April 14, 2024 // Servanthood

Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast.

How do we know where to find answers to the toughest questions in life?

While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search and how do we discover

this truth?

Today, in this teaching podcast, John Metter, lead pastor of Cross City Church, takes a

specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth for the life we're searching for.

Well, let's take our Bibles this morning.

Can we do that?

Take our Bibles and turn to Philippians chapter 2, one of the great, great passages of the

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Bible.

In our series called Perspectives, we're looking at eight different perspectives of

life, eight different ways of thinking that bring joy.

Now, the book of Philippians is all about joy.

That's really the theme of it.

And yet, as Paul talks about joy, he talks about being in prison, he talks about just

the difficulty of some of the things he's called to and some of the things, quite frankly,

that we go through.

You can take the top 10 verses that you probably remember as a group and find almost all of

them in the book of Philippians.

And we went through that a few weeks ago and saw that we really do have a lot in common

with the book of Philippians.

Last week, we looked at this perspective of humility as being a way to live life.

Today, building on that, servanthood.

Please stand with me.

And I'm going to read beginning in verse 5, Philippians chapter 2, 5 through 11.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

And the subject, the topic that Paul is talking about is servanthood.

Have this attitude in yourself, which was also in Christ Jesus, who though although

he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped,

but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness

of a man, being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient

to the point of death, even death on a cross.

For this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above

every name.

So that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth

and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to

the glory of God the Father.

Can anybody say amen to that text?

Wow, what a text.

We say it, we sing it, we talk about it all the time.

Looking forward to that day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

But until then, have this attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Let's pray.

Father, give us the insight we need today from this text by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Help us live this out.

In Jesus name, amen.

Please be seated.

Now Paul has a big ask today.

He's asking a big thing.

And this thing is the same thing that Jesus asked his disciples and now 30 years on the

other side of the cross.

Paul is asking the church at Philippi, again the first church in Europe, as the gospel

moves west, it's incredibly important that this church gets it right.

Not a large group of people, about 100 most say, was the largest it ever got.

And yet it had incredible influence for all of the rest of Europe northward into what

we now know as Great Britain and the United Kingdom and across the ocean to a place that

we know as the United States of America and southward from there.

So the gospel is beginning right here in Philippi, moving westward.

And Paul says you have to get this part right.

And this is the part that if you get wrong, if you get it wrong, nobody will know what

Jesus looked like.

Nobody will know exactly how Jesus lived.

He begins with humility and then he says, remember, in your humility, serve others for

the cause of Christ.

Now he's echoing the words of Jesus, of course.

Jesus in Matthew chapter 23 said, but the greatest among you, he said to his disciples,

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

the greatest among you shall be your servant.

Invariably the disciples were always arguing which one of us is going to sit on the right

hand and the left hand of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom.

I mean, even the mother of the disciples got in on that argument, grant my son's permission

to sit on the right and left hand.

Jesus said, that's not what I'm about.

That's not what leadership is all about.

You see the Gentiles, they lord it over those when they call themselves leaders, but the

one that's going to be the greatest among you will be the servant of all.

So this is the way of Jesus.

And Paul wants the church of Jesus Christ to get it right.

Now without servanthood, we fail to align with our leader who came to be a servant.

Jesus said, the son of man didn't come to be served, but to serve and give us life,

a ransom for men.

He calls us to be servants as well.

And if we're not careful, we will incur the scorn of a doubting world when they look at

our lives and say, you don't look anything like the one you say you follow.

You don't look anything like Jesus at all.

And yet when you look around the world and even a scorning culture, a mocking culture,

there's a lot of accolades towards Jesus in the way he served.

Many people talk about his love.

Many people talk about how he helped and how he served others and his words are frequent.

People like the words.

They like the philosophy of Jesus, but sometimes the followers of Jesus don't line up with

that very well.

So Paul says to this church and to us today, have this attitude in you, which was also

in Christ Jesus.

And the latter part of that is taking the form of a bond servant.

Now depending on which translation you have of the scriptures today, it's worded in such

a way where it can be strong or it can be a little bit less than strong.

I like the New American Standard, have this attitude.

It's a good translation.

But sometimes translations will have a tendency to be less strong than what the original Greek

has.

So in the original Greek, it's what we call present active imperative.

So the imperative word says everything.

This is not a suggestion.

This is not something that Paul the apostle said, you know, you guys, what you ought to

be probably is tweak your life.

So there's at least a little bit of serving good shining through every once in a while.

I mean, give people hope that maybe Jesus is a little bit in your life.

That's not this.

What Paul is saying is think this way about everything.

Let this attitude, let this mindset, let this perspective be in you, which was also in Christ

Jesus.

So that's going to flavor everything we look at today as we walk through this text.

So remember the big ask, servanthood.

I'm going to come back to it over and over.

Remember the big ask.

We're going to go to a lot of places in these few verses about remember the big ask.

It's always connected to the big ask today, servanthood.

So as Paul dives into this, he starts with big theology, big theology.

Notice how he says it in the next verse here that we're reading.

He says, let this attitude or mindset be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

And then he says in verse six, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard

equality with God as a thing to be grasped.

So the theology lesson is there, I believe, not only to remind them of who Jesus was fully,

but to remind us of what a big deal it was that he came to serve.

It's one thing to see God in all his glory.

It's another thing to be able to see that he left his home in glory to walk on this

planet for a particular purpose of redemption.

That is to forgive us of sin and to save us.

So big theology precedes everything else he did.

So let's dive into this just a little bit.

It says he existed in the form of God, and that simply means that he continued to be

at all times in the form of God.

Jesus has never not been God.

Jesus always will be God.

In essence, he has always been God.

And that theology is further developed by the phrase equality with God, and we read

this all the way through the scriptures.

He's in the form of God.

He's equal to God.

Now when we go and begin to celebrate Christmas or when you read the Gospel of John, we hear

this line all the time, John 1, 1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And we know the Word to be Jesus.

We'll learn that later.

If we haven't learned it already, we'll learn it in just a few minutes.

And that he was in the beginning with God, John goes on and says in verse 1 and 2.

Now my old mentor, Spiro Sudiatis, used to pound into my mind this verse.

His favorite chapter was John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

And he would say, John, it says, and the Word was God, but the Greek order is better, and

God was the Word.

He said basically it's clarifying to anybody that doubted any mind, Jesus is God.

And I can say it over and over, but sometimes the humanizing of Jesus shrouds our minds

to the reality that he was fully God at the same time, and Paul is reminding us.

Before we think about the human aspect of how he served, he wants to remind us he is

God.

Now this places Jesus at the very beginning of all beginnings with God.

That's what it means, in the beginning of beginning.

Colossians chapter 1 reminds us that Jesus not only is God, but he is creator God.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

It says in Colossians 1, 16, 4, by him and all things were created both in the heavens

and on the earth, visible and invisible, with the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,

all things have been created through him and for him.

So let me summarize our theology moment here for just a second and say a line that I think

is important for us to grasp.

First of all, Jesus is coexistent, co-equal, co-eternal as God.

He is coexistent, co-equal, co-eternal as God.

That means he always has been, he was not a created being, he always will be.

It means he is equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, is he is co-eternal as

well.

So all these things talk about what Paul is saying right here, that this is a really,

really big deal, that we can see Jesus in his humanity without losing sight of who he

is eternally, without losing sight of who he is theologically.

And we can grasp the size of his leaving heaven to come and live on the planet earth to save

us from sin.

Humanize him in the sense of saying, yes, he served, he washed feet, he did everything

that someone needed to do to serve another human being, but at the same time, he was

God in the flesh.

And that serves to remind us that no matter who you are, remember the big ass servanthood

you can serve to.

I can't tell you how many times over the years people have said to me, well, I mean, I know

I can serve other people, I know I can help other people, and I've got other people to

do that for me.

And I would say, so did God, and yet he came to the planet to serve us.

No matter who you are, servanthood is your call as a believer in Jesus Christ.

You never rise up too high to serve somebody else.

You better not.

Because if you do, you've left humility behind, and leaving humility behind, you're leaving

servanthood behind, and you can't really follow Jesus if you're not humble and you're not

a servant.

So no matter who you are, even Jesus was God and served the way he did.

Big theology.

Then there's big love, which is closely connected with the big theology, big love.

The next line in verse six says something that we don't often understand right away,

and I love diving into this and thinking through this.

He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.

And I've highlighted that phrase on the screen because that's something that sometimes people

have a question about.

But rather he emptied himself.

So those two phrases stand in juxtaposition against each other.

He was equal with God.

It wasn't that Jesus needed to think about whether he would grasp equality with God or

hold on to equality with God.

He was equal with God.

He is God.

But he emptied himself, which helps us understand he was not unwilling to let go of his eternal

home in order to come and live on this planet.

Now Paul, words in such a way, and I phrase half Paul's words, and I hope it's helpful

for us, his identity wasn't the foremost thought in this description, our lostness

wise.

And I want you to think about that with me.

Jesus knew that he was going to come and die on the earth, on a cross, taking the sins

of mankind upon himself.

He did not grasp and hold on to that glorious place that he was in heaven.

He was willing to shed the glorious garments in order to come and live on a dirty place

like the planet.

His identity wasn't foremost in his thought, but rather our lostness wise.

He was willing to set that aside to come to you.

What does that say to you about your value and about the love he has for you?

So there's big love here.

And I think Paul is making a bit of a risky statement, risk being misunderstood by some

people.

But basically all it says is he was willing to do whatever was necessary to redeem you.

Now often we say redeem mankind, but I like to say redeem you today.

Today you walked down and you picked up a cup and you individually held it in your hands.

And that represents the individuality of your salvation.

You're not saved as a family.

You're not saved as a church.

You don't all come as a group to be saved.

You don't get together as a gang to be saved.

You come one on one with God and he saves you one by one.

He had you in mind when he died on the cross is a way to say it.

He looked at the thief on the cross.

He was next to him as he died and he said, today you will be with me in paradise.

It's individual.

So God left his home in glory to meet you, to save you.

That's big love.

John 1, 14 says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory, glory

as of the only begotten from the father, full of grace and truth.

So all this together says big love.

It says unselfish love.

It says caring love.

Your God is a redeeming God.

He's a caring God.

He's an unselfish God.

He's a God who would do whatever is necessary.

Christ left his position, his rank, his privilege to come rescue us.

He emptied himself of all the things in order to be visible and reachable and tangible.

This is the God who loves you.

This is the God who loves you.

And there's no arguing any other way.

If you see literally what Jesus did theologically and physically in every other way, this is

the God who loves you.

And built into that call is the call for our own perspective.

You have the same mindset he had.

Be willing to be unselfish.

Be willing to be caring.

Be willing to be redemptive.

Be willing to leave dignity behind.

Do what love requires.

Do what love requires.

The reason you know the big love that God has for you is that somebody served him in

bringing the gospel to you.

Somebody loved you.

Somebody helped you.

Somebody reached out to you.

Somebody told you about the love that Jesus Christ has.

So let me make this applicable for you today.

No matter what we leave behind, remember the big ask is still servanthood.

But pastor, if I'm going to follow Jesus and serve him to a radical degree that I'm

going to have to leave some things behind, so did he.

I'm going to have to change my perspective about a few things, so did he.

I'm going to have to go out of my comfort zone, so did he.

So you have this example.

Have this mind, this attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

That's a big call.

It's a really, really big theology.

It's a big love.

And now let's define that big call here.

Verse seven and eight.

And this is the essence of what we're being called to do.

But emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness

of men, being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

So when you read that line or two, then you'll see several phrases there that are very important.

But I want you to know that each of these phrases represent an intentional decision

Jesus made in order to serve us.

God doesn't do anything accidentally.

Nobody forces his hand.

Nobody forced Jesus' hand.

Nobody forced Jesus to lay down on the cross.

He himself said, I lay it down, that I may take it up again.

Nobody takes my life from me.

At any point, Jesus could have called a legion of angels to come and remove the Roman soldiers

from the picture altogether, but he didn't do that.

Everything he did was intentional.

It was purposeful.

It was with a view in mind that we're going to serve mankind and bring them to faith.

In Jesus and to salvation.

So this call for Jesus was intentional.

And every verb you find in this passage has to do with an action that is taken based on

a decision he made to take that action.

And it's going to be very, very applicable to us today.

Notice what it says there.

He emptied himself.

He set dignity aside to serve.

He turned loose of the glory that he could have grasped and held onto.

But if he had come down in all his glory, he would have overwhelmed us.

He would have frightened us.

Right?

Read Revelation sometime.

Read chapter four, chapter five.

Jump up to chapter 17 and 18.

Read the picture of who Jesus is fully with all of his glory.

His eyes are like a flame of fire.

We couldn't handle Jesus in all his glory on this planet.

So he left his glory behind in order to interact with us as a man.

He emptied himself.

He took off his glorious garment, so to speak, in order to walk among us.

Pick up a robe and wear a robe just like you wore a robe.

So he emptied himself.

When we serve Christ, we're going to have to empty ourselves of some things too.

We're going to have to set aside some things too.

That's the pattern that he gave us.

Secondly, he changed himself.

Now, I don't mean change himself fundamentally, but as you walk with me through this next

few moments, understand that he took on another form for us.

He was in the form of God, but took up on himself the form of men.

He changed himself.

The verb here is took.

He reached out and took the assignment.

He said yes to the work of redemption.

And that involved all these other descriptions in the form of a bond-servant and the likeness

of a man and the appearance of a man.

This is the same thing as saying the word became flesh.

It's the same thing as saying he that knew no sin became sin on our behalf.

He became what he needed to be to serve us well.

That's a God who loves you right there.

I'm a hands-on kind of guy when it comes to doing stuff outside the office.

I like to get my hands dirty and I like to fix things and so forth.

And so that means that I have to take off whatever I wore to the office that day.

In fact, I remember back when we first started pastoring some 40 years ago and my wife and

I were a young couple, a young pastor and wife, and we had, I think at that time, about

three kids when I first began pastoring.

And at the time, I would go to the office and I would have almost always 40 years ago,

you wore a suit.

You wore a matching slacks and then matching coats, sometimes a vest and always a tie.

That was standard attire for a Baptist pastor's office back in the day.

I'm so glad I'm not back in the day.

Glad I'm not back in the day.

We dressed like bankers.

We were supposed to do that.

And I would come home and Kim would be there with three toddlers and she would say, man,

get those clothes off.

It's time to get down on the floor with these babies and these kids.

And I had to take off that comfortable suit, that nice clean white shirt, undo that tie

and get in some old jeans and an old t-shirt and get down on the floor with those kids.

That's the only way that I was going to be able to connect with them on their level.

Taking off this nice suit and get down on the carpet with these kids.

And that's what it really means in essence that God took on human form, took off the

glorious glory that he has and he wore and he came and he humbled himself to the point

of being down on the floor with us.

Down on the floor with us.

Did whatever it took in order to meet with us.

And then thirdly, he humbled himself.

He humbled himself.

For God to become a man is humbling enough it seems, but he went further.

To take on the form of a bond servant is even more humbling.

So the bond servant, as we arrive at this use of this phrase, is one who is in permanent

relation of servitude to another.

So Jesus became a bond servant to the Father on our behalf.

And he did whatever was necessary, still does whatever is necessary for us.

Do you realize Jesus still serves as a glorious king but a bond servant at the same time?

Go read your Bible.

He ever lives to intercede for us.

He's still serving here.

So we become a bond servant if we're going to become like Jesus Christ.

He humbled himself.

He became a bond servant.

He allowed his will to be consumed in the will of the Father.

But to be willing to die on a cross between two thieves, that's even more humbling.

And remember the garden scene where Jesus is praying in the garden of Gethsemane on

the way to the cross and he says words like this.

He said, Father, if there's any way this cup can pass from me, the cup of suffering

that he's about to undergo is what he's referring to.

If there's any way this cup can pass from me, so be it.

Nevertheless, not my will but thy will be done.

That's a bond servant.

He says to the Father, it's hard for us to fathom how the Son says to the Father, both

God, co-equal, co-eternal, co-powerful.

Every cold word you can think of between God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

Look to the Father says, not my will but thy will be done.

Humble himself.

Aren't you glad he humbled himself for you?

The example is so strong here that we really have no excuse not to serve in light of what

he did for us.

We empty ourselves.

He emptied himself, we empty ourselves.

He changed himself, we changed ourselves.

He humbled himself, we humble ourselves.

And do whatever it is he asks us to do for him and for others in his name as bond servants.

Randy Draper is a member of our church.

In fact, he's one of our deacon officers.

He wrote a great book called Happy to Do It.

It's a book about servanthood.

That's just kind of his moniker.

It's kind of the line that he uses all the time.

He signs his name at the end of a note, happy to do it.

And guess what verse he uses?

This one right here, Philippians 2.5.

Had this attitude which was also in Christ Jesus.

Randy's perspective on servanthood is a unique perspective.

It's not something he has to do.

It's something he joyfully does.

In fact, Randy has found his joyful life place by serving other people.

And in his book, he says, the secret to living a life of purpose is to realize God put us

here to enrich the lives of others.

And I think he's nailed it.

You are here to enrich someone else's life whether they want it or not, whether they

know it or not, and whether after you've served them, whether they thank you or not, you're

here to enrich their lives.

And you're empowered by the power of the Holy Spirit to do that.

That means that you add value to people's lives because Jesus added incredible value

to your life.

Now we don't live in a world that really prizes that.

We don't live in a world that even talks about that.

The world would advise you to do this.

And here's a phrase I've lifted from a lot of conversations that I've seen in different

places and it's almost said with a joyful kind of attitude.

You do you.

You just do you.

Don't worry about anybody else.

Don't worry about what they think.

Don't worry about what they say.

Just you do you.

And I've never known a joyful person who has that moniker, that theme in life.

Because when you do you, at some point, you'll figure out everything you did for you is worthless.

Everything you put on, you'll get tired of.

Everything you brought around you, you'll get old.

Everything you pursued and gave everything for, well, at some point, just not be useful,

helpful for you anymore.

You do you is a terrible way to live.

It's an incredibly selfish way to live.

It's as anti-Christ as you can be.

If you are a professing believer living the you do you lifestyle, you need to repent today.

You do.

Let this mindset be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus.

So instead of you do you, what does work, what is our calling?

It's servanthood.

Think how servanthood, this mindset of servanthood changes friendships.

When you say to somebody that you're in a friendship with of some kind,

what can I do to help you today?

How can I help you get to where you need to go?

A dating relationship where two people are saying, I want to give to this relationship

instead of saying, I want to get from this relationship.

A marriage.

What happens when a husband comes home from work and when he takes his coat off or whatever

he wore to work, he comes home and he goes, I'm now here to serve you, to his wife or to his children.

After the women pick themselves up off the floor, they'll enjoy that quite a bit.

I think one of the things that really helped Kim and I in our marriage happened early on in marriage.

Early on at one point I realized there's just a particular thing I can do to help her just regain some of her time.

She was certainly busy with three young kids and there's just a certain thing I can do to help her

to regain, reclaim some of her time and I can step up and try to do that.

I didn't realize how much that was needed and how much it helped.

I would say it's one of the defining moments of our marriage where all of a sudden I thought differently

and she got a little bit of a break and I learned serving is incredible.

Serving is incredible. Have you discovered that in your marriage?

Have you discovered that in your family where you're serving your children sometimes or you're serving your parents sometimes?

Have you discovered that in your organization where it really is blessed to give and not just receive?

It really is a blessing to be able to serve someone else and help further whatever they're doing.

You know the businesses that I like to frequent?

Businesses that give great customer service.

Chick-fil-A all day long baby, Chick-fil-A all day long.

I don't want to wander the rest of my life in a Home Depot store looking for one bolt that I could find

if somebody would just say, can I help you? Right?

Service is important to our lives. Service brings joy.

And in this calling us followers of Jesus Christ, serving is just about everything.

It's amazing how impactful it really is.

And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes we serve people who are hard to please or someone that we're serving is impossible to please.

Not because they want it to be impossible, but because they cannot respond in kind.

They can't love you back. They can't help you back.

They can't do something to reciprocate for what you've done.

So you do it just for the cause of serving Christ.

Just to follow your incredible leader Jesus who gave himself for us.

That's why you do it. And that's where you get your joy.

Not in what you get in reply, but what you get in saying,

I'm following the man who died on the cross for me. I'm following him. That's what it is.

No matter how difficult it is, remember the big ask, serving him.

And then finally, big day. You knew it would begin with big, didn't you? Big day. Big day.

Verses 9 through 11. What a series of verses here. We sing it. Sometimes when we worship, we say it.

We look forward to it. For this reason, God highly exalted him, the man who humbled himself,

Jesus. God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every name.

So at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And when I read this, this glorious passage, this one that kind of stirs me up, gets me all excited.

I thought, why is this here? It's a passage about servanthood. Why is this here?

And I don't think it's here for God to say, well, hey everybody, Jesus was a servant. Yes,

he was a suffering servant. Yes, he died on the cross. But I haven't forgotten about him.

One day, every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. It's not about that.

I think it's for us. And here's why I think it's for us.

I think we get a couple of things in this text that we need to remember.

First of all, there's a foretaste of this big day as we gather as a church. Now think about Paul

rotting to the church of 100 at Philippi and thinking that they're all alone in a very dark

world. And thinking that they're all alone in a very dark world. But when they come together,

every one of them bows the knee. And with every tongue, they confess Jesus Christ is Lord with

the glory of God the Father. Every time they pray, every time they worship, there's just a little

group of believers that as they are there together, they're saying, we worship the one true God.

And one day every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess Jesus Christ as Lord. But until then,

it'll just be us doing that. And every act of service that we do, we'll do so that others can

come and their knees be bowed and their tongues confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. I think that's

the first part of that. It's a foretaste of something bigger that's going to happen that

you have every time you gather in worship. Let me tell you why as a pastor, I want people to

worship every opportunity that came with their church so that you can get this foretaste.

So you can be reminded that as you gather with believers, we are people who bow the knee,

who confess with the tongue Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And I think you can see time after time that sometimes some acts of service you did

help bring someone else to faith in Christ. And they are now among us who bend the knee

and who speak with the tongue Jesus Christ as Lord. And the more you serve him, the more people will

know and worship the God that you worship, Jesus Christ. Their knees will bow, their tongues will

confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father. Servanthood brings eventually people

to acknowledge who Jesus Christ is. There's a foretaste of this. Someone served Christ to bring

me to Christ. Someone served Christ to bring you to Christ. And when we get together, every knee bow

and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ as Lord. It's a foretaste. Every time we gather, it's a

reminder that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ as Lord.

Notice how thorough in the heavens, on the earth, beneath the earth, every, every, every,

one day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. Now that doesn't say that everybody will

be saved. That doesn't say that everybody will come to faith as a Christian. What it does say is

everyone at some point will acknowledge Jesus is exactly who he said he was. He did exactly what he

came to do. And he redeemed everybody that put their faith in him as Lord and Savior. Everybody

would acknowledge that one day. I like the fact that the rest of creation already worships him.

It's only the knees of people. He won't bow. The trees glorify God. The solar system glorifies God.

The eclipses glorify God. Everything glorifies God. The fish in the sea obey God. Everything

glorifies God except people. People don't bow to me. People don't speak with the tongue. Jesus is

Lord until God brings them to the place of willing submission. But one day every knee will bow.

Friends, let me say this. You serve the right God. You serve the one who won by every knee will bow.

Every tongue will confess that he's Lord. You serve the unselfish God. You serve the loving God.

You serve the serving God. So you be the unselfish person and you be the loving person. You be the

serving person. That's the big ask. And we started with this verse and we'll end with it. Have this

attitude in yourself, which was also in Christ Jesus, taking on the form of a bond servant.

Would you bow together with me? In just a few moments I'm going to close this in prayer and

three invitations always go out. Number one, as you leave we have decision stations here today.

Maybe in your life you haven't bowed the knee and confessed with the tongue Jesus is Lord and today

this is your opportunity to talk to somebody about that. I invite you to stop by and let us talk to

you about giving your life to Jesus. Someone is there to serve you in that way. That's my first

invitation. The second invitation is if you're a guest today, I would love to see you in our guest

reception room right outside the center exit door across the hallway. And I'd love to visit with you

about our church and tell you more about it. Third invitation is come back next week. You need to

hear perspective number three and Richard Taylor will be here to share it with you. And I want you

to know God is doing something among us with this book, Philippians. I want you to be a part of it.

Would you stand with me as we close in prayer?

Father, today what an amazing few moments we had as we worshiped you, as we took the Lord's Supper,

as we were reminded that our knees bow, our tongues confess, our tongues confess, our tongues

confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father. Thank you for reminding us Lord that

one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. But until that day, help us to have this

attitude in us which is also in Christ Jesus taking the form of a bond servant. Lord, when we

leave today, help us answer the question, who should we serve today? At home, in a marriage,

friendships, work, our neighborhood, wherever it is, show us who we should serve and help us come

alongside them in the power of the Holy Spirit with that mindset, that attitude which was in our

leader Jesus Christ. Lord, allow us to live like Jesus. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.