Joy That Humbles Itself: From Control to Christ | Pastor Rajiv Khatri

When my kids were young, really young, I had something that I would tell them.

I had a confession that I would make to them every night before bed.

I would tuck them in.

You know, get all the blankets all nice and tucked for them.

I'd whisper into each of their ears and I would let them know, kids, I'm Batman.

I am Batman.

I told them that every night after they fell asleep, I would put on my Batman suit, I'd go out into the city, and I would catch bad guys.

And they believed me.

In fact, they believed me for longer than I'd like to admit that they believed me.

And honestly, I loved it.

I did.

I loved it.

But here's what I here's what I never fully figured out.

Why?

Why I needed them to believe it for as long as possible.

Why I needed to be the one with power in their eyes, the one in control, the one who was extraordinary when everyone else was ordinary.

I think some of you know that feeling.

Maybe not with a cape, but with something.

That need to be in control, that need to have some power.

Right?

You feel it too.

Maybe not with a Batman story.

Maybe for you it shows up something like this.

I think this is pretty relatable to most people.

Think about the person who cannot sit in the passenger seat without trying to drive from it, right?

The backseat driver.

Someone else is behind the wheel, but they cannot stop.

They cannot help themselves.

You know, turn here.

Oh, you should have taken that turn over here.

Oh, you should have taken that road.

No, no, turn here, go this way.

And look, it's not about getting there faster.

We think it is, but it's not actually about getting there faster.

It's not, it's about not being in control of how you get there.

And every single person in this room has felt that.

In a car, in a marriage, in a family.

Look, here's the truth about every person in this room.

We are all grasping for power and control.

And it's exhausting.

And it is killing our joy.

Now, for those who are new here with us this morning, we are going through the letter of Philippians.

Last week, Paul showed us what this community should look like.

And if you're honest with yourself, you may have walked out of here asking one question.

Yeah, that sounds nice.

That kind of community that Paul's describing, the kind of community we're we're becoming and aiming for, it sounds really good, but but how?

How does a person actually live that way?

Today he's gonna answer it.

Not with a strategy, with a person.

So if you have your Bibles with you, if you could open them up to Philippians chapter 2, you can also follow along on our screen.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

I'm gonna be reading from uh Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11.

Philippians 2:5–11

Starting in verse 5.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge, confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

This is God's word.

Paul is about to show us three things.

He's about to show us what we're really doing when we grasp for power and control, why we keep doing it, when when honestly, we we probably know better.

And the only person who has ever made anyone actually let go of that.

So let's look at verse six again.

He did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

See, Paul uses a word here that means to seize something, to grab it and refuse to let go.

And Paul says, Paul says that Jesus, who was fully God, who had all the power, all authority, all glory, did not seize any of it for himself.

Now that word exposes something about us.

We grasp, we hold, and we refuse to let go.

I mean, you felt it in the car analogy, right?

That discomfort of not being the one who's steering.

Look, that's not just some quirk.

That's a grip.

That's a need to be the one in control.

And it runs through every relationship you have.

Now, here's why we grip so tightly.

See, when you've spent years fighting for your position, fighting for your authority, your place in the room, you can't just put it down.

I mean, the moment you release it, someone else takes it.

I mean, you fought for it.

You have to hold it.

But if something is truly yours, like truly yours, not built, not seized, it's just yours.

Well, you don't have to grip it.

You can just open your hands.

Jesus held his equality with God the way a person holds what is genuinely theirs.

It wasn't built, it wasn't seized, it simply was.

He was God.

He is God.

And because he held it by nature and not by grip, he could open his hands.

Now I want you to watch, watch, follow along with this because I want you to watch and see what he does with open hands.

Okay?

Verse six, he doesn't consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

Right?

So he starts at the top, equal with God, all power, all authority, all glory, the worship of every angel, everything, and he lets go.

And then verse seven, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.

See, he goes lower.

He becomes a servant.

Actually, the word here is doulos, which actually means a slave.

A slave with no rights, no voice, no control.

So he goes lower to that level.

Now, I wasn't sure if I was gonna do this, but I gotta do this.

I gotta sidebar for a moment.

I can't help myself.

There are some of you.

Some of you have heard that Jesus emptied himself of his divinity when he became human.

Maybe you grew up hearing this, maybe you heard it at different church, you know, church uh denominations or different church groups or whatever.

You you you thought that somehow he turned off his godness to become one of us.

If that's you, I want you to understand that is not what this means.

He did not subtract anything from himself, he added everything it means to be human: skin, blood, hunger, exhaustion, suffering.

He didn't become less, he became one of us.

He added humanity to himself.

He is a hundred percent God and a hundred percent man.

Now think about what that means.

The eternal God, the one who existed before time, who spoke galaxies into existence, who needs nothing and lacks nothing, chose to become hungry, chose to become tired, chose to feel pain, not because he had to, but because he desired to reach you.

And that is the most astonishing act of love in the history of the universe.

So he keeps going.

Being made in human likeness, he enters vulnerability, real and raw, nothing hidden, nothing protected.

He gets tired, he gets hungry, he feels pain, he cries at a funeral.

Jesus, the one who holds the entire universe together, once sat down exhausted at a well and asked a woman for a drink of water.

Do you see how he's lowering himself?

But lower still, verse eight, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death.

He gives up control over what happens to him, and he doesn't fight it, he doesn't call down the angels, he goes where the father sends him all the way to the end.

And then Paul says it even death on a cross.

And understand, the cross wasn't just death, it was the most shameful, public, humiliating death that the Roman world had invented.

It was designed to strip away every shred of dignity that a person had before they died.

It was reserved for the worst criminals, and that's where he goes.

From heaven to a cross, from worship to mockery, from power to nothing.

Now, I want you to hold that up.

The lowering that Jesus did, the dissension that Jesus did, hold that up like a mirror against your own life.

He had all the power and didn't grasp it.

You and I are not God, and yet we spend our entire lives trying to control everything as though we are.

We want to decide.

We want the final word.

He became a slave.

What do we want?

We want to be served.

We want everyone else to serve us.

And when we're not, well, when someone doesn't notice us, doesn't thank us, doesn't give us what we think we deserve, anger starts rising up in us.

I can see some of the faces.

You know that feeling.

That feeling that says, I should be seen, I should be noticed.

We want to be served.

He entered vulnerability.

Real.

Raw.

We, gosh, we never let anyone, we never let anyone in to see the the parts of us that may that may make them think less of us.

Because we're too worried about well, what if they don't like what they see?

So we hide.

He gave up control over what happened to him.

We can't even let a conversation go without knowing how it ends.

Because we're too busy trying to control that outcome.

He went to a cross.

How many of us struggle to be the first one to apologize?

Heck, we won't even serve in a role nobody sees us for or thanks us for.

Look, I want you to look at this.

Look how far down Jesus went.

Now look how far down you're willing to go.

That gap, that's the grip I'm talking about.

The grip you have on trying to get power and control.

And every single one of us has it.

Now let me be honest with you for a moment about myself.

Leading into Easter a couple weeks ago, I was grasping.

You know, will this sermon land?

Will my delivery be good enough?

Will people come to faith because of what I've just prepared?

I had convinced myself that what happened in that room was on me.

Right?

I had taken that morning that belongs entirely to Jesus.

And I made it about whether Rajiv would deliver.

I got to church that morning, that Sunday morning, and I'll tell you, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Hit me so hard.

The worship team, they know.

I shared it with them.

It hit me so hard.

I was I was trying to manage everything.

I was trying to control the outcomes, not for applause, for control over something that was never mine to control in the first place.

But I'll tell you, when I let go that morning, something changed.

Something shifted in me.

And look, before we move on, I want you to think of a relationship right now.

Look, you probably already know which one.

You probably already know which relationship I'm talking about.

The one where where you always have to win, where you just can't let go.

Whatever relationship that is, I want you to name it to God right now.

Just between you and God, just name it to Him.

Look, I say this because I'm not expecting you to fix the relationship right now.

I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to convince you that it's gonna get fixed today in the here and now in this very moment, but you have to stop pretending the issue isn't there.

See, because God works with us in a, let me put it this way.

God works what's brought into the light.

When we bring something into the light, that's how he brings healing.

He doesn't heal what we try to keep in the dark.

So what I'm asking you to do is think about that relationship where you've got to maintain the power and you've got to maintain the control and stop pretending it's not there and name it to God this morning.

So here's the question.

When we have this grip, when we're chasing power and control, and I think some of us are beginning to see that we shouldn't do that.

We know that's wrong.

We know that's not good for for for ourselves or for these relationships.

Well, why do we keep doing it?

Why can't we stop?

Why can't we just help ourselves from trying to maintain control and power?

Well, I want you to go back to verse six.

Because this verse, the word that Paul's talking about here, it actually cuts way deeper than when it first appears.

See, we grasp for what we don't fully believe we have.

I want to say that again.

We grasp, right?

We're trying to grip and clutch at things that we don't believe we fully have.

Jesus did not grasp because he already had it.

We grasp because we feel like we don't.

Right?

When I was giving you that diagnostic of the dissension, and I was telling you to hold it up as a mirror against your own life.

I saw some of your phases.

I think a lot of you start to recognize yourself in that.

Which means somewhere you already know that this is true.

That somewhere you know that you're grasping for power and control.

But knowing you grasp isn't enough.

You have to know why, or nothing changes.

I mean, you might feel bad about it for a few days, but then you're right back where you started.

Same argument, same control, same grip.

See, some of you dominate every room you walk into, every conversation, every meeting, every dinner table.

You have to be the loudest voice.

You have to be the person that everyone remembers.

And when someone talks over you, something in you has to respond.

You have to be heard.

You have to, you have to somehow get back into the room.

And look, it has nothing to do with being right, which is what a lot of people think it is.

Yeah, I see some head noddings.

You know what I'm talking about.

Some of you control everyone around you.

Your spouse, your kids, your friends.

You decide always.

And when someone pushes back, you don't get angry.

You think you do, but you actually don't get angry.

You're actually getting scared because control is the only thing standing between you and a panic that you're not even able to name.

And then there's some of you who just can't lose an argument.

Not even a small one, not even one that doesn't matter.

Because losing for you feels like disappearing.

So you'd rather destroy the relationship before backing down.

And then some of you can't even celebrate anyone else's win.

Because somewhere you decided that your success, that their success is your failure, and it is costing you every relationship you have.

Four different people, same disease.

You're grasping, you're grasping, and you know it.

And you've always known it.

And every time you grasp, you're actually saying the same thing.

You're saying, I need this to prove that I'm okay.

I need this to prove that I'm worthy.

And here's what's actually happening.

At its core, here's what's actually happening.

You're saying, I don't trust God.

I don't trust God to secure my place.

So I'm gonna hold it together myself.

I don't trust God to give me significance, so I'm gonna take it.

Friends, that's not just a bad habit.

That is the same move Adam made in the garden.

I will decide what is good for me.

That's why your relationships are breaking.

It's the reason your joy is gone.

You win the argument, and guess what?

There's another argument tomorrow for you to win.

You dominate the room and you walk out still wondering, do you actually matter?

Friends, if this sounds like you, that grasping that you're after never delivers what it promises.

But here's what I want to show you today: the diagnosis, that's not the destination.

I want you to look back at verse five.

Paul says, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

Have the mind of Christ.

Jesus, who was fully God, who had all the significance, the security, the power, all the power in the universe, didn't grasp for any of it.

Not because those things didn't matter, but because his identity was already held by the Father permanently, completely.

He had nothing to prove, nothing to protect.

And that's the only reason he could descend the way he did.

And here's what that means for you.

The same Spirit who secured Jesus as the beloved son now lives in you.

That's Romans 8:15.

Romans 8:15

You're not a servant trying to earn a place.

You're an adopted child.

Your place wasn't earned, it was given by a father who doesn't change his mind about you.

And Paul, he says it plainly in Galatians 2: I no longer live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

The person who was grasping and fighting for position, fighting for standing, that person was crucified with Christ.

What is left isn't even a better version of you trying harder.

It's Christ Himself living inside you, holding from the inside what you've been trying to build from the outside.

This is the only thing that actually breaks that grip, that need to obtain power and control.

Not trying harder, not white knuckling your way into humility.

It's letting Christ be.

It's letting Christ be what you what you've been trying to make yourself.

Now think about this.

Let me put it this way.

You know the moment when you are looking for your glasses, right?

And you're getting more and more frustrated?

You're checking every surface, retracing every single step, and then someone tells you, hey, bro, glasses, they're on your face.

You've been wearing them the whole time, and you didn't even know it.

That's what this passage is trying to show us.

You've been grasping for an identity you already have, the acceptance you're fighting for, the security you've been trying to build, the significance you've been working so hard to earn.

You already have all of that in Jesus Christ right now.

Not as a reward for trying harder, but as a gift already given, already yours.

So the person who dominates every room, they can be quiet because they already know that they're loved and accepted by God.

The person who tries to control everyone around them can finally let go.

Because the father, they know that the father is already in control of what happens next.

The person who has to win every argument can back down.

Because they now know that being right isn't what gives them their sense of worth.

The person who can't celebrate someone else's win, they can finally celebrate because there is enough for everyone when your worth comes from God.

Look, this isn't self-improvement.

This is what happens when Christ lives in you.

The grip loosens.

Not because you're trying harder to let go, but because you already have what you were trying to get: acceptance, security, love, a place with God that can't be taken from you.

You know, I've asked this question to this church before.

I'm gonna ask it again.

What are you afraid of losing?

Like honestly, think about that.

What are you afraid of losing?

Your position?

The respect of your spouse?

Control over what happens at your home?

Whatever you're afraid of losing, that's what you're grasping for.

That's where you're you've got this need for control.

That's where your identity is living.

And it is costing you your joy.

But there's only one place that your identity can actually be safe.

One verdict that holds no matter what happens, no matter what you lose, no matter who leaves, no matter how the argument ends.

And it was delivered at a cross.

See, the father looked at everything you've been grasping for, everything you've tried to build and protect and secure on your own.

And he sent his son to take all of it.

And he did that so that he could say over each and every one of you, you are mine.

You are loved, and nothing will ever change that.

See, Jesus took what you deserved so you could receive what he deserved.

That's what makes it permanent.

That's what makes it permanent.

But now, I don't want this to just sit in your head.

I want this truth to go from your head deep into your chest.

So I want you to say something out loud with me.

Are you ready?

I want you to repeat after me and say, My identity is Christ.

My joy is Christ.

You ready?

On three.

One, two, three.

My identity is Christ.

My joy is Christ.

I don't believe it.

Can do you guys believe it?

Can you say it one more time a little bit louder?

My identity is Christ.

My joy is Christ.

Are you starting to see a rhythm in Philippians?

Earlier, we talked about to live is Christ.

You can't have life without Jesus.

To live is Christ.

My identity is Christ.

My joy is Christ.

That is the most true thing about you if you are in Christ.

It's not the most inspiring thing, it's the most true thing.

And the more that truth moves from something you believe on a Sunday to something you live from on a Monday, the less you need to grasp for power and control because you finally have what the grasping was always reaching for: identity, security, acceptance.

You are secured in Christ.

And that changes everything.

But now what does that look like?

If you are secure in who you are in Christ, if that allows you to release and open your hands, what does a person look like when they actually let go?

Not in theory, in real life.

What does it look like when someone stops trying to grab for power and control and actually opens their hands?

Paul shows us in verse 9.

Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.

That word, therefore, changes everything.

Because of what Jesus did, because of the cross, God exalted him.

Do you see that?

Jesus descended, he lowered himself, and God exalted him, brought him up.

The way up is the way down.

The way down is the way up.

It is not the way up, is the way up.

Are you following?

It's the way down is the way up.

Jesus descended, lowered himself, humbled himself, and God exalted him.

The Father's answer to the son's release wasn't silence.

It wasn't indifference.

It was the highest possible honor, the name above every name.

Every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

Every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is what?

Lord.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

The Father held what the Son released.

I want you to think about that for a moment.

What did Jesus give up?

He gave up his reputation.

People called him a blasphemer, a drunkard, a friend of sinners.

He gave up his safety.

He walked toward the cross when he could have easily walked away.

He gave up control over what happened to him.

And the father took everything the son released and he held it.

And then he honored it beyond anything the world had ever seen.

Do you see what this means?

You do not have to win anymore.

You do not have to prove yourself anymore.

You do not have to hold everything together on your own anymore.

The Father is already holding you.

The same father who held the Son through the cross and out on the other side is the same father who holds you.

And look, we've seen this before.

There was a missionary named Hudson Taylor who gave up everything to share the gospel, to take the gospel to China.

His wife died there.

His children died there.

He watched the people he loved most be buried in foreign soil, and he could do nothing to stop it.

In the middle of all of that loss, of all of that loss, he wrote this.

Not to survive it, to kiss it.

I've learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages.

The rock of ages he's talking about is Jesus.

See, everyone who knew Hudson Taylor described him as one of the most joyful people they had ever met.

Not because everything went right, but because he stopped spending his energy trying to control what he couldn't hold.

His identity wasn't in the outcome, it was in a father who could be trusted with all of it.

So he opened his hands.

And the father held what he couldn't.

Think about what the world did to Jesus.

They mocked him, they spit on him, they nailed him to a cross and put a sign above him to make sure everyone understood the contempt.

The most powerful empire in the world did everything in its power to make him nothing.

And then God spoke.

Not with words, with a resurrection, with an empty tomb, with a name above every name.

Man did his worst, and God raised him.

So whatever you release into the Father's hands, he holds.

The moment you open your hands, you don't just fall into nothing, you fall into the hands of the Father who held the Son through death itself.

See, Adam, he grasped at equality with God and he lost everything.

Jesus, who actually was God, is God, released everything and was given everything.

That's really the whole gospel in one contrast.

So here's the lesson.

Stop grasping.

Open your hands.

The Father holds what you release.

In fact, this is what relentless joy actually is.

It's not a feeling you manufacture, it's not the absence of hard things.

It is the settled freedom of a person who has stopped spending all of their energy on that grip.

Because they are held by someone who cannot be moved.

They are anchored to their true identity in Christ.

When you not just know that, but but believe that, like when that's gone deep into your heart, the grasping that exhausts you, that release, it'll free you.

And that's where the joy lives.

Two weeks ago, I told you I was grasping for control over Easter.

And when I let go, the same gospel I almost buried unintentionally, broke through anyway.

Not because of what I prepared, but because of who the sermon was about.

It's about Jesus.

It's always about Jesus.

I want to draw your attention back to verses 10 and 11 again.

If we could show that on the screen, please.

That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Paul is quoting Isaiah 45.

Those are God's own words about himself.

Every knee will bow to me, every tongue will confess me.

Paul puts the name Jesus where the word me used to be.

That's not an accident.

That is Jesus.

Yahweh, the personal name of God in the Old Testament, the name so sacred that Jewish people wouldn't even speak it out loud.

Paul is putting that name on Jesus.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who parted the Red Sea, the God who spoke the universe into existence.

That is Jesus.

I want you to feel the weight of what Paul is saying here.

The one who became a slave is now the Lord of the universe.

The one who had nowhere to lay his head now has the name above every name.

The one who was stripped of every shred of dignity on a cross is the one before whom every created being will one day bow.

The cross did not diminish him, it revealed him.

And he's not just some historical figure you admire from a distance.

He is alive right now, seated at the right hand of the Father.

He is interceding for you by name.

He is holding everything you've released.

This is who you belong to.

And he belongs to you.

Every knee, every tongue, no exceptions.

That means this room.

Every person sitting in this room right now, every knee is going to bow.

That's not a threat.

That's what's coming.

You bow today, or you bow then.

Today, you get grace.

You get a father who runs toward you.

You get you get the freedom and joy that we've been talking about.

But when but when one day, there's gonna be one day when that grace window is gonna close.

And if you have never given your life to Jesus, today is that day.

You don't need to clean yourself up first.

You come empty-handed, right?

Right where you are, right where you're sitting.

No one needs to see it, no one needs to hear you.

Just between you and God.

Say yes to him.

Say yes to Jesus right now.

And that moment, that yes, that is what all of heaven stops for.

And it's what this church exists to create.

A place for you to be able to encounter and say yes to Jesus.

And for those of you who have been in Christ for years, do you realize what you have?

The God who spoke the universe into existence, He knows your name.

The one before whom every knee will bow chose to descend all the way to a cross for you so that you could be his.

That's not background information.

That is the ground you stand on every single day.

You're not a person trying to earn the attention of a distant God.

You are a child of the Father who held the Son through death and raised him to glory.

That is who you are.

That is who you belong to.

And no argument you lose, no room that doesn't notice you, no position that you don't get, none of those things can't touch that reality.

That should make you so secure in who you are.

Because you are a child of God our Father.

So this week.

One person, one act.

If your hands are open, this is what that could look like.

You go first in the apology.

Not because you were more wrong, but because you're done trying to be right.

You serve in a way no one sees.

No credit, no recognition, just obedience.

You release the outcome of a difficult conversation that you've been trying to control.

You speak truth and let God decide what happens next.

This is what Paul means when he says, count others more significant than yourself.

See, last week we we saw what a community looks like.

Today we see the only power that makes it possible.

Jim Elliott was a young missionary who also gave his life for the gospel.

He he took the gospel to people who had never heard it.

And before he died, he wrote this he said, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

In other words, what you are grasping for, whatever power and control you're you're trying to clutch and keep a grip on, you're gonna lose.

At some point, you're gonna lose it.

But what Jesus offers can never be taken.

That's the trade.

And it is worth everything.

That is how you get relentless joy.

Not happiness that depends on what you have, the freedom of a person who is finally let go.

Grasping is over.

Joy begins.

So open your hands.

Because that's where the joy lives.

And know that God our Father, He's holding you.

Let's pray.

Father, we came in here with our hands full.

You showed us what to do with open hands.

You hold them.

So that's what we're releasing this morning.

The need to win, the need to be in control, the need to prove we are enough.

We release all of that to you, knowing that we are yours.

We are loved.

And nothing will ever change that.

In the name of Jesus, who humbled himself and was given the name above every name.

Amen.

I want to ask everyone to stand.