This isn't a first century problem. This isn't a 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:22.960 Jewish problem. This is a human problem, for it is a human condition. And to some degree or another, 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:30.780 it is found in the heart of all of us. In fact, it was the reason sin entered the world through our 00:04:30.780 --> 00:04:37.319 first parents to begin with. Adam, maid and Eve, maid in God's image, thought that becoming God, 00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:43.019 was their destiny. And they pridefully tried to steal God's glory, and as a result, suffered 00:04:43.019 --> 00:04:51.759 humiliation and shame. The irony is that they shared in the image of God. They were connected to God. 00:04:51.879 --> 00:05:00.480 They were in relationship to God, but they wanted to be God. They did not want to submit. Pride welled up 00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:07.640 in their hearts, and they sinned. And that has followed the human race all the way to the present. 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:16.160 And this leads us to our text in Philippians 2. Philippians 2, it's a centuries-old reading in our 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:22.700 prayer book that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, he was the chief architect of the Book of Common Prayer. 00:05:22.699 --> 00:05:32.920 He put it together in the mid-16th century. He saw fit to include Philippians 2, 5-11 for the Sunday 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:43.120 before Easter. And this text speaks about not the first Adam who sinned because he tried to, in pride, 00:05:43.300 --> 00:05:49.639 take over God's glory, but the second Adam, Jesus, who had the glory of God, who was God himself, 00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:58.120 but humbled himself and took upon him human flesh. We call this the incarnation. Literally, 00:05:58.500 --> 00:06:08.560 God became enfleshed, but remained fully God. Through the incarnation, the humble self-emptying 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:16.759 of the Son to the will of the Father, through that our perennial humiliation, wrought by our selfish 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:26.939 and vain pursuits of glory, will forever, forever be reversed. So it's a very fitting reading leading up 00:06:26.939 --> 00:06:34.759 to Easter because Easter is when Jesus will pay the penalty for our sins, but it's in the incarnation 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:45.759 that really Easter Sunday begins, in a sense, when God was born to Mary as a child. 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:53.379 So, leading into the Holy Week and the Passion of Christ, Philippians 2, it's incredibly important 00:06:53.379 --> 00:06:59.259 and it's very wise for us to read. It's the high point of Christology. That's simply just to say 00:06:59.259 --> 00:07:08.539 it's the high point of what we know about Jesus. It is how we understand who Jesus truly is, 00:07:08.540 --> 00:07:18.140 and in light of that, it will magnify our view of what the cross really is, and how God will save us 00:07:18.140 --> 00:07:25.000 from our prideful humanity and humiliation. So I've broken up the text to look at three aspects of the 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:33.160 incarnation and three aspects of who Jesus is and how he can save us. The first is because he's the 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:40.280 incarnate one. We'll look at that in verses six to eight. We'll also look at Jesus being the humble 00:07:40.280 --> 00:07:48.380 one. Verses nine and then verses 10 and 11, he will be the exalted one. So let's look with, or look with me 00:07:48.380 --> 00:07:58.960 now at verses six and seven, and we'll see how Jesus is the incarnate one. Nowhere else do we see the 00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:06.859 incarnation so vividly proclaimed as in Philippians 2, 5 to 11, and this is what I'll read verses five to 00:08:06.859 --> 00:08:15.039 six here. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, verse six, who though he was 00:08:15.039 --> 00:08:21.699 in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, 00:08:21.699 --> 00:08:31.159 taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Although saying form of God may 00:08:31.159 --> 00:08:39.679 seem as not as definitive as a statement of saying Jesus was God, in the original language, this, the 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:49.539 idea of Jesus being in the form of God, it conveys that which truly and fully expresses what it is. It's 00:08:49.539 --> 00:08:59.639 literally that Jesus is, he is God himself in the form, in the shape, he is morphed, so to speak, that he 00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:07.659 truly and fully expresses what he is in the form of, namely God. This means that Christ Jesus had all of 00:09:07.659 --> 00:09:14.839 the essential attributes of God, his all-knowingness, his omniscience, his power, his omnipotence, he's 00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:22.720 perfect, he's unique, he's one, he's the fullness of beauty, perfect in glory. Everything that God is, 00:09:23.300 --> 00:09:28.759 so too is Jesus. It is not as if God, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, 00:09:29.660 --> 00:09:37.420 came down into just a human being and supercharged that human being. The incarnation teaches us that 00:09:37.420 --> 00:09:44.820 God, the Son of God, remaining God, took on human flesh so that he was 100% God and 100% man. 00:09:44.820 --> 00:09:53.320 As God, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus always was. There was never a time 00:09:53.320 --> 00:10:04.020 when he did not exist. He is uncreated. He is still fully God. But if Jesus, the second person of the 00:10:04.020 --> 00:10:14.420 Trinity, equal to God the Father and God the Son, takes on human flesh, why then does our text say, 00:10:14.419 --> 00:10:22.219 that he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped? This is where a lot of heresies have 00:10:22.219 --> 00:10:28.959 pulled a proof text, so to speak, that Jesus wasn't truly God or that he was just some kind of Superman 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:36.220 or great prophet. God is one. Jesus clearly isn't equal with God. Therefore, Jesus isn't God. 00:10:38.060 --> 00:10:47.759 So, was Jesus not God? Or was he just God-light? Diet God? A subordinate version of God? 00:10:47.759 --> 00:10:55.899 God. This tells us that Jesus is in fact God, but that he did not leverage his divine glory 00:10:55.899 --> 00:11:04.360 and majesty, his divine prerogatives as God when he became incarnate. What does that mean? It means 00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:10.879 that when the Son of God took on human flesh, he gave God the Father deference without giving up his 00:11:10.879 --> 00:11:21.179 equality. It is a way to say that he became fully man. You and I are not equal to God, and we ought to 00:11:21.179 --> 00:11:29.799 recognize that. We are subordinate to God. So, Paul, the apostle who wrote this, is drawing our attention 00:11:29.799 --> 00:11:38.360 to the fact that when God, the Son of God, became man, he became man. He was fully man in every respect, 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:45.879 but also that he did not cease being fully God. So, we see this in verse 7. This is what it says. 00:11:49.159 --> 00:11:55.500 But made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 00:11:57.100 --> 00:12:06.340 When Jesus emptied himself, he gave up his divine rights by becoming a servant. Notice that it's the 00:12:06.340 --> 00:12:14.300 same word that he took on the form of, or in the likeness of man here. It is the same as in verse 6. 00:12:14.899 --> 00:12:21.180 Again, it's to say that he is still God, and yet he is still, and that he is fully man. 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:30.920 It means that as a man, he had to come under God's full authority. He had to. This is a key aspect of what 00:12:30.919 --> 00:12:37.679 makes you and I humans. We live under a creator. We are not creators ourselves. And in fact, as I 00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:43.559 referenced earlier, Adam and Eve, this was their big sin. They tried to make themselves God. 00:12:44.699 --> 00:12:50.240 Was that not the temptation that the serpent said to them? If you have this, you will become just like 00:12:50.240 --> 00:13:00.699 God. And forever after that, this is the human problem. We are created beings under God. We have 00:13:00.700 --> 00:13:05.980 no ability to create. I mean, we can create, we can be creative, but we can't make something out of 00:13:05.980 --> 00:13:13.080 nothing. We are not God. And yet, we try to fashion ourselves into God, take the place of God. 00:13:15.140 --> 00:13:25.460 And yet, Jesus, when he comes, he takes on flesh and submits himself to the full authority of God as a man, 00:13:25.460 --> 00:13:33.980 but at the same time, as God doesn't try to take over the throne of heaven like Adam and Eve or like 00:13:33.980 --> 00:13:40.900 all of us. In a sense, he's the perfect man. He is in relationship with God the Father in a perfect way. 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:48.940 In fact, he is the better Adam. He doesn't buckle under the authority of God. He doesn't get tempted 00:13:48.940 --> 00:13:57.600 and give in to the temptations to subvert God's plan and think that he can do it better himself. 00:13:59.380 --> 00:14:07.680 There is no prideful vanity within Jesus, leading to his humiliation. But what does he do? 00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:17.140 He humbles himself. He empties himself. He voluntarily suspends his rights, his divine rights, 00:14:17.139 --> 00:14:23.580 in order to become fully man. This is the beauty of the incarnation. He did not pursue his own glory 00:14:23.580 --> 00:14:32.220 that was his by rights, but rather he limited his glory. He divested himself of his glory. He submitted 00:14:32.220 --> 00:14:39.179 to the will of God the Father. He lived as a human being in a perfect relationship with God. Again, 00:14:39.179 --> 00:14:43.639 the perfect man, the better Adam. Adam 2.0, if you'd like. 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:53.639 He was fully man, but not only man. Remember, he is fully God as well. And this is important for our 00:14:53.639 --> 00:15:00.659 salvation. Something wonderful about God is his unchangingness. He is perfect in all that he does. 00:15:01.620 --> 00:15:07.659 He does not change his mind. There's nothing to be added to him or taken away. We talked about this a bit 00:15:07.659 --> 00:15:14.219 last week and also mentioned it in the Sunday follow-up email that I sent out. Therefore, 00:15:14.439 --> 00:15:20.419 what we see of Jesus, we can understand, again, he doesn't change, that what we see Jesus do, 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:28.059 we can be sure that that reflects perfectly the heart of God. It means that everything he displays, 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:34.579 his character, is actually the character of God. He is, in a sense, the icon, the perfect icon 00:15:34.580 --> 00:15:43.540 of God. He manifests his very character, his essence on earth. So, when we read about Jesus 00:15:43.540 --> 00:15:51.840 taking off his outer garment and tying a towel around his waist and washing the filth and the grime 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:58.440 and the animal droppings and the stench and the dust off of his disciples' feet, 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:07.500 we see a picture of God extending grace and extending love and extending mercy to us. 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:13.760 What we see Jesus do, because he is perfect and because God is unchanging and because he is fully 00:16:13.760 --> 00:16:19.300 God, we know that this is the heart of God the Father. Again, the incarnation is key for us. 00:16:19.299 --> 00:16:30.679 It's a beautiful picture of God's heart towards mankind. Do we deserve it? No. But God, in Jesus, 00:16:30.979 --> 00:16:36.500 humbles himself to show kindness and love and grace. 00:16:38.979 --> 00:16:45.079 If Jesus was merely a good moral teacher, a miracle worker, then he's just that and nothing more. 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:51.780 And he does really nice things. He washes people's feet. It's gross, but he's nice about it. It's great. 00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:57.780 People are hungry. Okay, so he, you know, drums up a little party trick, a bunch of food for everybody. 00:16:58.060 --> 00:17:06.960 Excellent. You know, let's feed the masses. But that's where it ends. It doesn't say anything about 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:13.460 who God is. It doesn't communicate the heart of God towards us. It doesn't point to ultimate salvation. 00:17:13.460 --> 00:17:20.519 It's just nice things. And maybe we emulate it. Maybe we follow his example. But again, that's where it ends. 00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:29.140 If Jesus is merely a moral teacher or a miracle worker, great, fantastic. But that is not, 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.380 that then doesn't speak to him as a savior. 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:44.800 The incarnate God is the only one who could give grace and heal not just our temporal humiliation, 00:17:45.300 --> 00:17:51.820 but our eternal humiliation. This is why the incarnation, it matters so very much. And this is 00:17:51.820 --> 00:17:58.120 why Jesus is the incarnate one. And it had to be this way. It couldn't be any other way. 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:05.119 But Jesus doesn't just wash feet as a picture of grace and mercy and love, does he? His humility 00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:10.259 runs even deeper. Look with me at verse 8. And this will be our second point, that Jesus is the humble 00:18:10.259 --> 00:18:12.259 one. Verse 8 says this, 00:18:12.259 --> 00:18:28.440 Why did the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, empty himself of his divine rights? 00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:33.960 So that he would show the ultimate form of service to others by dying on the cross. 00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:43.200 God, the Son of God, he empties himself in the incarnation to take on human flesh, to humble himself in service 00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:51.420 and obedience to God, the Father's will, by dying on the cross to redeem us. He had to die as a man 00:18:51.420 --> 00:19:01.019 for us in our place. But he could only satisfy the requirements of the law as God himself. And this is, 00:19:01.019 --> 00:19:06.619 again, why he had to humble himself in the incarnation, why he had to humble himself to die on the cross. 00:19:06.980 --> 00:19:13.579 Notice here in verse 8, that the Apostle Paul makes no reference to the historical narrative of the 00:19:13.579 --> 00:19:19.779 crucifixion. It's not that it doesn't matter to him. But the emphasis that the Apostle Paul is drawing 00:19:19.779 --> 00:19:25.879 our eyes to here is not on the narrative of what happened, but rather on the utter gruesomeness, 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:34.960 the grime, the embarrassment, the shame of the cross, which speaks to the very depths of Christ's 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:43.180 humility. Again, he doesn't just wash feet, but he descends, he condescends, he goes to the very lowest 00:19:43.180 --> 00:19:52.480 possible rung of humility. And crucifixion was just that. It was the worst form of public execution 00:19:52.480 --> 00:20:01.680 ever conceived by humanity. It was hellish. It wasn't just that you suffered excruciating pain. 00:20:02.360 --> 00:20:11.740 It was very deeply embarrassing for an honor and shame society. I mean, whether or not Jesus had 00:20:11.740 --> 00:20:20.220 an undergarment on or not, maybe, maybe not, the fact is Romans would crucify people naked 00:20:20.220 --> 00:20:26.960 and they would be there, there would be complete shame and they'd have to suffer and people would 00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:36.640 mock them and animals would get at them. It was, it was hellish. Cicero said of the crucifixion, 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:43.680 quote, the most cruel and hideous form of punishment, far be the very name of a cross, 00:20:44.280 --> 00:20:49.040 not only from the body, but even from the thought, the eyes, the ears of Roman citizens. 00:20:51.580 --> 00:20:59.300 Jesus humbles himself to the very lowest of low. There's no lower than the cross. There's no further 00:20:59.300 --> 00:21:05.140 humility that he could have achieved. He humbles himself to the lowest rung of humanity's frailty 00:21:05.140 --> 00:21:11.520 and brokenness and by doing so, he identifies with us all. There's nobody that is now not 00:21:11.520 --> 00:21:19.940 identifiable that he doesn't identify with. There's nobody that has existed on planet earth in the 00:21:19.940 --> 00:21:29.020 history of time that is somehow more humble than Jesus. Jesus is at the very bottom, which means 00:21:29.019 --> 00:21:38.480 he can identify with all of us. Can God identify with you? Does God know who you are? What you have 00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:45.980 gone through? The shame that you have endured? The hurt that you have experienced? That you have done 00:21:45.980 --> 00:21:54.759 yourself? Can God identify with you? How it feels to be abandoned and forgotten and despised and shamed 00:21:54.759 --> 00:22:05.259 and hurt and broken and abused, feeling no better than a worm? Does he know the depths of your sinful 00:22:05.259 --> 00:22:14.940 condition and what results from that? Your humiliation? Can he understand that? And in the incarnation 00:22:14.940 --> 00:22:24.620 and in the crucifixion, the answer is an emphatic yes. Yes. Some of us, again, I know some stories, 00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:32.140 not all stories of folks in here, gone through stuff. Never to the extent of Christ. That means 00:22:32.140 --> 00:22:39.820 he can commiserate better than anybody else. He doesn't just commiserate, but he can relate. 00:22:39.819 --> 00:22:46.960 He understands. He understands. He's not aloof to what has happened in your life. Imagine that. 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:54.819 Imagine the times in your life where you have been heard by somebody. You have been vulnerable. You 00:22:54.819 --> 00:23:03.480 have poured out your heart. Somebody listens and you feel heard. You're heard, but you feel it right here. 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:15.500 That is Christ. But infinitely greater than whoever has heard you, who can relate to you. This is Christ. 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:26.000 The cross, this humble, self-emptying, incarnate, crucified Christ emphatically can identify with you. 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:34.680 And not only does he identify with you and know you, but he does so voluntarily, not out of compulsion, 00:23:34.819 --> 00:23:44.579 which means it must be an act of love. The Garden of Gethsemane is an incredibly deep and profound 00:23:44.579 --> 00:23:55.619 scene in the passion narrative. But notice that Jesus, he doesn't get his arm twisted by God the Father. 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:05.500 He says not my will, but your will be done. Which means, again, it is an act of love. An act of love within 00:24:05.500 --> 00:24:10.380 the triune God, but that act of love that is then extended to us. 00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:19.559 God not only can identify with the depths of our brokenness, but proclaims his self-giving, 00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:28.159 perfect love towards you before you were even conceived, before you were ever around, before your 00:24:28.159 --> 00:24:34.940 parents, before your grandparents, and so on and so on and so on. He dies in your place so that you do not 00:24:34.940 --> 00:24:40.919 have to taste the just penalty for your sins, so that your humiliation is not the final word. 00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:47.340 What a wonderful truth. The final word on our lives, for those that are in Christ Jesus, 00:24:48.060 --> 00:24:51.380 it is not sinner or loser or failure, and it's not death. 00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:55.500 It is love, it is grace, it's eternal sonship. 00:24:55.500 --> 00:25:06.019 Jesus manifests the very character and essence of God. So when we see this self-humbling, selfless 00:25:06.019 --> 00:25:13.819 service that loudly proclaims love, we see the very heart of God towards us, vain and prideful sinners. 00:25:13.819 --> 00:25:22.720 We try to take the throne of grace and are humiliated, and God's response isn't, 00:25:24.639 --> 00:25:33.419 you got what was coming for you. He sends his son to die on our behalf and elevates us out of our humility. 00:25:35.079 --> 00:25:42.460 A wonderful, wonderful picture of love and grace extended to us. And by the way, 00:25:42.460 --> 00:25:47.500 we get to enjoy this love and be a part of this love and participate in this love forever. 00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:52.279 And this, friends, is why, and this is just, I'm just touching on this, this is like, 00:25:52.620 --> 00:25:57.960 we could double click this and spend eternity discovering it. But this is why the Trinitarian 00:25:57.960 --> 00:26:04.900 understanding of God is the only understanding that can make sense of Jesus dying on the cross. 00:26:04.900 --> 00:26:15.840 Because if God, the Son, went to the cross out of love, and that is the unchanging nature of the Triune God, 00:26:15.900 --> 00:26:25.900 it means that God was always extending love. And if that was always his heart before we were created, 00:26:25.900 --> 00:26:34.519 then it's not like God just loves himself, singular. It's not like he's just existing for all eternity and just, 00:26:34.680 --> 00:26:41.440 I love myself, this is wonderful. No, the Triune God, three persons, one essence, one God, 00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:49.620 the Father is loving the Son, and the Son is loving the Father, and the Holy Spirit is involved in loving this, 00:26:49.619 --> 00:26:57.619 and in some regards is the expression and the source of love. From all time, the uncreated God is 00:26:57.619 --> 00:27:06.619 constantly extending love within the Triune, within the Trinity itself. And when God saves us, 00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:14.559 because God is extending his love towards us, we get invited into this. Not that we become a part of the 00:27:14.559 --> 00:27:23.460 Trinity, but that we get to enjoy the love that God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit 00:27:23.460 --> 00:27:34.379 enjoy in the Godhead, because we are now found in Christ. Jesus had to be fully God and fully man for this to 00:27:34.379 --> 00:27:43.960 happen. Jesus humbles himself by dying on a cross as an expression of the love of God, but does he stay dead? 00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:50.839 He does not. And here's where the rubber truly meets the road in terms of Jesus's divinity, 00:27:51.179 --> 00:27:59.139 because all people will die. All of us have had death thrust in our faces, whether it's loved ones 00:27:59.139 --> 00:28:05.879 or close calls with ourselves or with family members. I mean, the past 12 months have been really 00:28:05.879 --> 00:28:13.559 full of death in the news. Canada continues down a culture of death. There's wars. I mean, 00:28:13.559 --> 00:28:20.879 the picture is, we become numb to it because of so much death. Everyone will die. We are accustomed to 00:28:20.879 --> 00:28:28.500 death, but no one will come back from the dead. It's impossible for a mere human to rise again from 00:28:28.500 --> 00:28:37.399 the dead. For all of us, death is a necessity, but only Jesus chose death. It was not a necessity for him, 00:28:37.400 --> 00:28:45.000 which means he is more powerful than even death itself. He has authority over death. So when he 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:53.640 humbled himself, he humbled himself even to death. Jesus is indeed a human, but remember, he is not 00:28:53.640 --> 00:29:00.460 only a human. The rest of our passage communicates to us this truth that Jesus did not stay dead, but 00:29:00.460 --> 00:29:07.300 rose again and has been exalted from the lowest depths to the highest heights. Look with me at verses 9 to 11. 00:29:07.400 --> 00:29:14.320 And this is our third point and final point, that Jesus is the exalted one. This is what it says, 00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:20.380 verse 9 to 11. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every 00:29:20.380 --> 00:29:26.780 name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 00:29:26.840 --> 00:29:35.600 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Not only does Jesus 00:29:35.599 --> 00:29:41.659 rise from the grave, defeating sin and death forever, he is also exalted to the highest 00:29:41.659 --> 00:29:49.839 place and given highest authority. Remember, this is Jesus who refused to count equality with God a 00:29:49.839 --> 00:29:57.759 thing to hold on to. He divested himself of his glory. He humbled himself completely and now has it bestowed 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:04.940 on him because he was perfectly obedient to the will of God, fully man, fully God, and now is 00:30:04.940 --> 00:30:14.400 exalted to the highest place. Not reverting back to God, the Son of God, leaving his humanity 00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:22.799 on earth, but being exalted as Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God. And if we therefore are in him, 00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:32.919 that will be our destiny as well. No eye can see, no mind can comprehend what Christ Jesus has 00:30:32.919 --> 00:30:40.339 for those that trust him and love him and put their faith in him. Can we fully grasp what it would mean 00:30:40.339 --> 00:30:48.119 to be exalted with Christ in the heavenlies? This is what this text is telling us. These verses 00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:55.079 emphatically declare that the incarnate Jesus is indeed God himself and yet again fully man. 00:30:55.859 --> 00:31:01.819 We see in parts of the Old Testament that God, he does not share his name with no other and that God 00:31:01.819 --> 00:31:09.539 is the one to whom all creation will bow down to, Isaiah 42 and 45. And here, what does it say? 00:31:10.500 --> 00:31:17.619 Every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the 00:31:17.619 --> 00:31:22.279 earth. That is to say, all of creation, Jesus is God. 00:31:25.339 --> 00:31:29.539 Jesus is exalted to his rightful place with the Father, with all honor and dominion 00:31:29.539 --> 00:31:37.859 over all of creation, over all of the cosmos. All of it is his. All of it, whether in this life or 00:31:37.859 --> 00:31:44.299 the next, will bend a knee to Christ as King. He is given the divine name, the divine authority, 00:31:44.299 --> 00:31:51.399 all of his divine prerogatives once again bestowed upon him. This is a brief yet magnificent picture 00:31:51.399 --> 00:31:56.460 of the consummation, the climax of all of redemptive history. 00:31:56.460 --> 00:32:08.559 This entire section, it is understood really to be a hymn. Not the hymns that Jono led us in, 00:32:09.220 --> 00:32:17.880 but a hymn of praise, a doxology almost, just proclaiming the greatness and glory of God. 00:32:17.880 --> 00:32:24.160 So to wrap this up, the Christian faith starts and ends with Jesus. 00:32:26.080 --> 00:32:31.580 It is built upon his life, his death, his resurrection and exaltation. According to the 00:32:31.580 --> 00:32:36.920 scriptures, his incarnation. Sometimes these supernatural claims are hard to fathom. 00:32:36.920 --> 00:32:45.039 We recognize Jesus actually lived. But was he really God? I don't know. Did he really walk on 00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:52.420 water? I don't know. Did he really multiply loaves and fishes? It's kind of hard to believe. Did he 00:32:52.420 --> 00:32:57.860 heal people? Did he cast out demons? There's a lot of difficult things to wrestle through. And people 00:32:57.859 --> 00:33:09.339 loving what Jesus represents turn him into a type of archetype, a myth, somebody to emulate in a sense. 00:33:09.419 --> 00:33:21.759 His stories, they look to something greater. And to an extent, it's true. But Jesus is 100% 00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:31.500 fully God and fully man. He 100% fully rose from the grave. For if he didn't literally do that, 00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:40.119 our faith is gone. Stay home next weekend, please. Better things to do if Jesus didn't actually do this. 00:33:40.940 --> 00:33:51.740 Go to brunch. Go for a nice walk. Visit somebody. But if he did, if he did rise from the grave, 00:33:51.759 --> 00:34:04.460 changes, changes everything. It really does. We live in a disenchanted age. We struggle to even 00:34:04.460 --> 00:34:13.599 comprehend anything that we can't materially see or explain. Supernatural claims are, I mean, 00:34:13.599 --> 00:34:21.880 we call them myths. And really this is just the air we breathe. It's hard to push back against that. 00:34:22.659 --> 00:34:29.799 But I'll just say this. That worldview is 2D at best. It doesn't understand that the good and the true 00:34:29.799 --> 00:34:38.659 and the beautiful find their fulfillment in a source, in the source of a perfect being, because it cannot 00:34:38.659 --> 00:34:44.759 recognize that those things reflect godly design, God's character and his essence. If Jesus didn't 00:34:44.759 --> 00:34:51.259 come in the incarnation, if he didn't live and die and rise again, then what does goodness ultimately 00:34:51.260 --> 00:34:59.720 point to? What does love, how does, where does love find its, its end, its telos? Where does, where does, where does, 00:34:59.820 --> 00:35:06.740 where does beauty kind of climax? Like what, what is, there's always greater amounts of beauty, but what, but the, 00:35:06.740 --> 00:35:14.440 surely there, there is a source of beauty or an ultimate beauty. But if not, then our world starts to unravel. 00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:22.500 The God of the universe created humanity to be united to him. He is the source of everything that, 00:35:22.639 --> 00:35:28.500 again, is good, that is true, that is beautiful. And we rejected it for something far less glorious and 00:35:28.500 --> 00:35:37.300 far less beautiful. All of our strivings, our failings, our foibles are all vain attempts to regain that 00:35:37.300 --> 00:35:58.100 thing. And it's, and it's a, a vain pursuit. Friends, we are people shouting Hosanna on Palm Sunday 00:35:58.099 --> 00:36:08.119 only to shout crucify him a few days later on Good Friday. He knew this and he still rode into Jerusalem. 00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:15.659 He still rode into Jerusalem. He knew it and yet he still triumphantly entered Jerusalem. 00:36:16.900 --> 00:36:25.619 Not to save us from Rome, but to save us from sin and death and our vain pursuits and to redeem us from 00:36:25.619 --> 00:36:29.500 this humiliation that we've suffered since our first father. 00:36:33.559 --> 00:36:37.400 Jesus emptying himself, suspending his divine rights, 00:36:39.259 --> 00:36:46.839 becoming enfleshed, becoming fully human so that he can identify with us, paying the price to redeem us, 00:36:47.380 --> 00:36:52.239 not staying in the ground, but rising again, exalted into heaven. Friends, 00:36:52.239 --> 00:36:59.019 this is something rock solid to put our faith in. Let us do that today. Let us pray. 00:37:00.199 --> 00:37:08.839 Father, thank you so much for the incarnation. Thank you that it is a very appropriate and good thing to 00:37:08.839 --> 00:37:18.099 read and to ponder and to meditate upon and, and ultimately to live in light of as we enter into Holy 00:37:18.099 --> 00:37:28.179 Week as we journey towards the cross. Lord, by your Holy Spirit, Lord, we ask that you'll impart and 00:37:28.179 --> 00:37:36.940 implant these truths deep in our souls. Lord, we thank you that your response to our vain pursuits of glory 00:37:36.940 --> 00:37:43.920 that result in destruction to others and humiliation in our own lives was grace. 00:37:44.619 --> 00:37:50.559 And Lord, we pray that you would bless us in this truth today. In Christ's name. Amen.