Good morning. Let me call your attention to Philippians chapter 2 once again. Just a few moments. I'll be reading verses 5 to 11. In the first hour, I discussed verses 1 to 4 of this very chapter. I'm not going to, of course, go over that again. If you weren't here, then as Tim likes to say, check Sermon Audio, or now you can also check YouTube if you want to watch my not so beautiful face in person, or sort of in person, right? So if you wanna do that, of course, then do so please, and you're encouraged to do that. However, in order to set up what I'm going to speak about here in verses five to 11, I have to give you a short review because that's what Paul is leading to, where verses 1 and 4 is leading into verses 5 and 11. And so if I don't give you that review, then the setup is not there and it's going to be a little difficult for us to follow the import, the thrust of what Paul is trying to do here with these seven verses. So in verses 1 to 4, I mentioned four primary issues that Paul is dealing with and which he wants to impress upon his readers. And these were, of course, as a result of what he had said in chapter one. And so he follows the flow of thought, the context. Here in Philippians, there are some letters in the New Testament. James comes readily to mind where the author is sort of like going from one subject to another. without any particular connection necessarily, but in Philippians, as in most of the letters of the New Testament, there is a logical thought flow, and so he does so here. These commands and encouragement that Paul gives us here will now spill over, as it were, into verses 5 to 11. He wanted to encourage the believers in light of the fact that they were enduring persecution, and remind them that such persecution was given to them by God just as much as their faith, for their good. It is as though he were saying, it is good to endure persecution, because it brings about a lot of good. Obviously, in our fleshly bodies, we don't look at persecution as a good thing. We don't look at it as a gift, but it is indeed that, because it helps us to focus our minds to the Lord that we are serving, why it is that we are serving Christ. And so he goes on in chapter 2 to tell the Philippians how to carry out the charge that he has just given them in chapter 1. Christians are to be united and to have the same things in common, they're to be united in doctrine, in their theology, in their outlook. The Christian outlook permeates all that the believer is, within and without the church, so not only the way that you behave before other Christians, but also how you behave before the world, which, after all, is where we spend the great majority of our days, our lives, is in front of unbelievers. And so it is important for us to understand that it is just as important how we behave outside the church as within it. I mentioned that it doesn't necessarily mean that we all have the exact same convictions about every subject. We are, after all, individuals. As individuals, we have different convictions, different ideas about certain things. For example, we may have different ideas as to how we are going to accomplish the work that Christ has given us. whether some of us are more digitally adept than others. And so some of us may use the internet to do that. Others are better at person-to-person interactions. And so it doesn't mean that one is necessarily better than the other. It just means find out where your talent lies and utilize it to the utmost. Second, we are to have the same love. And of course, As I was reminded between messages, the word that Paul uses here is the word agape, which is a love of purpose, a love of will, not simply emotions. Emotions are involved in our love, right? We are, after all, emotional people. That is part of our makeup. We are not simply our will. We are also our emotions, and they play a part in who we are. but they do not constitute the whole of that love or even the most important part. Why do I say that? Because sometimes our emotions are just not there for whatever reason. We may be going through difficulties of one kind or another and so our emotions are not quite there when we love, but we purpose to love nonetheless. And we are going to love others. And again, as the example that was given to me, between the messages, which I think is very apropos, is the fact that we sacrifice, we do things for our children, for example, no matter how we feel about a particular situation, right? At that particular moment, they might be really making us angry over something, but we don't stop loving them because we are angry at what they may have done, right? And so it is the same with believers. So even when emotions are not present, we still purpose to love. Third, we are to be united in spirit. Our feelings for one another lead us to be united and to be careful of one another in ways that the world cannot be. The relationship that Christians have with one another, it is a relationship that's unique, that it is not reproduced anywhere else on earth. There's no relationship that exists between men that can compare to the relationship between Christians and Christians. And that includes even family members. The bond that Christians have for one another is one that is beyond just earthly bonds, right? And that will continue into eternity. It is eternal bonds that unite us together as members of the body of Christ. And then fourthly, we are to be intent on one purpose. The Christian lives with one primary goal in mind, to inherit the kingdom of the Lord in the future, in eternity. But then while we are here, it is to glorify God, to serve God. That is in turn what will lead to our glorification in the world to come. So while we are here, we are all about serving, glorifying the Lord. And one of the most important ways in which we serve the Lord is by serving one another. Our brothers and our sisters stand in the place of Christ, or as we serve them, we serve Christ. You remember in Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats, the day of judgment, and the Lord puts the goats on his left, the sheep on his right. And what is it? One of the things that he tells them is that, inasmuch as you did not do certain things, to the goats. You didn't do them to my brothers, you did not do them to me. And to the sheep is the reverse. And as much as you did do certain things to my brothers, then you did them to me. And so as we serve one another, we also serve the Lord. We live indeed to the glory of God in doing so. In 1 Corinthians 10 31, Paul told the Corinthians that whatever they were to do, they were to do it to the glory of God. In that context, he's talking primarily about food, but that extends to the whole of our lives. We do not live for ourselves, we live for others. And we live especially to glorify and exalt God before men. And so the stage is set for Paul to go on in verses 5 to 11 now, to say what he's going to say. And so he goes from exhortation to illustration. So let's read that segment of the chapter now. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as he already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a bondservant, and being born in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. 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. I am sure that we can all agree that this is one of the most important well-known and beloved passages in the book of Philippians and indeed in the entire New Testament and the Bible as a whole. It is very often this passage that is quoted by many Christians when they point out the fact that Jesus is God incarnate. And so this serves as a proof text that Jesus is indeed more than a mere man. It is that fact the fact that Jesus is God incarnate that needs to be examined first in order for us to truly grasp the meaning of what Paul is trying to accomplish here. It is the foundation of why Paul is using Christ as the example for us in this situation, an example of love and humility. It may seem obvious for Paul to use Jesus as an example. In the Bible, constantly Jesus is being said is the example. First Peter chapter 221, for example, tells us that Jesus left us an example of suffering. And so that can be extended to every aspect of our lives beyond just suffering. Christ is the example. And so you say Christ is the example, and then fill in the blank for whatever you want to put in there as far as our lives are concerned. Example of humility, example of service, example of holiness, and so on. But it is especially important for Paul to point to Christ here because of what his life meant for the purposes of the comparison that he is about to draw in this portion of the chapter. That is what becomes the power behind the example. Paul didn't choose just any example, right? He chose the epitome of examples. And so we begin by proclaiming that Jesus is indeed Yahweh. And we do so by speaking about the Carmen Christi. In order to do so, to make that point, the Carmen Christi is translated means the hymn or song to Christ as God. When we speak of men-to-men relationships, for example, as Paul just did in the four verses that preceded this section of the chapter, we can understand how humbling, for one person to humble himself before another, takes a great deal of effort, a great deal of love. Humility and service, as I mentioned in the first hour, are not natural things to the human mind. The sinful mind wants to do what the sinful mind wants to do. It wants to be number one. But in Christ, it is the total opposite. We are to be secondary to the commands that the Lord gives us to humble ourselves before another. And it is interesting in that connection that the word humility in the original Koine Greek of the New Testament did not really exist. The term in classical Greek from which the word is derived describes something that was abject, and was reproachable. So to tell somebody that they were humble was to insult them in classical history. And so we can see there that the term was one of derision, that people didn't think highly of others who may have been humble. And so in order for Paul and the other writers of the New Testament to get across the point that they were trying to make as to what this humbleness is all about, they had to basically invent the term. And they did so in this instance. They did so in a number of other instances as well, but for our purposes, they invented this particular word. Excuse me. So when Paul is going now to discuss the supreme example of humbling, it is because it was not just a man that did the humbling, but also God. And so Paul uses Jesus as the epitome of humble submitting because he is not just a man or even an angel. No, Jesus isn't simply an angel. Rather, Jesus is God. That's why he is the ultimate example. There couldn't be a greater example than for God to be the one who gives himself. God is the supreme being, the ultimate being in the universe. And so if God does something, then that is the supreme being doing something. No one can do something greater, no one can do something better than God does. And so when God sacrifices, that is the greatest sacrifice. There is an ancient mythology, I'm sure that some of you, most of you probably know, there were many gods who were also part men. Hercules comes to mind, for example. And even those gods that may not have been partly human, still acted like humans, right? They conducted themselves like men in general. They were vindictive, conniving, selfish, and cruel. And very often they would be plotting against each other how they could destroy one another, right? And so it is an interesting thing to see how gods were constantly at odds with one another, constantly battling one another in ancient mythology. Obviously, that is not the way it is with the true god, and certainly not with Christ. Although he was a man in every sense of that word, he didn't behave like other men and he didn't behave like the gods of the heathen. He was sinless and he was pure. We can't, however, simply point out the difference. It's important for us to establish the fact that Christ is God incarnate. I don't want to assume anything. I would imagine that the great majority of you here sitting today are believers, and of course, the great majority of you believe that Christ is God incarnate, that he is, as we often refer to him, the second person of the Trinity. Nevertheless, it's important for me to go through this and to point out from the scripture where we find the reality of Christ as being divine, because again, there may be some among us today who maybe don't believe that fact or who are perhaps confused as to the divinity of Christ and the fact that he is part of the Godhead. It is difficult sometimes for people who are not Christians, who are not Orthodox Christians, to understand how one can be three. How can one God be three persons? God is one being, He is three persons. And so, although we don't understand it, we are forced to conclude that that is the case because of the New Testament. So to the New Testament, we go to prove that fact. There's several instances in the New Testament that describe Jesus in direct terms as God. And the first of these is John 1.1. And this is one of those passages that just about all Christians know because of you have a Jehovah's Witness that has come to your door at some point, you probably have whipped out your Bible and prove that Christ is God by pointing to John 1.1, right? If he's an astute Jehovah's Witness, he'll probably argue the point anyway, but the reality is that John does call Christ God. And he does so by saying, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And notice that John speaks of God and the Word as two different persons. Right? He's not saying that the Word is the same as the God. Right? He is saying that these are two different persons. Nevertheless, they're God. And how is that possible? He goes on to tell us that the Word was face-to-face with God. And it is because he is speaking here about two different persons. One being the Father, the other being Later on in the chapter, in verse 14, he will identify the word as the one who became flesh. And this is, in turn, an obvious allusion to Jesus. Why? Because it was Jesus, the one that became flesh, not the Father. If you look at the intervening 12 verses, verses 2 to 13, you can see that John is clearly speaking of Christ. That is the point that he's wanting to make here in chapter one, and later, still in verse 18, he'll also speak of Christ, and then speak of him as being himself God, or the only begotten God, as some of the translations put it. That may sound a little strange to our ears, how can God be begotten? But nevertheless, he is indeed begotten by the Father. Some have objected to John's characterization of Jesus as God, claiming that by the time John wrote his gospel, likely sometime in the 90s AD, there had been a great deal of development leading to the church turning Jesus into God. In other words, the church invented the deity of Christ, not because he truly was God. Bart Ehrman, for example, is among those who is of that opinion. He wrote a book that's called How Jesus Became God. However, we also have witness from other writers of the New Testament. So it's not just John that tells us that Christ is God. Paul, for example, in Romans 9, verse 5, a chapter that Tim discussed not too long ago on Sunday mornings, says, whose are the fathers, speaking about Israel, and from whom is the Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. So notice that Paul speaks of Christ, number one, as being overall. This is an echo of Ephesians 4, 6, where he talks about God the Father being overall. And so we can see there how Paul equates Christ and God the Father as being the one God who is overall. He goes on to say that Christ is not only overall, but is God-blessed forever. A clear identification of Christ as being God. And in the context that he is using it there in Romans 9, he is making the point that the Israelites had tremendous advantages. They had been given the oracles of God. Christ came through the bloodline of Israel, and yet they rejected the word. And so the idea is that God himself came to dwell with the Israelites, among them, among the Jews, and yet they rejected him. Note also that Paul wrote the book of Romans 35 to 40 years before John wrote his gospel. So sometime in the late, or mid to late 50s, Paul wrote the book of Romans as opposed to John writing sometime probably in the 90s. And so this gives the light to the idea that John and some of the other later writers of the New Testament, invented the deity of Christ. For we see that in the 50s, a mere 30 years after Christ, 20 years after Christ had risen from the dead, had ascended into heaven, He was already being spoken of as God. And if He had spoken about as God in Romans 9, then we know that that was something that was much prior to Paul writing the letter to the Romans. because we know that that was a society that was an oral society primarily, and so those were things that were passed along orally long before they were put pen to paper. We also see both Paul and Peter identify Jesus as God and Savior in Titus 1.12, where Paul speaks of Jesus' second coming and then calls him God and Savior. Peter does the same thing in 2 Peter 1.1, where he also calls Jesus our God and Savior. And lastly, in our own passage, Paul speaks of Jesus as being in the form of God. The word that Paul uses to indicate form is the word morphe. We all recognize it because it's the root word that we use for morphology, for example, or metamorphosis. There is some controversy as to how Paul uses the word here in some quarters. primarily because he makes the comment about Jesus not grasping or holding onto, depending on the version that you use, that King James, for example, uses the word robbery, deity. In other words, he did not grasp, he did not hold onto being in the form of God. Some folks who object to Christ's deity hold onto the part of this verse to say that Jesus was not God, and he did not want to steal deity from the father. And that's really a preposterous idea in the first place because how do you steal being God from God? You know, that's impossible for anyone to do that. The idea that Satan tempted Eve with, for example, about if you eat of the fruit, you're going to become like God, right? It should have told Eve all she needed to know because it's impossible for a human being to become God Mormonism notwithstanding, right? And so it is impossible for Christ if he was not already God to become God. And so it is clear that what Paul is indicating is that Jesus was already in form or essence God, the outward appearance of the inner nature. What we saw in the flesh in Christ, what we see in the flesh in Christ is the outward appearance of the inner nature. And he did not hold on to that essence in order to become a man, as he will go on to say in the rest of the chapter. So let's turn again to our passage to examine how Paul describes the humiliation and its meaning for us. Notice that he begins in verse five by saying that we are to have the mind of Christ. He's established that Jesus is God. Now he turns to the meat of the passage and says that the fact that Jesus is God provides us with the ultimate example of humility, allows us to fulfill his charge of verses one to four and also of verses 12 to 16 later on. Those are not verses I will cover until Wednesday. Hopefully you all will come and you'll be able to hear that as well as we conclude this section of the chapter. He doesn't leave us to determine how we are to humble ourselves. We are to be imitators of Christ. And so he tells us, these are the things that you have to do in verses 1 to 4. And now in verses 5 to 11, this is how to do it. Okay? As Christ did it, that's how you are going to do it here. In 1 Corinthians 11 and 1, Paul told the Corinthians that they are to do what? To be imitators of Paul, followers of Paul, as he is imitator or follower of Christ. And so Christ is the ultimate person that we are to imitate. In Ephesians 5.1, same author Paul tells his readers in similar language to what we've just read in our text that they are to be imitators of Christ and to walk in love as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us. And so we are to imitate Christ in every way and be humble like he is humble. When he speaks of having the mind of Christ, he's simply saying that we are to have the same attitude, the same outlook in life, the same mindset as he had. As one commentator put it, it is to love the things he loved, to hate what he hated, the thoughts, desires, motives of the Christian should be the thoughts, desires, motives, which fill the sacred heart of Jesus Christ our Lord. We must strive to imitate him, to reproduce his image, not only in the outward, but even in the inner life. And that is, that last part there is so important, because it isn't just going through the motions. I talked earlier in the first hour that sometimes we don't have the emotions of love, right, and we do it anyway. That doesn't mean, however, that we're hypocrites. That we're going to do things that we don't want to do for someone. We don't want to do good for somebody. We hate that person, for example. We don't think well of that person. But we're going to do them good anyway because we want to be seen as doing good. And so the motivation behind it is also very important. Christ didn't do things for us simply because, you know, he wanted to serve as an example. He did it because he truly had love for us. And so that is the root of the matter right here for us, is that we have to have true love in order to really humble ourselves for others. So let's take a look at what things Paul tells us demonstrate how we are to imitate Christ. First of all, Paul tells us Christ became man. Obviously, we are already human beings, and so we can't become another being. But the point there is that for Christ to become God is the ultimate in sacrifice. This is what's been termed the Immanuel Principle. Isaiah 714 speaks of Christ as being born of a woman and being called Immanuel, which means God is with us. Matthew says that this principle, that this prophecy was fulfilled by Christ in his birth. In the first chapter of the 23rd verse of his first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, he says that This happened, Christ's birth happened, in order to fulfill what the prophet had spoken, that he will be born and be called God with us. So for the only spotless, sinless, holy, pure, and immaculate being in all existence to become like the sinful creature is the ultimate demonstration of love. That's the point that Paul makes in Romans 8.32, for example, when he says that if God did not withhold his son, but gave him up for us, how then will he give us, how then will he not give us all things? So in other words, what Paul is saying for us there is that God was willing to give his son the ultimate in sacrifice. So how is he not going to be willing to do other things which are less or short than giving his son? It is going from the greater to the lessen. I often talk about Islam. I use Islam as an example. now and then, probably because it's the fastest growing religion in the world, the second largest by number of adherents. And so I mention them often, mainly as a contrast to Christianity. And in this case, I am contrasting the fact that in Islam, God could not become man. The Quran says in Surah 112, Ayah 3, which are equivalent to our chapters and verses, that God does not get, nor is he begotten. Muslims question how is it possible for God to condescend to man and become a vile creature, with all his physical needs, hunger, thirst, bodily functions, right? In the Muslim mind, it's impossible for God to do anything like that. You know, God is holy, pure, to become man, impossible. And to that, the Christian says exactly, because that is exactly what he did. All of those foibles, God took on in order to secure our salvation. In Galatians 4 and 4, Paul said that Christ was born of a woman and born under the law. Jesus wasn't some sort of superhuman, he was a man in every sense of that word. Hebrews 4, 15 and 16 tells us that we do not have a high priest, that I couldn't feel our infirmities, In other words, someone who didn't have a full human experience. Rather, the writer continues, he was touched with the feelings of all of our infirmities, as I mentioned. He hungered, he thirst, he got sleepy. We have instances in the gospel, for example, remember when the disciples are in the boat and they're in the storm. And what's he doing? He's in the back of the boat sleeping. So obviously demonstrating that he was, he retired just like the rest of us. So he was not any different in that sense. He was tempted in all points like we are. And so he understands how we as humans are tempted. And because of that understanding, he can come to our aid whenever we ourselves are being tempted. He understands our every weakness. And some, let me quote from William Hendrickson, commenting on another Pauline passage concerning Christ and his nature, this time from 1 Timothy 3.16. Into the human nature, weakened by the curse, came Christ, the Son of God. He was sent forth by God, hence, virgin born. The fact that one so glorious in his preexistence was willing to adopt the human nature and that curse-laden weakened condition, was a manifestation of infinite love. Hence, this voluntary self-concealment was at the same time a self-revelation. From the very beginning of his coming into this flesh self-concealment and self-disclosure, walked side by side in connection with this mystery of our devotion. And so we see there how Christ emptied himself, which is what Paul goes on to say next. So let me clarify something here about what Paul says, which has been greatly misunderstood by some when he talks about emptying himself in verse seven. That's what's commonly referred to as the kenosis, which is the Greek term that means emptying in this passage. The issue comes when those who claim that Jesus not only emptied himself of the privileges of deity, but that he also set aside the essence of his deity. In other words, he was basically nothing but a man when he was here on earth. So take the example of Bill Johnson, for example, who's a prosperity gospel preacher and who is a purveyor of false miracles, who said that what Jesus did, he did only as a man here on earth. So he says, for example, that the heretical teaching of the kenosis that Christ operated on earth solely as a man with no divine capacity whatsoever. Every miracle, every healing that Christ performed according to Johnson came about through the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Johnson teaches we can all perform healings and miracles since we also have access to the Holy Spirit. And here's the primary problem with such an idea. God cannot stop being God any more than we can stop being humans, right? For God to stop being God, means that he was not God in the first place. It's impossible for him to do that. You know, obviously nowadays, when we talk about males and females, well, people are constantly telling us, well, you can stop being a male and you can stop being a female, but that's not reality, right? Those are people that are deceived, and they're no less deceived than the people who say that Christ could have stopped being God while he was here on earth. He is God 100%, and he is man 100%. His deity and his humanity coexisted side by side, It wasn't 50% of one and 50% of the other, or 100% of one and 0% of the other. We see in the Gospels, for example, the times when Christ sort of pulls back the curtain, as it were, and shows his disciples and the readers of the Gospels his divinity. Take, for example, the transfiguration. right, where he goes up in the mountain with three of his disciples and what happens? His clothing, everything about him become dazzling, radiant. And so there he demonstrates the glory that it is rightly his. When he's walking on the water, for example, when instilling the storm, you know, after he instills the storm, there's complete calm and the disciples say, who is this? To whom even the waves in the sea obey him, right? It is hard, well, impossible for us to comprehend. How can a word be spoken and inanimate objects like rain and storm and wind just obey? And yet Christ had that power and still has that power today. So Paul was speaking of when Jesus emptied himself, he had reference to some of his privileges as God and not as his divinity. And so again, God doesn't hunger, God doesn't thirst, God doesn't change, and yet Christ in the humanity did all things. He grew up, for example. Luke tells us that he grew in stature and he also grew in understanding and in knowledge. And so in his humanity, Christ did change, but not in his divinity. He emptied himself furthermore of his riches. In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, Paul tells his readers, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. who though being rich, yet he became poor, that you, through his poverty, may become rich." And so he left the riches and glory, came to earth as one of the poorest of the poor in order to fulfill the mission of our redemption. He also became a slave and became obedient to death. We've often talked about the word for bondservant here, that's translated bondservant here, is the Greek word doulos. The literal meaning of that word is not bondservant, is not servant at all. It is slave. Most translations, unfortunately, don't translate it as slave. The Legacy Standard Bible does so, but it is one of the few that do so, probably because, you know, they're trying not to offend. A lot of people in our current society, unfortunately, are offended if they hear terms such a slave but the reality is that that is the term that Paul uses here which really we need to use it in order for us to really comprehend the full import of what Paul is telling us here so Jesus not only humbled himself but did so by becoming a slave and so he not only became a man he didn't become a rich man He didn't become a wealthy man. He didn't become a man of means. Rather, he became a slave for us, the poorest of the poor, as I mentioned. Jesus said he did not come to be served, but to serve in Matthew 20, 28. And he further specifies that ultimately his service would be to give his life as a ransom for many, which was the ultimate demonstration of that service. Our passage basically tells us the same thing. It is Jesus that became obedient. He became obedient unto death. It is his death that ultimately demonstrates his amazing condescension for the sake of his elect. Jesus told his disciples in John 15, 13 that no one has more love than to give his life for his friends. And then he went on to say that his disciples were his friends if They did what He commanded. By extension, He also tells us today that we are His friends if we keep His commandments. And in so doing, we demonstrate that it is for us that the Lord gave Himself. His sacrifice is accounted to us today, and because of that sacrifice, we go on to live lives that are holy and worthy of that calling. Paul then gives us another comparison. Christ didn't only give his life, but he did so on the cross. Crucifixion was the most painful and humiliating of deaths. Paul himself said in Galatians 3.13 that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. And he did so by being hung on a tree, as Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21 in that passage. And so not only was Crucifixion in itself, one of the most ignominious and most degrading of death, humiliating of death. The condemned person who died was stripped of all dignity, not only stripped of his clothing, but also of all dignity. And yet Christ submitted himself to that curse for us. This is extreme suffering, and in that, Christ again demonstrates the love he has for his own and the fact that he loved his father and submitted himself to him even to that point. So what is the result of this humiliation then? Paul goes on to say it is exaltation. He moves on from Christ's humiliation to the result of that humiliation. Because Jesus was willing to humble himself and do the work that will result in our redemption, God the Father has exalted him. Thus, we have two aspects of Jesus and God the Father's work in this passage. Jesus surrendered and gave himself over to die. The Father raised him and gave him a name. Although Paul doesn't use the familiar refrain it is written in this passage, he nevertheless is quoting from the Old Testament here. Isaiah 45, 23 reads, I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back. that to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. Let me point out, first of all, that the one that is speaking to Isaiah in this passage is God. If you read the entire passage, you will see that that is the context of this passage. And here, God is defending his deity, as it were, from the false gods. Some have called these passages here in Isaiah, in the 40s, the trial of the false gods. in which God challenges false gods to prove that they are, in fact, gods, while offering proof after proof that he is indeed the only true and living God. Needless to say, the false gods fail the test, and God demonstrates that he is the true and living God. It is near the end of that challenge that God proclaims what we have just read. And notice that Paul, almost word for word, repeats what God says in Isaiah, which is another indication that Paul here is declaring Jesus to be the God of the Old Testament. Remember, only God can be worshiped. It is only God to whom we direct our worship, our adoration, our praise, our glory, not to any other creature. You remember in Revelation, the angel comes to John, and John is about to do what? prostrate himself before him and worship the angel. And the angel says, don't do that. I am nothing more but a servant. You need to worship God. Peter did the same thing with Cornelius, who wanted to kneel before him, and yet Peter says, don't do that. You can imagine how horrified Peter must have been at such a thought, knowing himself to be the miserable creature that he was. And so how does that exaltation affect us? Obviously, exaltation of Christ, because of what he did. But that exaltation also affects us, because we too will be exalted. Matthew 23, 12, the Lord said that our humility will lead to our exaltation. He said the one who humbles himself will be exalted, but the one that exalts himself will be abased. Now, we don't do the work of God, the work of the gospel, the work of the kingdom, in order to be exalted. That is not the purpose why we pursue the work of Christ. Nevertheless, God and his condescension and his love for us is going to reward us nonetheless. The main thrust of the book of Revelation, which we've been studying in the Spanish class, is that Jesus will conquer. But a second and important thrust as well is the fact that because Christ is going to conquer his church, is going to conquer with Him as well. And so it is not just Christ's victory, it is a victory that we too gain. And it's a victory that we gain not having done anything to deserve it, not having anything to win the victory. Solely because Christ the King has decided to give us, His people, the victory together with Him. And so if we humble ourselves with Him, now we will reign in the future with Him as well. We will all bow the knee, all will be forced to bow the knee to Christ. And we can do so voluntarily now, or we can do so reluctantly in the day of judgment. If we do so voluntarily now, then what awaits us in the future is glory beyond compare. If we have to wait until the last day to do it reluctantly, then nothing but misery and punishment is what awaits us. There's a great paradox here in the fact that we are kings and priests with Christ, and yet we bow the knee. And so you can see together a great paradox of Christianity, how we are kings on the one hand, and yet we are servants and slaves on the other. We inherit the reward, but we also humble ourselves before our God and our King. The more we understand the reality of the incarnation, The more we understand the reality of who we truly are, the more humble we should feel, the more humble we should act and be. We are reminded of the ones who received the crowns in Revelation chapter four. What do they do? They throw them at the feet of the conquering king. And so that is what we do with our reward. No one is going to escape our destiny. We will all stand before Christ in judgment. And so let us look together forward to standing before him as our savior, not us, our judge, as the one who's going to condemn us. So in conclusion, Paul commands the believers in Philippi to care for one another. No one can care for a Christian like another Christian. And so it is important for us to do the work of the caring for one another. that cares to be done by following Jesus' example. For he did not hold to his prerogatives as God, but gave them up for the sake of those whom he had elected from the foundation of the world. He humbled himself by becoming man. In doing so, he gave up his privileges as God for the time of his earthly sojourn. And he humbled himself by submitting to death, and the kind of death that is as humiliating as it is painful. As a result of that humiliation, Paul tells us, there was exaltation. If we serve others like Christ served us, we too will be exalted. We too will reign with Christ. That is the aim of our Christian life. All of us look forward to being with Christ. Sometimes my wife and I are talking about the eternal state, the eternal day, and she says, I don't want any crowns. I simply want to see Christ. I simply want to be with Christ, right? And so that is the bottom line, is that we serve and that we love the Lord and make it our aim to please Him because there will be a day of judgment. In 2 Corinthians 5, 9 and 10, Paul says, we make it our aim to be pleasing to God, for we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that all of us may receive for the things that we have done in the body. Because our life here as a body will be so much better and our witness to the unbelieving world will be much more effective if our lives are lives of service for one another. And because to give ourselves unreservedly and wholly to the work of Christ and the care of his body is to gain that which cannot be forfeited. Let me end with the words of John Calvin speaking about this passage and the humility of Christ. Christ yielded voluntarily. All that is required of us is that we do not assume to ourselves more than we ought. Hence, he sets out with this, that inasmuch as he was in the form of God, he reckoned it not unlawful for him to show himself in that form. Yet, he emptied himself. Since then, the Son of God descended from a great height, so great a height, how absurd that we, who are nothing, should be uplifted with pride. And so it is essential for us to understand that pride has no place in the body of Christ, rather humility with one another.