December 15, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we bow our hearts before you tonight in worship. We acknowledge that you are God and we are not. And we’re glad. We are thankful. We’re thankful for your blood that covers our sin. We’re thankful for your life that awakened us, awoke us to. To you. We’re thankful for your spirit, who makes us more like you. We’re thankful for a great hope. And, Lord, we rejoice tonight in the name and the promise of Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right, dear ones, we’re doing it. We are going through the Bible.
Three more weeks. So I’m trying to get a little ahead. And I am. I am in. Where am I at? I finished Revelation 18. I’ve got four more chapters. Four more chapters to go. So. Anyway, hope you’re there, too. I won’t. You know what? No scorecards here.
Here’s God’s mercy and God’s grace. You already got an A on the report card. You got Jesus a. God sees his son, Jesus. He looks at you and says, here’s the A. All right, now we can just enjoy and learn and grow into it.
All you got to do is grow into it. So there you go. Having said that, if you don’t finish your Scripture reading through the year by December 31st, you will spend at least 10 years in purgatory. But other than that, why are we worried? Yeah. Yeah. No, Purgatory does exist. It’s called now. This is Purgatory. All right. All right, dear ones, we’re going to be tonight or tonight. Yeah, we’re going to be in Philippians, chapter 2, verses 5 through 11. This is one of my, you know, life verses. Somebody says, what’s your life verse?
I just have. There’s so many Scriptures that just have grabbed me through different parts of my life. This is one of them. This probably starting at verse six through verse 11. It’s probably not original from St. Paul, though it’s included in his letter to the Philippians. It is probably an early Christian hymn, probably one of the first Christian hymns ever written. I was just in Denver, and my kids go to a Vineyard church there, and there were four Vineyard churches that gathered together Friday night just for a hymn sing. We just sang hymns.
The preacher did get up and preach a little bit, which was good. I’m always in favor of that. But he didn’t preach long, and it was just the hymns. And I was so refreshed. I’m typically so refreshed with those Christmas songs.
And it’s not always the first verse, the ones that we’re familiar with. We get into the second and third verses, man. I mean, just rich stuff. And a lot of those rich stuff. Here’s a little bit of Christian hymnody trivia. The song we all like to sing, Joy to the World, isn’t about.
Did I say this last week? All right, even if I did, you forgot. Joy to the World isn’t about the first Advent. It isn’t about Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. That hymn was written to celebrate his second coming. And so that’s what that hymn’s about.
But, you know, it applies, right? It applies because everything that we receive in the final coming of Jesus is anticipated in that stable in Bethlehem. And so it is. This is. Advent is the season of hope, people.
And as I was going through this, I think, oh, my gosh, I’m preaching, you know, through the Bible and it’s Advent. How do you, you know, when you got kind of that structure, how do you find Advent sermons?
As I was praying that and this week, it was like Philippians, James, and First Timothy, I think. As I was looking at that, it just this verse just jumped out at me. And Lord said, this is a Christmas verse, man. This is a Christmas song.
And so Philippians 2:5-11, the celestial dive. And we’ll get into that title in a minute, where it came from, but here it is.
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Therefore, God elevated him to the highest place of honor, gave him the name above all names, that at the Name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges ; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. 9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11, NLT)
May the words of my mouth, the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.
This passage has been meaningful to me for a long time.
And at the first church after seminary, as an associate pastor at this Methodist church in Central California, I must have mentioned it because the sexton of that church. Sexton is actually a church. You know, every group has their own code for things, right?
Military is famous for that. You know, you got a couple military guys talking and you don’t know what they’re saying. They’re talking and go, teachers, you know, getting teachers. They got their code.
So sexton words like sexton, narthex, you know, those are. Those are like churchy words. Sexton means custodian.
All right, so the church custodian, he must have found out that I was just. He was just a good man. And he gave me this as a present. He made a plaque, a calligraphy, a calligraphy plaque of this verse and hung on my door for years. This verse is so significant to me.
A funny story about the section of the church there in Visaya. He had a habit of walking in the sanctuary every Monday morning after church. And he would say in a big bellowing voice, hello, Lord.
And then he’d get about his business cleaning the church. And one Sunday, whoever was in charge of locking up didn’t lock up. And a homeless person came that night. They went up to the balcony and they slept in the warmth of the church on the balcony. And he walks into the bottom floor Monday morning, goes, hello, Lord. And he hears from up in the balcony, hello. That was the day of his conversion. So anyway, this verse was there, and as I said, it’s probably an early Christian hymn, except for verse five.
But verse five is where the point why Paul uses this hymn. He says, look it, we are to have the same attitude that was there in Christ Jesus.
And he’s talking about us working together in the church and being of one in mind and one in spirit and agreeing wholeheartedly, loving one another. And he says, don’t do anything out of selfish ambition.
And then he says, listen, here’s how we do this. Take on the attitude, take on the mindset of Jesus Christ. We are to imitate Christ.
In some places, you would think that salvation is primarily about doctrinal fidelity. What I mean by that is if you get your doctrine right, if you, you know, if you’ve got good doctrine, you know, there’s going to be a minimal entrance requirement at the gates of heaven.
Do you believe in justification by faith? You know, do you believe in this or do you believe in that? It’s like, I don’t think doctrinal. I think we all are going to be corrected in our doctrine at some.
I mean, you more than me, but I mean, I think we’re all going to be corrected in our doctrine at some level. All right, but really. And I just belayed what true salvation is about. I’m further away than you are because really, salvation is about humility.
Imitate Christ, have this attitude in you that was also in Christ Jesus. The only qualification for the kingdom of heaven is to know that I’m not qualified. That’s the thing that qualifies us. It’s so amazing.
In John’s gospel, when Jesus heals a poor blind man, the Pharisees ask, you know, what gives you the right to heal this blind man? Blah blah blah blah. And Jesus says, you know, well, he was blind, now he sees.
And you know, the Pharisees and the conversation gets around to them. Jesus points the conversation to them, and they say, what are you saying, that we’re blind? Are you saying that we’re blind? And Jesus’ answer is so powerful.
He says, oh, if you would admit it, if you would just say we’re blind, I would give you sight. But since you say we see, you remain blind.
Have this attitude in you. Choose this attitude. Imitate Christ and say he must increase, I must decrease. Humble yourselves.
I joke, you know, oh, I love it when my wife says I’m right. But you know what? If I need a bunch of I’m rights, I’m not imitating Jesus.
The whole world, just about the Roman government, the Jewish people in Jerusalem all looked at him and said, you’re wrong and you’re going to a cross. And he didn’t defend himself. He went, because there’s something about humility that then allows God to lift us up.
There’s something about our helplessness that calls upon the heart of God to help us. I was just with my grandkids back in Denver and my youngest, James, just a little over, he’s about seven months, a little over six months old.
And he’s on the floor, and he’s starting to crawl. He’s, you know, he’s getting there. He’s just not quite crawling, but he’s getting close. He loves to be on the floor and work on that and look at things and roll around.
He’s a good-natured baby, but he loves to be on the floor for a while. But then he’ll start to get frustrated, and he starts to squeak. All right, because you know what? He can’t rectify the situation. He can’t get up, he can’t get to that toy. He can’t get.
He’s helpless and he’s frustrated. But in his helplessness, what does that move my heart to do? Pick him up, pick him up and put him. And when the minute I do, he smiles at me, it’s like, thanks Grandpa.
And I put him on my knee. And then I make the mistake of bouncing him on my knee, which means in about a minute he’s going to barf on my clothes. And he is excellent at that, by the way. That boy is good at doing that.
But there’s something about humility that moves the heart of God. That’s why I tell you all the time, the best prayer you can ever pray, help, help. You know, God has come to change our lives. God has come to help us. God has come to save us.
I remember I was arguing with one of my uncles one time about Christianity when I was newly a new believer. And he said, your religion is just a crutch. And arguing even back then never offended me. I, you know, I do.
I can get offended by a lot of things, but I try not to be a person of offense. However, I can still get offended. Arguing, when somebody argues with me, always baffles me when people get offended with an argument in the classical sense of we’re debating ideas here. We’re back and forth. You know, if you start name-calling and making it personal, then it’s bad. But basically, you know, we’re just art, you know. He says, well, I think, you know, you’re not living your own life. You’re not taking responsibility. You’re leaning on God.
He’s a Christian crutch. And I think it was the Holy Spirit just gave me this line, says, it’s not a crutch, it’s an ambulance. I don’t need no stinking crutch. I need a savior. I need the emergency room. I need doctors beating on my chest.
You know, I’m a sinking ship, man. I don’t need a little help. And I think we make a mistake when we use church. We use religion. Oh, it’s a little help. You know, I go to church once in a while. Gives me a little help, gives me a little boost. Gives me a little inspiration. Not me, man. I need a savior. Have mercy on me. A sinner. I can’t fix myself. I’ve been trying for 65 years and 364 days.
All right, I don’t know if you know this about me. I still do things wrong, really. We are called to imitate the attitude of Christ. The attitude of humility, the attitude of sacrifice. He lays down his life, but also the attitude of hope. Because he came into the world for the joy that was set before him. He went to the cross for the joy that was set before him.
2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. (Hebrews 12:2, NLT)
You can live, I don’t know, 40-50 days without food. You skinny people, not so much. You know, some of you folks, if, you know, if all the end of the world, it’s going to get terrible stuff is true, and you know, there’s going to be great famines, you know, I just want to say you’d be dropping like flies. And I’ll just be in my recliner going, I’m good.
All the medical professionals said I was doing it wrong. But right now, who’s right? Who’s right? So however many days you can go without food, maybe three without water, I don’t know, not much longer than that. Maybe what, just a couple minutes without air. I don’t think you can go 10 seconds without hope.
I don’t think you can go 10 seconds without hope. Hope is this anticipation that it’s going to be good, that it’s going to be good. Christ went to the cross for the joy and the hope that was set before him. And without hope, Christianity is just an altruistic tale about another good man gone down.
But Jesus, he suffers. He humbles himself, and he suffers. But he does it because of the hope and the joy set before him. And this, the passage says that he humbled himself although he existed as God. Jesus is God. He is the Son of God, the Trinitarian, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
How can one be three and three be one? I don’t know. Figure it out and you can tell me. There’s all sorts of analogies out there. But I like what Augustine said about it.
He said, well, if you can figure it out, it’s not God. He’s not irrational, but he’s bigger than our rationality. And so he’s the three in one.
He’s the eternally, the Son, co-eternal with the Father, the uncreated King of Heaven, adored by the angels for all eternity, in all glory and splendor.
And we sang it tonight. The King of Heaven becomes a baby in the dirt, before that, a fetus in the womb. How is that possible? It’s a mystery. It’s incredible, but that’s what this hymn says.
Although he existed as God, he empties himself of his divine privileges. He does not consider God; he does not consider that as something to be clung to, but he lays it down.
That doesn’t mean when he’s on Earth, he’s not the Son of God. What it does mean when he’s on Earth is he voluntarily says, I’m going to walk this world as a man. Theologians have a word for that; it’s called kenosis, the emptying of Jesus. And what does he actually lay aside?
Well, I think he lays aside the omnis, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the omnipotence. Where is that in the Bible? I don’t know. Luke, chapter five. He could do very few miracles there because of their unbelief.
The omnipotent God, creator of the universe, limits his miraculous, overwhelming power to the faith of human beings. His omnipresence. Well, that’s pretty obvious. We’re in Galilee. We need to go to Jerusalem. Well, why do we know? Why do we need to go to Jerusalem? you’re already there. No, we got to walk. We got to walk as a man.
He walked to Jerusalem, all right? The Father, he was already in Jerusalem. the Spirit, he’s already in Jerusalem. When Jesus is in heaven, he’s already in Jerusalem. But while he’s on earth, he walks his omniscience.
The woman who had the flow of blood comes up behind him and grabs. Grabs his coat or grabs the hem of his garment. And he feels the power of God flow through him into that, into the woman, to heal her. And he turns around, he looks at the crowd, he’s going, who touched me? Who did that? Ah, that was just a test for her.
All right, let me give you one that’s even more definitive. When are you going to do all these things, Jesus? When is all this going to happen? No man knows. Only the Father in heaven. Then he says what not even the Son people say. Do you think he knows now? Of course. He’s not up there going, come on, dad, when is it? He’s at the right hand. He’s got it now.
This emptying of God actually takes us back to the first verse. We ought to imitate Christ. Well, if he’s operating completely as the Son of God on earth, how do we imitate him? Right. He’s not one of us. He’s amazing. He’s marvelous. He’s worthy of our praise and worship, but he’s out of our league.
But if he empties himself of those divine privileges, he walks as a man filled with the Spirit. It’s very interesting. In the Gospels, there are no known miracles of Jesus before his baptism and the Holy Spirit comes upon him. What does that tell us? The same Spirit that was in Jesus is in us.
And so, not only is he worthy of our adoration and praise, but now he is worthy of our emulation, which is exactly what this passage says.
Imitate Christ. Do the things Jesus did. Don’t just go, that’s marvelous. He healed the sick. Yeah, you heal the sick. Well, he cast out devils. Yeah, you cast out devils. He raised the dead. You raised the dead. He preached the kingdom. You preached the kingdom. He humbled himself to the point of death. Death on a cross. You humble yourself and love your enemies and bless those who persecute you.
And turn the other cheek. Now, did he do these things better than us? Yes. Why? He is the Son of God. He is without sin.
All right, but it doesn’t let us then off the hook. We are to. I mean, the Bible says we shall be like him. Our life in this earth, the whole thing is, once we come to faith in Christ, is I want to be more like him tomorrow than I am today. I want to be more like him in 2025 than I am in 2024. I want to imitate him better.
He did tell his disciples to believe in him, but he also told his disciples to do what? Follow him. What you see me doing, you do. Have this attitude, have this mindset that was in Christ Jesus. He became a man. Well, that wasn’t hard. We did that, men and women. Wasn’t our choice.
One day your parents. One day your dad looked at your mom and said, hey, babe. Next thing you know, there you are. Don’t think about that too long. It’s kind of creepy, but that’s how it happened. All right.
But the king of the universe becomes a poor man. He’s not born to a king. He’s not born in a palace. He’s not born in Rome. He’s not born in Jerusalem, a cradle in the dirt in Bethlehem.
He’s a humble man, a carpenter in a small village, living as a conquered people under the thumb of the Romans. The king of Kings humbling himself before Caesar. You know how petty a Caesar is. You know how empty and vapid human leaders are. They come and go.
We read it tonight in Psalm 45. Don’t put your trust in human leaders. They got nothing to offer you. I mean, I think we should be politically involved. I think we can. You know, their politicians can do a lot of harm, and some of them may even be able to do a little good.
And I think we have this privilege of voting. We have this privilege of being involved. And it’s part of our job. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And the political sphere is one of those spheres in which that kingdom comes.
And so we ought to do our part there. But, dear ones, oh, dear ones, our hope is not in the next election, and it’s not in a new leader. Our hope is in this humble servant, this poor baby.
He’s a king, and yet he makes chairs, gets splinters in his hands. He’s a working man. He’s a blue-collar man. And he came, he told his disciples, though I’m king, I’ve come to serve and give my life as a ransom to many.
He’s a mortal man. The eternal king of the universe takes on our mortality. And he bleeds and he dies. He bleeds and he dies. That’s what this passage says. He was a servant. He was a man. He took on the form of a man. He took on the form of a servant. He died even death on a cross, even the worst death.
He died a painful death. He died a torturous death. He died a mocking death where people were mocking him. He died a shameful death where he hung upon that piece of wood. Probably not without that little modesty cloth that all our pictures of the cross display.
The Romans invented crucifixion to humiliate torture. It was deterrent with a capital D. When the Romans said they wanted to kill you, you better say, man. Throw me in the lion’s den, cut off my head, but don’t nail me to a piece of wood. Worst way to die.
And Jesus. This is what C.S. Lewis calls the celestial dive. Philippians 2. Although he existed as God, he humbled himself, became a servant, a slave, a human being. Died death on a cross. He dives from heaven to the depths of the human experience. Why? To save us.
Because we couldn’t climb out of that hole. So he came down to the bottom of that hole to pick us up. That’s the humility of God. I’ve studied world religions. I actually have. I’m not brilliant at it. I probably forgot a lot of what I learned.
But I was a religious studies major in my undergraduate degree, and the two best classes I had as a religious studies major was Introduction to Eastern Religions and Introduction to Western Religions. Because I got a good look at the basic premises of all the religions of the world.
And it showed me that one of the most ignorant things people say is that all the religions of the world are basically the same. That says nothing about world religions. It says that you did not go to the Harvard or the West Coast, Cal State University, Chico, and study world religions.
Because if you had, you would have known that all the world religions are not the same. And let me tell you one of the stark differences that is displayed right here in this passage. No other religion in the world has a humble God.
No other religion in the world has a humble God. Nobody did this. Every other religion in the world says, look up and be like us. This passage says, be like us. Jesus says, imitate Christ.
But then we have the Christ who humbles himself and becomes one of us, makes himself completely accessible to poor little people like us and says, take my hand, you baby on the floor. I can’t walk, I can’t do this. Take my hand. I’ll reach down and pick you up.
It’s the celestial dive. It is so beautiful. And it is. That’s Christmas, people. That’s Christmas, right? That’s the whole story. A poor couple scandalized by a virgin conception. I mean, you know, I don’t care how much you love your daughter, if she came home with that story, you’d be like, yeah, we’re getting a DNA test here. A virgin conception. The neighbors knew it, the people in Nazareth knew it.
No room, not even a decent room to be born in with the animals. The shepherds who were the. They weren’t. Even though there’s a great history in Israel of shepherds, they were not considered top flight folks or the first witnesses. That’s Christmas. But then the plot turns. Then the plot turns.
Look for this word in the Bible often, especially in Paul’s letters. Verse nine starts with this word therefore. Therefore because of A. Now we’re getting B. And here’s where the plot turns. This is where God steps in and says, now watch what I’m going to do with this.
All my movie illustrations are old, you know, that haven’t seen a movie in 25 years. But I don’t think they’ve changed. One of the main themes of movies is exactly what’s in this passage: the descent of the hero and of the situation. It just gets more tragic and more hopeless, and the bad guys seem to be getting their way.
Then, all of a sudden, at some point in the movie, it changes. Movies have a way of telling you this. They do it with music; they do it with the score, right? Once you hear that score, you know it’s on, baby. All right.
My grandsons, my two, my two older grandsons have taught my two little two-year-old granddaughters a phrase. My grandsons play sports. All right. No. And Theo love to play sports. And they’re learning trash talking, which my wife is aghast because she thinks all games should be Kumbaya.
She has this huge dilemma because she organizes games for our family to play and she wants me to play. And I don’t want to play. But there’s a reason I don’t want to play, because I don’t want to play by her rules. Her rules are stupid.
Her rules are, let’s get together and have this game so everybody has fun and we bond. No. If we’re going to play a game, here’s the deal. With all my heart and all my effort, you are going down and I’m going to win. And if I don’t, I’ll be a little grumpy. And if I do, I might say something.
Here’s what my grandsons are learning to say when they make a basket or get a base hit. All day, son. All day, son. I’m gonna be here all day making baskets. In your face.
All the three pointer. All day, son. It’s like, stop it. But they learned that stuff from me. I used to play basketball with them. So you can’t stop this. You can’t stop this. So now the funny thing is, I have these two little two year old granddaughters and they were all dressed up and we gave them early Christmas presents because we were back there.
They’re all dressed up in their little princess gowns. And my oldest, my two old grandsons have taught them when they were back there for Thanksgiving, the phrase all day sun. Caitlin, Letty, say, all day, son. All day son. That’s. That’s their deal. All right?
You just know the plot’s going to turn and the bad guys are going to get it. And listen, I don’t, I don’t recommend gloating. I don’t like to put other people down. But I think God does gloat in the Bible over his enemies. He says, you tried to destroy people. you’re going down. Now you know it.
In the movies with the musical score, that’s the all day sun in the movies is a musical. Musical score, old movie, 1980s. All right. The first and the best of the four. I guess there’s now five. Harrison Ford was raised from the dead to do one more Indiana Jones. I’ll get them. So the first is the best, though. The first is the best.
And they’re going after the Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis want the Ark of the Covenant to use it as some kind of super weapon. They found it, and they’re taking it away on the truck. They’ve got Indy’s girl, and they’ve got the Ark.
And it seems like the bad guys are going to get this marvelous, powerful Ark, and there’s nothing. And it’s just Indy against. And there’s like all these Nazi soldiers and all these trucks, and they’ve got to have their machine guns.
What’s going to happen? The Ark is going to the Nazis, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, but all of a sudden you know something’s going to happen. And here’s how you know something’s going to happen.
If you haven’t seen it, Isaiah, you got to watch it. Raiders of the Lost Ark. That music starts and you know, all day, son, it’s on. And what happened? Very biblical. Indy gets on a white horse and chases down the German army to recapture the Ark.
I mean, it’s on a white horse in the Bible, in Paul’s letters. Therefore, he became a man, he became a slave. He died, even death on a cross. Oh, no. What a horrible story. Therefore, God has highly exalted him.
You like that, Aiko? All right. Is the laughter, enjoyment, or mockery? Don’t tell me. I’m in a zone. God will exalt. Here’s the imitation, dear ones. Here’s why we imitate Christ. God will exalt the humble. Humble yourself, and God will exalt you. Who do you think can lift you up higher?
That’s actually why I don’t like trash talking, because trash talking is you’re lifting yourself up when a guy scores a touchdown and makes a big deal of it. I like what Lou Holtz used to say for Notre Dame. He said, I tell our players to act like they’ve already been there. I’m just doing my job. Of course I scored a touchdown. That’s what I do.
Humble yourself. God will exalt you. He is then given the name that is above every name. Is that true? What name on planet earth is more recognized, has more fame, has more honor than the Name of Jesus? Yeah, I heard it. None. Not just in our culture.
Go to Africa, go to Muslim countries. The Name of Jesus is honored all over the world, though it’s blasphemed. Though it’s used when somebody hits a bad golf shot, though it’s. It’s the. The name is honored. He has been given the name that is above every name by the power of his name.
Notice his name is even powerful and it’s exclusion. Because the devil will tell people, oh, yes, seek a higher power, but they won’t tell people to love Jesus. You can say, I just thank God and they’ll be okay with it. If you say, I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because that name, right, we used to sing it, right?
There’s something about that name. It is a name of fame, it is a name of honor, and it is a name of power. I’ve told you the story about the first deliverance. I did. And this little teenage girl who had multiple demons, and these demons were speaking through her. We were trying to get rid of these demons.
At one point during the night, while we were doing this deliverance, the demonic voice, or one of the many demonic voices, spoke through this little 15-year-old girl. I’m holding her hand, and this evil voice comes out of her mouth and says, I’m going to hurt you now. She began to dig this little girl’s fingernails into the palm of my hand.
And all I could think of doing right now is saying this in the Name of Jesus, stop it. And her hand went limp in my hand, and it stopped it. I remember thinking at the time a profound theological thought. Glad that worked. Glad that worked.
But I realized something about that name. There’s something about that name Jesus. Speak it over your family, speak it over your home, speak it over your automobile, speak it over your bike. Jesus, help me speak it over your neighborhood, your city, your town. Over Poulsbo, we speak the name Jesus.
Over Kitsap county, we speak the name Jesus, Lord. Over Silverdale, we speak the name Jesus. Lord Jesus, be exalted, King of, king of kings, Lord of lords, God of hosts, send your heavenly hosts to open wide heaven over this region that the Name of Jesus would be lifted up and you would draw men and women to yourself. We speak the Name of Jesus at the Name of Jesus. He has given him the name that is above every name. So at the Name of Jesus, all creation will bow.
There are two orders of being specifically in mind here. There are two orders of being specifically in mind. Because as best I can understand the Bible, God created two orders of beings to be in his image and likeness.
What does that mean? To rule with him, to actually partner with him in bringing in, stewarding his creation. One order of being is non-material. They don’t have bodies, they’re not physical, they’re spiritual. We give them the broad name of angels or the angelic host, the Elohim, sometimes the plural, the small G gods in the Old Testament.
And then the other order of beings that he created to rule with him, us, which is interesting, just an interesting hybrid between the animal kingdom and the Spiritual kingdom. And God thought so highly about that creation, he became one of us.
And everybody who belongs to those two orders will bow and kneel and say Jesus Christ is Lord. There will be those who will say it in great joy. There will be those who will say it in great joy because they learned way before that he is Lord.
What do you do when you sing these worship songs in church on Sunday night? you’re rehearsing for that minute, that moment. Oh, yeah, we sang that. We sang that. We gave you honor and praise. I opened my mouth and I acknowledged you were King of Kings and Lord of lords.
I remember 12, 15, 24, we actually sang the song King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We sang it. I did it every Sunday, man. I reminded myself often. I prepared for this moment. And I will gladly fall to my knee and say, Jesus Christ, you are my king and my Lord. I adore you.
I worship you and I thank you. But even the devil of hell himself will say it on that day. Some will say it, and they will enter into their eternal reward. Others will acknowledge it and they’ll go to their destruction. But Jesus Christ is Lord. Every knee will bow.
Those in heaven, those who have gone before us, those spiritual heavenly beings, those in Hades, those who are in the waiting place of death, those who are on the earth now, humans, angels, demons, the whole bit. Every voice will say Jesus Christ is Lord.
The dragon, the beast, the false prophet. Jesus Christ is Lord. Every saint, Jesus Christ is Lord. All creation will worship him. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father. He will judge the living and the dead. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
He humbled himself; therefore, God exalted him to the highest place. And this gives glory to the Father in heaven.
Remember, Bryan, years and years ago, Isaiah was in high school theater, and we went to that play. I think you were there with us as part of the Bible study. We went to the play. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I imagine. And he was pretty good, right? He memorized his lines. He knew what he’s doing. I imagine when he did that, you weren’t, like, jealous of himself. Well, I could do that better.
I should be up there in that play. I imagine, like any other father, you probably just had these feelings, I guess, like, I’m proud of my son. That gives me pleasure to see him excel at what he’s good at.
I remember my son played sports. Soccer. Seven years old, he was seven. And my dad was very. When I played sports, my dad was very vociferous. My dad had a loud voice and wasn’t afraid to use it. And I.
Later in life, I’ve come to appreciate, you know, he was encouraging, and he wanted to be there for his son. His dad was never there for him, and so he was there for me. And so I’m very grateful for that.
It was sometimes embarrassing. My friends said, boy, Clancy, everybody hears your dad. They did. And he’d go to my son’s game. And he had not lost that trait. But my son was very uptight. He was very perfectionist. He was very high strung. He didn’t need me yelling, get the ball. You know?
And so I toned it down for my son because I didn’t want to add. He put enough pressure on himself. I don’t want to add any.
So I was that dad. I didn’t mimic my dad in that. But I remember, seven years old, playing soccer. He kicked a ball, bend it like Beckham, baby. That ball just arced and it twisted, and the goalie reached up and jumped, and it went over his fingers and boom, right in the corner of the net. And it was a long kick.
It wasn’t like he wasn’t at the penalty line. He was out there always. And there were two people. Sit in front of me. I’ll never forget this.
Wow. That was a good kick. Whose kid is that? Every knee will bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:11, NLT)
Wow. He died on the cross for our sins. Whose kid is that? Whose kid is that? To the glory of God the Father and all the angels and all heaven. The Father will be delighted. The sun has risen, will be delighted.
The Spirit will be making us all dance, and it will be good. All because the human race needed a humble God, and we have one. You want to be like him? Start with humility. You can set your mind however you want. All right.
Philippians, chapter four. Later on, Paul says, whatever is excellent, whatever is true, whatever is praiseworthy, whatever is honorable. Set your mind.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8, NLT)
There are a million things that are outside of your control right now. Russia, Ukraine, Hamas, Israel. People are launching bombs at each other, missiles at each other. This is horrible.
Seems to be escalating. The world’s on the verge of World War 3. We have some power. Lord, save us, pray. But I mean, they’re not going to call me to bring diplomacy to that situation. I’m not going to go talk to those world leaders and say, hey, knuckleheads, stop it.
There are lots of innocent people getting hurt because you want more power for yourselves. Knock it off. Go to your rooms and I can’t be their dad. Lots of things outside of my control. Here’s what’s not outside of my control.
When I get up in the morning, where do I want to set my mind? Don’t want to grumble, complain, feel sorry for myself, get on a pity party, get angry at people because they don’t behave. They don’t drive the way I want them to drive. They don’t. They don’t. Do you know they require me to use my phone now to live?
I got home the other night, my house was freezing cold. Wife. My wife’s freezing. She said, well, I set the app so it would go on. It’s like, you did it wrong, lady. I just want to go over to the box and say, be 68 degrees. I want no stinking app. I can do it with my hand or I can thank the Lord that I live in a day and age where I have a phone, where my kids 1500 miles away can FaceTime me and I can watch my two little granddaughters in their princess outfits going all day.
Son, that’s awesome. Have this attitude. Set your mind toward this attitude that was in Christ Jesus. And we will walk out that door more like him than when we walked in, just by turning our attitude to humility. Christmas is the holiday of the humble. Christmas is the holiday of the humble.
Lord, I thank you for the humility of Christ. I thank you for the humility of the saints in this room. These people who humbly serve their families, who work 60 hours a week to help other mothers homeschool their children, who build houses for the poor, who generously serve and give into kingdom works, who encourage people wherever they meet them.
For fathers who go get shot up with paintballs because they love their sons. For mothers who tirelessly serve their families. Lord, I just thank you for this little group of people who I see trying to imitate you. And I’m honored to be in their presence.
And I’m even more honored to be in your presence who, although you existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. But you emptied yourself and became a slave, taking on the form of a human being. You died even death on a cross.
Therefore, your Father highly exalted you, and he gave you the name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess on the earth, above the earth, and below the earth, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names,10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,in heaven and on earth andunder the earth,11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11, NLT)
What a great story you’ve invited us into, and now we come to your table at your invitation to be strengthened, to walk another week in faithfulness to that story. Feed us tonight our fellowship on the Word, on our prayers, on our worship, on this sacrament.
Feed us tonight with the life of Christ, so that at the end of the day or at the beginning of the day, somebody can say to us, are you going to walk like Jesus today? And we can say, all day, son. All day, I’m going to walk like Jesus. Give us the grace to do it. We ask it in Your Name, Amen.
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