The Effect of Exaltation - Philippians 2:9-11 (Feb 4) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, such a joy for our hearts to declare your praise and we stand in awe as we consider what we just sung, Lord, that we could sing your praise for endless days, for all of a time, for all of eternity.

We could do our best and muster up a hundred percent of our effort to sing of your worthiness and of your exaltation.

And God, for all of eternity, we would only begin to scratch the surface of how great you truly are.

And God, we find ourselves now in this moment where by the power of your Holy Spirit and the work that you do through your church, Lord, as we sing your praise, Lord, we're just gripped by the sense of your greatness.

We're gripped by the sense of your worthiness to be exalted and praised.

And so, Lord, we pray, Lord, in this in this moment, as we've just declared together, or at least watched other people declare together, Lord, that you are worthy of all praise.

God, I pray that that thought would just have such a profound effect on our life.

God, we haven't even begun to realize and understand the implications of how worthy you are in our lives.

And so, God, speak to us now.

God, speak to us now with the power of your Holy Spirit.

Lord, change our lives as we consider your worthiness to be praised, God.

We thank you and we pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

So good to worship together.

If you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, you can open up it up to Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

We're gonna be in verses 9 to 11 this morning.

If you don't have a copy of God's word, the ushers are gonna come to the front.

You can stick your hand in the air, and they'll get a copy into your hands.

And you can keep this if you don't own a copy of God's word.

We'd love for you to take this home and to read it.

One of the questions you have to wrestle with as a father is how would you, you know, this really hasn't happened on a major scale in my life, but how would you respond to the pain and the suffering of your child?

You know, in a world as I imagine this, I think I would have a pretty serious response if any of you were to mess with my children.

Like I love them, and I'll go pop a bear on you.

Now, what we find in Philippians 2, verses 6 to 8, where we were studying yesterday, is that Jesus, the Son of God, was obedient to the point of death.

Philippians 2:6–8

And one of the questions that raises in our mind is how is the Father going to respond to his son being put on the cross by the hands of lawless men?

We kind of ended last week in verse 8 with this kind of like this quiet anticipation, Jesus is obedient to the point of death.

What is God going to do about it?

Now, something we have to come to grips with was that the historical reality of Christ's death, and especially of his resurrection, it required a response from God.

God didn't just sit back and do something.

In fact, he did something very profound, and he did something that the ripple effect of what he did, it still affects us today.

So that there's not a single person, I don't care if you're a Christian, I don't care if you're a non-Christian, there is not a single person who does not live in the sort of ripple effect of Jesus of God's decision to do what he did after Jesus was murdered brutally by the hands of lawless men.

God's response, it's it's of cosmic proportions, it's it's universal.

There is no one who's not affected by it.

And so we ask, what did God do?

And we're told exactly in verse 9, look what it says with me in verse 9, just the beginning there.

It says that in light of Jesus' death on a cross, it says, Therefore, God has highly exalted him.

The original language, that that word highly exalted, it's a compound.

You can imagine like a dash in there.

It has this sort of sense of like super exalted, exalted over and above.

You see, what God did in light of Jesus' humiliation and taking on flesh and dying on the cross is what God did is he put his name above every other name.

He exalted the name of Jesus to say to the whole universe, there is no name so worthy of your worship as this name, Jesus Christ, as my son who is the Lord.

God super exalted Jesus.

And so you could you could say it like this that God's response here to Jesus' humiliation in exalting him, it's like an earthquake, like a Richter level 10 earthquake has gone off, and nothing is the same after.

I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of you know a place before the earthquake goes off, and then you see a picture after, and it's like you all you see a bunch of rubble, but you can hardly see the structure there.

Everything is different.

And I want you to understand that the historical moment when Jesus died, I'm talking in time and space, his flesh was pierced and he died, and he rose again in time and space.

That historical moment when he was then exalted into heaven, it has profound effects on us today.

It requires a response from us today.

And if we don't respond today, the reality that we're gonna come to grips with this morning is that every human being will respond to this someday.

It's required.

It affects us all.

And so what Paul then is doing in Philippians 2, verses 9 to 11 is he's fleshing out the effects of the exaltation for us.

Philippians 2:9–11

Jesus has been given this name, he's been super exalted by God, and he's kind of fleshing out the effect then for us.

And he's showing us how Jesus' exaltation speaks relevantly to the way that we need to live our life.

And the first thing I want you to see is this that the exaltation of Jesus, it speaks to my worship.

It speaks to my worship.

Here's the first thing we see that the historical moment when Jesus is exalted to the highest place, it speaks to the what we rightly worship.

And it does this, we'll see, because of the way that God chose to exalt Jesus.

You see, in verse 9, we see that God highly exalts him.

But Paul goes on to show us how exactly he's exalted.

What does it mean that Jesus is given the highest name above every other name?

Well, look then what it says in verse 9, that therefore God has highly exalted him, but look how he does it.

It says, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

Now, this but this word bestowed, it comes from the same Greek word that we find the word grace from, and it's this idea that the Father, in light of what Jesus did, the Father graciously gave him the name that is above every other name.

Jesus has been given a name, and our question must become well then what is this name?

And we're told exactly here one thing especially about the name it's the name that's above every other name.

Now, you and I as human beings, we love to discuss names and especially names in reference to greatness, don't we?

I'm sure that if you're a sports fan, you for sure have been a part of this debate.

And if you're not, you've probably been around sports fans, so you kind of roll your eyes.

I'm sick of hearing this debate, but sports fans are always trying to categorize names, aren't there?

Who's the best?

Is it Jordan or is it LeBron?

In fact, I've made a hobby of finding sports fans, and I'll go to them and I'll just pick, you know, I'll pick like a quarterback who's not even doesn't even have a name.

Maybe they're like a second stringer, and I'll say, oh, this quarterback's way better than Tom Brady.

And I would encourage you, you should try this sometime.

It's a lot of fun.

You want to harass a sports fan?

You say that.

Like they right now, they're kind of like, I haven't even said a name, and they're just fidgeting in their seat.

Because they're saying, no one's better than Tom Brady.

Now we um, this is a human reality for us, isn't it?

That we we love to categorize greatness.

And God has stepped into our world, and over above all these other, you know, silly little categories he we have, he has categorized worthiness for us.

He has placed a name above all other names.

He he's God has said the debate's done.

Now it's essential that we understand exactly what God has done here.

He he said that he has bestowed on Jesus a name.

And a name is significant.

I mean, for us, I think a name is kind of like it doesn't really mean much.

You know, you look at my name, it says a strong warrior.

None of you are looking at me saying, oh, those two things, you know, they match.

Our names they don't mean much, but in this world, names they mean everything.

And the people of the ancient world were constantly trying to rank in the pantheon of gods whose name was the greatest.

And so it was like the first question.

You come to a new nation, you're like, hey, what's the name of your God?

And where does he stack?

You know, in terms of Baal and Zoo, like, where does your God stack?

This was constantly the argument of the people.

Whose God was most worthy of worship?

And so the same Greek word, super exalted, is found in the Greek version of the Old Testament in Psalm 97, verse 9, where the psalmist he says, For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth.

Psalms 97:9

You are exalted above all gods.

And God's people throughout the Old Testament, they kind of had like this argument whenever people came in, it didn't matter how big your army was, they would always smack talk your God.

Our God is over all the gods.

This is why when Paul goes into Athens, it's really interesting because you remember he walks into sort of this pantheon, it's lined with all these idols, and what does he find?

This unknown God.

This is how concerned the ancient people were with categorizing gods.

You know, this is like me entering into the greatest of all time debate and saying, like, you know, well, is it LeBron or is it Michael Jordan?

And it's like me coming in and saying, wait, wait, wait, we might not know about like a European basketball player that's better than all of them, okay?

So you can't even have that debate.

They are so concerned with the name.

Whose name is the highest?

Now, 2,000 years later, you and I, we don't really try to categorize the names of gods, do we?

You and I aren't having an argument, you know, who's better, Jesus or Muhammad.

That's not really a relevant thing in our day and age.

And yet, especially in the Christian church, you know what we do find?

Is that we are constantly trying to categorize what the best pursuit in life is.

It's not that we're trying to categorize whose name is the best name, it's trying, it's that we're trying to categorize like who what pursuit is the most worthy pursuit.

In fact, one of the ways that I could maybe illustrate this with you is if I were to ask you this question right now.

And suppose that I was, you know, to wait awkwardly until you responded to me.

What if I said to you, what's vying for your attention right now?

Oh, I know your response.

None of you have one thing.

Like, isn't life like it's all these different things that's like vying for my I got work on the one hand, and I gotta make sure like I'm I'm faithful at work.

Like that might be the most important thing, but oh man, I also I also have a family, and I have a church, and I have all these things that are vying for my attention.

And and if you could like put a leaderboard in your mind of like, what's the most important thing to do, what's the most important thing to be committed to, you would realize like there's kind of like this moving leaderboard where sometimes in seasons certain things come first place, and then other times like they're third, and and it's just constantly moving.

And God is stepping into this for us, and he's saying, Listen, there's no pursuit, the the argument's over.

God has exalted the name of Jesus Christ above every other name.

There is no pursuit that's that's even close.

The debate's settled.

So the effect then on us is that Jesus becomes the name that is most worthy of our worship.

That when it comes to pursuits, in the life of the Christian, there ought to be no other pursuit that ever even comes close to the first place pursuit of Jesus Christ.

Now, I don't know how you're listening to this, but but I, you know, I'm reading this pastor and I'm thinking, man, that is not me in so many ways.

So often, these these things that come into first place that it just makes no sense.

And I step back in a moment of Holy Spirit clarity like this, and I and I look at my life and I think, man, why why am I acting like the debate's not settled?

Now, in this passage, as as as God tells us that he's exalted the name of Jesus above every other name, he tells us exactly what what it looks like for us to do that.

And so there's two verbs that have to do with God's action.

God highly exalts Jesus, and then he bestows on him the name that is above every other name.

But then there's also two verbs that have to do with our action.

And we see the first one in verse 10.

Notice what Paul says.

He says, So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.

And then in verse 11, he says, and every tongue confess.

We're given a sense of what worship is here.

To worship is to bow in adoration of God, and it's to confess that Jesus is Lord.

Now I want you to notice the category of response here.

It's not a suggested response.

This is not like a friend who has like a great stock tip for you.

Like, hey, listen, this business, that you know, this quarter is gonna be great for them.

You should put your money here.

Just a suggestion, you should do this.

When Paul says that every knee should bow, he's not saying, like, hey, you know, this is an option for you.

This isn't a suggestion, this is a reality.

And what we need to understand is that this passage is it's ripe with Old Testament connection.

You see, in Isaiah 45, God had given his people a promise, and it was an astounding promise.

The people of God at this time were like, they were small, and it did not seem like they were gonna be of anything of significance.

And in Isaiah chapter 45, verse 22, he he says this promise to Israel.

Isaiah 45:22

He says, To me, every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear allegiance.

It's like like you gotta put your mind your head in the mind of the Israelites.

Like a Syria, the king of Assyria's coming.

And he's got all these horrors, like there's no shot that we can survive the attacks of Assyria.

And yet here is God saying, Hey, I got a promise for you.

Even those guys are gonna bow their knee to me.

Even those tongues that right now are in such enmity against me, they're gonna confess that I'm the Lord.

Listen, I'm gonna win.

It's shocking that what this promise would mean.

Like, this would be like someone coming up to you know, us as Leafs fans.

I'm trusting that we're all have the clarity of mind to be Leafs fans here and saying, Hey, the Leafs are gonna win the cup this year.

And you're like, everything looks the opposite way.

This doesn't make any sense.

And here is the Lord saying to Israel, this small, tiny little nation, every knee is gonna bow before me.

And so here in Philippians 2, we're told with crystal clear clarity how exactly that promise is gonna come about.

You see, that promise hasn't happened yet.

Every knee hasn't bowed to God yet.

And yet, here we're told exactly how it's gonna happen.

We're told that every knee is gonna bow at the name of Jesus.

People recognize alongside God the Father how worthy of exaltation Jesus is, and they participate with the Father in exalting Jesus themselves.

And so the writer here says that every knee should bow.

And the reason why every knee should bow is because of the coming reality that every knee will bow.

Not in a saving response necessarily to Jesus' salvation and worship, but every knee will bow in a recognition that Jesus is worthy to be Lord.

And so the response to Jesus' exaltation, it's a response of bowing and confession.

And to bow, it's it's a spiritual posture you place yourself in of humble dependence.

It's a posture of submission, it's a posture of saying, saying, I am in a complete allegiance to your plans, to your kingdom, to your ways.

And to confess is to declare this allegiance with your mouth, to confess that Jesus is the Lord, to confess that his way is my way, to confess that his will is my will.

And so then my question then is this if if every knee should bow, and eventually every knee will bow, what then is stopping you and me, and I'm talking even in categories as a Christian, from bowing our knee in every area of our life?

What's stopping us?

Like, why aren't all of us in absolute, complete this posture of bowing our lives before the Lord and saying, Lord, your will, my way?

Why do we struggle with this so much?

Why don't we exalt?

Well, I want to maybe share three reasons with you why we don't share in the super exaltation of Jesus that God has participated in.

And the first reason is this, because we're too stuffed with small things.

We're too stuffed with small things.

Spiritually, we're too full of things that provide absolutely no nourishment, so that we have no room for things of true substance and value.

Now, I want to do something, and it's gonna sound kind of shocking, because it's gonna be kind of prideful and boastful after the last week's humil message was on humility.

I want to brag about how good I am at buffets.

I have a strategy at buffets that is unparalleled in the world.

You would look at a general, you know, army's strategy of like invading the enemy, and you would look at my strategy and invading the buffet and you know, doing it right, and you would say, like, my strategy is like in more depth.

I can do it better than anybody.

Now, I wasn't always like this, though.

When I was a child, in fact, this has kind of become lore in my family, it's one of those stories that every Thanksgiving you talk about.

But when I was a child, I had a strategy that if there's any children in here they'll love to hear that you can have this kind of strategy and then you know become a pastor.

But I I had this strategy where I would go and grab a dessert plate or a dinner plate, right?

Because they're bigger than dessert plates.

Hopefully you know that.

And if you don't, I'm not going to any buffet with you.

You don't know anything about buffets.

But you grab the dinner plate, but then you make a sharp right.

And you don't go to the dinner food, you go right to the dessert.

And you don't just go to any dessert, you go to the plate of jello.

You know the jello I'm talking about, that it's like you don't know how they can make jello so firm.

And you load up that plate with as much jello like you, you stack it like it's Jenga, you stack it as high as you can.

And that's the first thing you eat.

You come back with this giant plate of jello and you eat as much jello as you can.

Now, some of the kids in this room are saying, like, yeah, this is the best sermon I've ever heard.

Finally, we're getting to the practical stuff, and the adults are disgusted.

Now, let me just say this, I don't do it anymore, because I came to realize something would happen when you when you start the buffet with all jello, you actually have no room left for what actually nourishes you.

And I think this is a profound illustration from maybe a silly example of something that spiritually happens in our lives, in that we we look for for satisfactions that are so dull and empty of true meaning and significance that when we come to the things of the Lord, we just have no room left for him.

And then we wonder why, like, why can't I sense the Lord's presence?

Why can't I sense his glory?

I love what John Piper says, and this is gonna come up on the screen.

He says, if you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, exactly what we're talking about right now, he says, it's not because you've drunk deeply and are satisfied, it is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world, your soul is stuffed with small things, and there's no room for the great.

And you see, you and I are we're in such a danger because what we are called to this morning is so substantial.

It is so it is like the meat, it is like the steak, and the glory of God is so all-consuming that it that it only fills those who come before him and say, Before God, I'm empty, and I have nothing else but you, God.

My eyes are on you.

Like if I want any satisfaction, it has got to come from you, God.

Those are the ones who are hungry enough to be filled by the Lord.

What is it that Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they shall be satisfied.

And we come to the Lord and we say, Lord, I'm already full, I'm already stuffed with the things of the Lord, but I don't understand why you're not satisfying me.

Until we find our place ourselves in this place of desperation and dependence, we Will not find the glory and satisfaction and exaltation of the Lord that we're talking about here.

And I don't know about you, but I just find myself in this constant battle where I'm sick of messing with small things.

I'm sick of like spending my time and my energy on these things that they have no eternal value, that I'll look back on and say, man, what was I doing wasting my time?

I'm sick of all the scrolling, of all the seeking to find something glorious and entertainment.

Looking at the offerings of the world as though I could find something of substance.

If you want to experience the exaltation of Jesus, you need to put off the small things.

You need to come before the Lord hungry and thirsting for righteousness.

And so maybe even right now the Holy Spirit, you know, has put something on your mind where it's like, this is blocking me.

Like this has become a hindrance to me.

Tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

And until I put this out in my life, like, man, I'm never, I'm just never gonna experience his nearness.

The second reason we don't exalt is because we're, forgive me for my language here, but we're distracted by what's dumb.

I mean, I don't I don't know if anything else gets me more afraid as I consider it in our culture and society.

Just how easily we can be distracted with things that just have no eternal significance.

And I've become convinced that one of the greatest, as a pastor, seeking to shepherd God's people, one of the greatest works that I will do in my life is seeking to protect you from the danger that is in uh your pocket right now and is in the shape of a rectangle.

I am just so convinced that that the way that we use our phones is destroying the spiritual life of some people in this room.

There are some who like it has ruined your ability to focus on the Lord.

And so maybe there's a season in your life where you want to, you know, get into God's word and you want to pray, but your attention, like biologically, you have changed so that your attention, you cannot even focus on God's word without having to look at a notification, without having to open up your phone to see if there's anything there.

The way that you're using your phone, it's it's biologically changing the wiring of your brain so that you cannot sit still for a period of time and give your focus to anything.

And one of the major disciplines of growth in the Lord, meditation, it so requires you to be able to sit down and focus on something, and yet we just can't anymore.

We're too stimulated and addicted to the quick hits of TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and the news.

It's literally changing us so that when we come to the throne of grace, we just cannot partake.

I mean, I'm gonna be completely honest with you.

I don't I don't know if I'm like, I'm I'm at a little bit of a break breaking point as a pastor, where if I hear again that our hour and 20-minute service is too long, when we live in a culture where it's like we'll binge hour-long shows, and if if a movie is 80 minutes, we walk out of there feeling like gypped, like what was that?

Movies are too short these days, but then we come to the worship service to worship with the people of the Lord, and we just want to get out.

We're distracted by what is dumb.

And I'm I'm preaching to myself here, like I'm I'm so done with it.

God has exalted Jesus, and I want to I want to be so caught up with that.

Last thing I want to bring to your attention is that we're fooled by what is false.

We're fooled by what is false.

More than ever in the history of humanity, I believe, we are looking to our feelings, looking to our own hearts, our opinions, our preferences, our biases, our opinions to guide us through life.

And ultimately, we're distracted not by truth, but by what we feel to be true.

So that we live in a culture and we swim in this culture as a church where increasingly our feelings are formed and shaped by authors and influencers and life coach gurus who claim to have a corner on truth.

And they use often their own transformation stories as models for others to follow.

And I'm convinced that most of these guys that are online kind of pedaling this life change self-help, they they just experienced this change a few weeks ago.

And they're talking as though they're gurus who can help you.

And there are many in the church turning away from the timeless truth of God's word to follow these false notions that are peddled by social media.

Take, for instance, there's a popular internet personality, and maybe, you know, now that I've spoken so poorly of them, if I were to rank these sort of per internet personalities, this guy might be my favorite.

His name's David Goggins.

You put your hand up if you've heard of David Goggins.

Okay, he's kind of like this really popular internet personality, maybe the loudest speaking voice on like discipline, hard work.

He's got some amazing statistics.

In 2004, he ran 135 miles in 24 hours.

In 2013, he set the Guinness Book of World Records for 24 hours, doing pull-ups in 24 hours.

4,030.

There's famed stories of the over 60 ultra marathons that he has run of completing races with both of his quadriceps torn.

I mean, you look at him, he really is an example of, well, I think probably like insanity, but also of discipline and hard work.

And yet then you look, if you were to look into his personal life, and I don't I don't want to go into details here, but you would say, you would realize he really does not have much to teach us about the discipline of keeping a relationship together.

And here we are, the whole world looking to this man who who in many ways has no balance in life, and in many ways is is is exalting a God of discipline and hard work.

This is the world we live in.

I cannot help but to urge you to take care that you do not disregard what God has exalted, because you're so caught up in the things that the world exalts.

And I can't, I cannot warn you enough.

I just think we are, we are like those, you you've heard the illustration before of the frog who sits in the boiling water, that the temperature slowly increases, and the frog doesn't know.

And you or I are like that because we see it everywhere.

We see plastered on the billboard.

You are enough.

Like this truth that is so contradictory to what scripture says about us.

I was in the gym just yesterday, a new gym, trying it out, and I looked on the wall and it said judgment-free zone.

I looked on the other wall and there is a lunk alarm.

You know, if you dropped a weight, if you made a noise, this alarm would go off.

It said you're not, you know.

And so what they're doing is judging these people who, you know, I judge them too, but they make a lot of noise in the gym.

Lies like you only live once.

So many deceptions are around us that are so contradictory to the timeless truth of God's word.

The question is, will you be fooled by what is false?

And the degree to which you'll be fooled by what is false is the degree to which you'll miss to exalt what God exalts.

I want you to notice here the connection in our text.

Look back at Philippians 2 with me.

The connection between bowing and confessing.

See, those who exalt Jesus along with God, they bow their knee before him, but they they also confess with their tongue.

And that leads us to our second point.

I want you to see here that the exaltation of Jesus, it speaks to my mission.

Speaks to my mission.

Now, our church has been built on this belief that mission can only be driven by worship.

Let me talk about that really quickly.

This is really important.

We're talking here about missions motivation.

We truly believe as a leadership at this church that if you want a church filled with bold evangelists, you need a church filled with passionate worshipers.

That the greatest program for evangelism is not some like organized, structured program.

Those are great.

But the greatest program for evangelism is like passionate worshipers who cannot just help but live in the world and like scream from their life and even their voice says, God is great.

You gotta get to Jesus.

He's gonna change everything.

That's what we believe about evangelism.

We believe that missions or evangelism and worship, they're intricately tied so that they're twofold.

That's why here in Philippians we we bow in worship and we confess that He is Lord.

So you could say this.

The way that you know you're in a place where your heart is consumed with worship is that overwhelmingly your desire is to spread the fame and glory of Jesus Christ.

This is why our verse ends.

It says, to the glory of God the Father.

Because what happens is you start to get consumed with Jesus' kingdom, and then as Matthew 6 talks about, you you start to seek first his kingdom.

You start to seek first his glory.

Because you're just so infatuated with worship.

I love what David Mathis says.

Let me read this for you.

He says, missions is about the worship of Jesus.

The goal of missions is the global worship of Jesus by his redeemed people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

The outcome of missions is all peoples delighting to praise Jesus.

And the motivation for missions is the enjoyment that his people have in him.

Missions aim at, brings about, and is fueled by the worship of Jesus.

And so you need to see that your worship of Jesus, it cannot be separated from a growing desire to be used in the spread of the passion for the glory of God's name.

This is the way that glory works.

In fact, we we know this about anything that we experience that we think is worthy of exaltation, don't we?

Isn't there kind of like this human nature thing that happens in us that we cannot enjoy something without needing to talk about it?

I mean, anyone in the church who has done counseling with me knows that I love food.

I talk about like one of the every if you ever do counseling with me, like I'm sorry.

Everything, every illustration has to do with food.

We leave sometimes from counseling, we're starving.

The whole time we've just been talking about steaks, medium rare, well done.

I love food.

And yet, when I go to a restaurant on a date with my wife, and you know, I order something and it's amazing.

I don't have this instinct of like I better like fend her off from this and eat this all for myself because this tastes so good.

Instead, like there's part of the joy that's not complete unless I'm like, hey, you gotta try some of this.

And if she says no, I actually start to get like pretty like, no, no, you have to try some of this.

And I'm handing the fork over the table, and I mean, there's been dates ruined where it's just like because I got you have to try it.

Unless you know this joy, you I just can't, it's uh it's like I feel like something's missing.

And this is the heartbeat of missions.

A church that is so consumed with the glory and worship of Jesus Christ that the overflow of it is I need other people to experience this.

Listen, this is the only place that a heart for the lost can come from.

That's the mission motivation, but we also see in this passage a mission mandate that is given to each of us.

And the mandate is in a very important word that I don't want you to miss.

The word is every.

Can you stare at that word in your Bible for me for a second?

This is phenomenal.

Multiple times it comes up.

Look at verse 9.

Bestowed on him the name that is above every name, but then look at verse 10, so that at the name of Jesus, every, every, every name, every knee should bow.

In heaven and under the earth, and on the earth and under the earth.

And then you see it again there in verse 11.

Look at that with me again, and every tongue confess.

God is not content with stopping once some people have recognized his glory.

God is not content to stop once a handful of people have acknowledged his worth.

The father so loves the son that he will not be content until he sees every knee bowed before his supreme lordship.

And so you and I hear that, and we hear like the universal cosmic scope of the exaltation of Jesus, and our response has to be this like God's glory is not to be trifled with.

He is not content to win the battle in some hearts.

He will not rest until all acknowledge that he is Lord.

See, there's an astounding promise here, and we need to recognize it.

It's it's that God has given the name to the name Lord to Jesus so that every knee should bow.

And I don't know about you, but I'm helped immensely when I imagine scripture.

And so can we just do something together?

It might be a little weird.

You're probably not asked to do this in church very often.

And if you don't do it, I'm not gonna call you out.

Unless you're like a small group leader or an elder, then I will call you out, but if you don't, it's okay.

But can you close your eyes with me?

And I just want to imagine something with you for a moment.

In your mind's eye, I want you to paint this picture.

Imagine with me, imagine a throne for a moment.

This is a throne, and it's God's throne.

The glory of God.

Maybe you're imagining like the temple in Isaiah, and as Isaiah's chapter 6, where his robe fills the temple and the glory of God.

There's there's angels flying around.

Like, God is so glorious, you can't even, Moses sees his face and his face is shining.

God is so glorious.

And now you're gonna need to, I don't know if this throne room in your mind has walls, but you're really gonna need to expand the walls for a moment, because a lot of people are about to come into this imaginary room that we have.

Notice first who we are told that that is in this room, still imagining it in my mind's eye.

Remember that in verse 10, we are told that at the name of Jesus, here is Jesus standing on the throne.

At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.

Now, God's not content for us to just like imagine, okay, every knee.

He gets really specific.

This is what he says every knee should bow in heaven.

Okay, so my eyes are closed.

There's Jesus on the throne, and now I'm adding in all of the angels.

And all of these majestic angels, they're shining in this chekinah glory of having worshiped God for thousands and thousands of years, and they're so majestic.

They are bowed at the knee at the feet of Jesus.

They're proclaiming, God, you are worthy.

And they've done that for thousands of years, and they're not sick of it yet.

Their knee is still bowed, and they're still standing like I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of how worthy this name is.

Every knee in heaven is bowed, and and Paul goes on, he says, and and on earth every knee will bow.

And so, can you take a moment for me?

Who's who is the still eyes closed, you know, imagining this?

I know it's awkward, you can stop if you want, but I would just encourage you to keep going.

Just keep imagining this.

Who's the hardest person you know?

You know, it's like this person will, they're never gonna, I would never see them in church.

They will never bow the knee to Jesus.

And look to your right, that person is right beside you, and without hesitation, his knee is bowed with crystal clear clarity.

That person has seen the lordship of Jesus Christ and bowed their knee.

And then you you look behind you and this, you know, hard-hearted person, you can't believe it.

There are trillions and trillions of people.

Everyone is bowing the knee, everyone is acknowledging Jesus is the worthy king.

There's not a single person who's even thinking of standing up in this moment.

Every knee is bowed.

And multitudes and multitudes and multitudes of people are bowing at the name of Jesus, all of them acknowledging his lordship, but it does not stop there.

Because we are told that every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

So that even those fallen angels who spent all of their life opposing the kingdom of Jesus, like deluded by this lie that they could subvert Jesus' reign, now they have come to recognize Jesus is the rightful king, and even their knees are bowing at the feet of Jesus.

It's this picture of this universal recognition that Jesus is Lord.

Now you can open your eyes.

And can I ask you this question?

Do you believe that what we just imagined, that it will someday, maybe not the same way that you imagined it, but something like that is gonna come true?

Do you believe that that is a historical moment that you and I are heading towards?

I gotta tell you, I believe it.

Because it's in God's word.

I'm not making any of this up.

This is what Paul says in Philippians 9 to 11.

He says that this moment that we just imagined, it is coming.

I was wondering, you know, on that day, maybe you and I are gonna connect eyes, and I'm gonna say, I told you so it was coming.

You're gonna say, I know, it's like even more amazing than I thought.

This is blowing my mind.

But listen, you you know then, Christian, you know right now in your heart of hearts that that day is coming.

So what mandate does that place on you now?

What does that change for you now?

It means you have an incredible mandate placed on your shoulders.

Paul experienced this mandate.

He said in Romans 1, he had an obligation to preach to the God to the Gentiles.

And in Romans 9, he says that he carried that obligation, like an unceasing affliction.

Said it was like anguish in his soul.

Because he desired that as many people as possible would bow the knee to Jesus and be saved before they would bow the knee on that day, and it would be too late.

See, if you really believe this day, Christian, if you really believe that this historical day is coming, it changes everything for you.

It means that there's no excuse that will stop you from asking the Lord to give you a boldness to share his name.

Because you believe that that day is coming.

There's no excuse.

Which leads to our next point.

The exaltation of Jesus.

It speaks to my judgment.

The reality that this verse is universal, it means that uniquely, like most other verses don't, it speaks to each one of us here this morning.

And it speaks so practically to each one of us.

It speaks so practically to unbelievers.

Maybe you're here and you never bowed the knee back to Jesus.

Like Jesus is not your Lord, you're not your savior, you are you are not a Christian.

And I just want to talk to you in a moment, and I want to do it in love.

And let you know that there is a day coming.

Like this is this is hard, I get it.

This is awkward, I get it.

But man, isn't haven't you found in your life like the hard things that lead to the sweet things?

And God has brought you to this moment right now where you just need to realize there is a day coming where you, with crystal clear clarity, will know that there was no other person who was worthy of your life.

And will, with crystal clear clarity, clearer than you've ever understood anything in your life, you will see that you've wasted your life pursuing things that were never worthy of your attention, pursuing things that were never worthy of your worship.

And on that day, you will look back and it will have been too late.

You'll have all the clarity, but you never made the decision when you should have made it.

And you find yourself right here in this morning.

You are in an age of grace.

For this moment, God is forbearing.

And in a moment, He'll come back in that scene that we just imagined, it'll come to fruit, come to light in it.

It could come to light in a second.

And right now, you have the opportunity to turn to Jesus in this moment in your heart.

Is a spiritual reality that takes place when you turn to him in your heart of hearts and you have this opportunity to turn to him and say, Jesus, I'm gonna bow the knee right now.

Jesus, you are the Lord.

You are the rightful Lord.

You are the rightful owner of my life.

My life is yours.

Here it is.

I'm laid across your altar to confess that you are the Lord and King of my life.

So my question to you, if you're an unbeliever here, my question to you is why not turn to him now?

The day is coming where you will, but there is an urgency because you have opportunity.

Today, today is the day of salvation if you will bow the knee in humble recognition that Jesus is Lord.

Let me speak to another group of people.

I don't know how else to categorize this group of people, apart from the reality that there are many who think that they are a Christian.

And the scriptures say that on that final day there will be many who look to Jesus and they cry these words, Lord, Lord.

It's interesting because they make the confession.

Isn't that interesting?

They get half of this verse.

They confess Jesus as Lord.

But you know what the problem is?

In their life, they never bowed the knee.

And I cannot help but that to think that there would be some in our midst who have spent their life, sure they can make the confession.

Sure, they prayed the prayer.

You know, they said Jesus is Lord.

They did the whole Christian thing, but but in the heart of their hearts, they never bowed before him as Lord.

They never completely surrendered everything to him as Lord.

They never looked to Jesus and said, Listen, whatever suffering you want me to go through, whatever call you give to me to go to, I'll do whatever.

They never bowed their heart to the Lordship of Jesus, though they were so willing to confess.

And I would just turn to you now and say, Now, today, today, today is the day of salvation.

Turn to the Lord.

Bow your knee before that day where you will find your knee is bound with crystal clear clarity, you will know that you should have done it now.

I've been thinking about this all week and just with such clarity, convicted that we will get to that day.

And there's gonna be so much emotion in that moment.

There's gonna be so much joy and praise and worship.

But man, I cannot help to think that there's gonna be like this this regret as we look back on our life and we think of the areas in our life where we did not submit ourselves to the lordship of Jesus.

And we think of the times in our life where we we had no urgency and no zeal in our life.

Like we were just kind of like, yeah, I'm a Christian, I go to church on Sunday, but we weren't like with this intense urgency and zeal that can only come from the Spirit, this Holy Spirit-given energy saying, God, would you take your Lordship and run it entirely through me to every corner of my life and expose the areas where I'm not following you?

All those moments with just like this clarity that we've never had before, we'll look back on and just say, I wasted it because I didn't make sure that Jesus was the Lord of every area of my life.

And so, Christian, can I can I ask you right now, are you sure that Jesus is on the throne in every single room that is in your heart?

Is there any way that you are resisting his lordship?

Is there anything that he is calling you to do?

And I don't know what it is.

Maybe you're distracted with something else, but you're just messing around with the call that Jesus has given to you to be a serious, devoted follower of him and to give your life to him.

Because man, I gotta tell you, the more you press in, the more on that day you will find such joy as you bow before the Lord and you realize every single way that I possibly could, with all the energy that the Lord would work through me, I bowed my life before Him.

Listen, don't let this drive you to shame.

Let this drive you to ambition.

Let this drive you to change.

Listen, you know, because of the exaltation of Jesus, you and I, you and I find ourselves at a fork in the road right now where the effect of the exaltation, every time we come to realize it, it calls us deeper into the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

And what an opportunity we have now then, as the worship team comes up to lead us in a time of reflection and to lead us in a time of worship.

What an opportunity we have now to consider what effect the exaltation needs to have on us.

And see, the question for us in this moment becomes this: will we let it affect us?

Will our lives be changed from this moment?

There's no one who should not be changed.

Will we allow the Lordship of Jesus to be driven deeper into our hearts in this moment?

You can leave and forget this.

And many will.

The question is, will you?

And so, Joel, in a moment, he's gonna lead us in a time of worship, and I think in you know, in a profound moment of just being able to declare that it is our life's ambition to exalt Jesus.

And so, you know, this might be a moment where you sing a little louder.

This might be a moment where you raise your hands, maybe for the first time, and just say, God, this is my desire.

I want to, I want to exalt you.

But this certainly is a moment where God's children, convicted by God's Spirit, will turn to him and say, God, I want to do what you did on that day.

I want to exalt you.

And so would you just take a moment, maybe just bow your heads and close your eyes and pray this prayer with me.

Taking this moment just to ask the Holy Spirit to search you and find if there is any area of your life that you are unwilling to submit yourself to him.

Let me do that now.

And now we turn to Jesus and we say, God, we need your help.

Lord, we need your help to affect change.

And so just now in this moment, in the quietness of our own heart, we wept.

Would you just make this commitment to the Lord?

Maybe it's something so practical for you that it's it's just been on your mind, on your heart right now in this moment.

Maybe it's just something so general, like God, I just I just want to exalt you.

Would you just commit that to the Lord right now?

Now, Lord, in response to what you've done, in response to the exaltation of your son to the highest place, the highest name.

God, your people, we stand and we declare that you that the name of Jesus is the name that is exalted over every other name.

And so, Lord, we pray in this name.

Amen.