Advent 2022
Give Him the Glory
January 1, 2023 • Tyler Burns • Philippians 2:1–11
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Happy New Year. It's great to see everyone all together at one service and especially to have the families, kids and parents together. This is fun. This is exciting. I love this. This is great. So happy New Year everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am, as pastor Randy mentioned, the youth, the teens, and the hospitality director here at Mosaic. And it is my honor and privilege to be able to be up here preaching God's word to all of us today. And over the Christmas holiday break, I had the opportunity to go down to visit my family in Virginia and attend church with them on Christmas. And that was fun. It was exciting. It was great to be able to fellowship and worship with another gospel preaching and faithful church. And it's just fun. It's fun to be able to worship God together in unity. And so today, because we have kids in the service with us, I'm going to do something a little bit different that I'm taking from that church. What we're going to do is, I'm going to start by reading our text. And while I'm reading, we're all going to stand. I'll tell you when, you don't have to do it yet. And then when I'm done reading, I'll say, "This is the word of the Lord." And I want everyone to scream as loud as you possibly can, "Thanks be to God." Amen. Amen. And the idea of this is that we should be thankful for the word of the Lord. It is good, it is glorious. It is something we should appreciate that we have. And so I want everyone, parents included, to shout, "Thanks be to God." After I say this is the word of the Lord. And kids, I want you to be louder than your parents. And parents, I dare you, I bet you can't be louder than your kids. And so we'll see how much praise we bring to the Lord through the noise. So if you will stand with me and we'll read from Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. It says this, "So if there is any encouragement in Christ and any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind amongst yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you. Kids, I hope that was an opportunity for you to get a little energy out because I am not known to preach for a short while. I'll do my best, but hopefully that'll sustain you through the whole sermon. But we are in Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. As you heard, and we've been going through this text the last two weeks, pastor Andy has been preaching on them and we've been seeing the divinity of Christ, the incarnation and humanity of Christ. And today we're going to be talking about the exaltation of Christ, that Christ is high and lifted up. And even just from that opportunity where everybody was willing, I've watched most of you, some of you were a little quiet, but most of you were willingly shouting out. We all know how to worship. We all know how to let our emotions out and give praise to someone or something. I was thinking about my junior, or sorry, my sophomore year of college was a year that the Red Sox won the World Series. Now for those of you who don't know, I am a New York sports fan. So that was a day of morning for me. But my college roommates were Red Sox fans and they were celebrating, and they were joyous. And they went out into the streets after the last game and everybody there was singing and chanting, "Let's go, Red Sox." People were taking it a little too far climbing street lights and jumping off of them and people catching them. It was a little insane. But I bring that up to say that even in a city like Boston that we talk about a lot as the reserved intellectuals and bookies, we still know how to worship. And what I hope this sermon does is that it allows us to all freely worship God as he deserves to be worshiped because of who he is, because he is exalted and worthy of our praise. And so we are going to focus on the last few verses of this text on verses 9 through 11 in our time together. But before we do that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good and you are glorious. And your son Jesus Christ is seated at your right hand in power and honor and glory and we praise you for this. We thank you that you are sovereign ruler, King over all the world, over all creation. Give us eyes to see your majesty. Give us hearts to humbly praise you and love you and give our lives and submission to you, our King. Speak through your word to all of us today, humble us so that we can praise you, exalt you, lift your name up and know that you promise to exalt us in your righteousness as well. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we will be spending our time in three points today. First point is that He, Christ Jesus is exalted. Second, so bow and confess. And third, and give him all the glory. So first point, he is exalted. This is from Philippians 2 verse 9 where it says, "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name." First, there are two things that stand out to me in this one verse. First is the phrase, highly exalted, exalted means lifted up, raised up, high above. But it's not just exalted. Jesus is highly exalted. This is one of my favorite things that Paul does. Paul makes up words. It's not really making up words, but this is something common in Greek. He would combine two words to make an emphasis or a new meaning of that word. So he combines the word over and exalted. So the idea is that he is highly exalted. He is overly exalted as high and worthy of honor and praise as Jesus is. He is even above that. He is more exalted, more honorable than anyone or anything ever would or could be. My question when I heard this is, why? Yes, he is exalted, he is worthy of praise, but why so emphatic on his exaltation? And the verse that was brought to mind is from Isaiah, chapter 52, verse 13 through 15. And for those of you who don't know, Isaiah 52 is a prophetic passage about Christ, about the coming of Jesus. And in verse 13 it says this, "Behold my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has not been told, they told them they see. And that which they have not heard they understand." So why is Christ highly exalted? It says because he acted wisely. "He shall act wisely." Okay, what does that mean? And this is the foundation of the gospel. This is why we are talking about Christmas even after Christmas. And why it's so important is that Jesus Christ came and lived a life here on earth in reality, in historical fact, Jesus did that. And he lived a life of perfection, complete total submission and obedience to God the Father's will, that's who Jesus is. And in his life on earth, his wisdom in his action was the faithfulness to God's will. It's not about Christ's intellect, though he is the smartest man to ever live. It's not about His understanding, excuse me, His understanding, His ability to teach or preacher any of that, even though He was the best at all of those things, it was about His complete and total submission to the will of God, even to the point of a gruesome death. It says that He was marred beyond human semblance. This is a prophecy about Christ's death on the cross, His beating beforehand and the crucifixion where He was so brutally injured that He didn't even look human anymore, that he looked more like a monster than a man and that He was willing to follow the will of God, even to that extent. Even to that point, nothing would shake him from the will of God. And so He is highly exalted, so He is worthy of our praise and our honor because of his obedience to the Lord no matter what. And the second thing that stood out to me from verse 9 is it says that, "God has highly exalted Him." Right? We see here in Isaiah that he acted wisely, and that might tempt us to think that Christ's action made himself worthy of praise and that he exalted himself because of the things he did. So if we want to exalt ourselves, we just need to be really good people. But know God is the one, God, the Father is the one who lifted Him up, exalted him and put Him in a place of honor. And this is an important distinction because it reflects a teaching of Jesus in the book of Matthew. It's actually in most of the gospels, but in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus teaches verse 12, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And so yes, it is about Christ ultimate submission and fulfillment of the will of God. But in order for Him to do that, He needed to be humble. He needed to be a man of ultimate humility, submitting again to the will of God. And as He humbled himself, made himself lowly, He exemplified this throughout His whole life. But one of the most famous in our minds is when He washed the disciples feet, a place of a servant and of a slave. He was willing to do that humbly. And as He humbled himself, as He recognized, I'm just doing the will of the Lord, God honored Him and exalted Him. Christians, do you know that it's not our job to exalt ourselves? We live in a world that is all about credentials and ideas, and who is the smartest, who's the best, who has made the most impact in this world. Christians, that's not your job. Make a great impact in the world for Christ, for the kingdom of God, but not by earthly standards. The way we do it is by being the most humble we can possibly be, by submitting fully to who God is to Christ and His exalted place at the right hand of God, the Father seated on the throne ruler of all things, king of all things. Scripture tells us, "All of existence is held together by the power of Christ. And it continues to exist because of the power of Christ." And because of that, we need to recognize He is there and I'm not. He is there and I'm here. I am a sinner. I am a man. I am a woman. I am a child of God. I need forgiveness. And when we recognize the position of Christ, that should change the way we view everything in the world. Everything in the world is under his authority. Everything in the world is under his rule and reign under the rain of a good sovereign loving God. How come the world doesn't look like it then? How come we see sin? How come we see pain and hurt and suffering? Well, the book of Hebrews tells us clearly chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. It says this, "At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him, but we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. So that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." "At present we do not see everything in subjection to Him," because why? Because of the fall, because of sin. And because of Christ's promise coming again, His second coming, the second Christmas you could say where he will make all things in subjection to Him. But in this in between time, what are we to do? It says that we are to first recognize the position of Christ that He is now presently crowned with glory and honor because of the work he did on the cross. But then we should also be thinking about things in the world as not, I like this, I don't like this, I would change this or that. But the way we should view things on earth is either in subjection to Christ or not in subjection to Christ, either in the kingdom of God or not in the kingdom of God. And I know a couple weeks ago, about a month ago, we were in the book of Romans and we talked a lot about how each of us has a call placed on us by God. And there was a lot of talk in community groups about, well, what does that mean for us individually, for us as a group and things like that. And that's great, continue to discuss those things. And I want to point out something here that wherever God has called you to be in your life right now, make it your aim, make it your goal to make that part of your life in subjection fully to Christ. Can you imagine a world where modern medicine was in subjection to the authority of Christ, to the loving, merciful, gracious God who heals and desires for the health and wealth of his people? That would be amazing. Can you imagine a world where the justice system was just and merciful like our just and merciful God? I can go on and on about example and example. But think about wherever you are called, wherever you are working, wherever you're in school, whatever you are doing in your life right now, how can you do it? How can you live it out in a way that is fully, completely in subjection to the kingdom of God, to His rule and reign and authority and say, "Lord Jesus, I'm following you in this realm and not society, not people." Now we do still submit to the authority of the governing authorities. That's in Romans, you could rewatch that sermon that's there too. But our focus should be exalting the name of Christ, wherever we are and making everything we do fully submitted to Him. And in life where we see things that are in submission to him and are bringing praise to his name that should result in greater praise of God. We should rejoice over that. We should praise his name for it. And where we see things that are not in subjection to God's will, His kingdom, our heart should be broken a little and we should be moved with compassion to see those things brought into the kingdom of God, not by force or not by selfish motivations or because of anything in ourselves, but because we know the real reality of Christ as King. And we don't want anyone to be his enemy. We don't want anything to be in opposition to him. And I said anyone, because this mostly applies to people. Every single person you're here today, even if you're not here today, every person is either in submission to Christ or not. Everyone is either recognizing the reality of Christ's rule and reign and submitting our lives to Him or we're not. And if you're here today and you say, "I'm not a Christian, I do not submit fully to Christ as Lord and savior." I urge you to do so because he is a good, powerful, loving king who wants to help you, wants to save you, wants to bring you into His kingdom. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe you're here today because a friend invited you or someone you know who cares about you, invited you. I want to tell you that person loves you more than you could ever understand because they want you to understand the gospel of the one true King and Lord. And even if you disagree, if they believe this is true and I believe this is true, and they invite you, want you to hear it, how greatly they must love you to invite you to hear the gospel of God. Now Christians, do we share the gospel of God with people? Do we love people enough that we know do not know the gospel, that we are willing to share it with those who do not know because we want them within the kingdom of God? We want their prosperity, their health, their wealth, yes, but not here on earth but an eternity under the sovereign rule of Christ. And when I think about this idea, this concept, I just want to read from the book of Acts, doing a lot of reading today because other people are smarter than me and I was working on my humility. But in the Book of Acts, Peter gives one of the greatest presentations of the gospel on the day of Pentecost. And it's a powerful thing that we should all remember and be reminded of. And I just want to read it for us now. So in Acts chapter 2 says, in verses 22 to 33, I'll read it in sections and we'll break it up. So it's not going to be so long, but, "Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty who works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know..." Pause, Peter is writing to people who are eyewitnesses of the life of Christ. He is writing to people who saw him, who knew him. They were not fooled by stories of old. They saw the things that Christ did. And Peter is appealing to them saying, God attested, God said that he is the Messiah, the coming one by the works that he did and by the signs that he has done in your midst. You know it's true. You know it's the reality. You cannot deny that these things happened. One of my favorite things is that historians who are not Christians affirm that these events happened from the modern, sorry, the current day from the first century, they affirm, "Yeah, these things happened." They might not believe that Jesus was real. They not believe that he did them by any power, but they admit that they happened. And Peter is saying, "You cannot deny the reality of the works and life of Christ." Continues in verse 23, "This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosen the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it." We'll pause there. So this Jesus, the real historical Jesus who lived for Christ or lived for God the Father, in complete submission to his will, He was delivered up to be crucified because of the total definitive plan of God, but also because of us. Yes, Peter is speaking directly to people who had a physical hand in the crucifixion of Christ, delivering him over to the Pharisees, delivering him over to Pilate. But the reality is the same that each and every one of us is responsible for the death of Christ on the cross. Why? Because that is the penalty our sin deserves. Anything that we do in rebellion to God, sin, rejection of His rule and authority as king of our lives. Scripture tells us the penalty for that sin is death. But Jesus died to pay that penalty for us. And he did not only die, he was also raised. Why? I love this part. Because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This is the power of Christ of our God. That death itself has no power to hold Jesus in the grave. This is the power of our almighty exalted king. Death itself cannot hold Him. And He did this to prove His power, to prove His authority, prove His divinity, and to save us from our sins and prove that He is worthy of it. And this has been the case through all of history. And here Peter appeals to David and in the Old Testament brings in some of the prophecies about Christ. And I'm going to read it so that we can see that this has always been the plan of salvation throughout all of history. In verse 25, for David says, concerning him concerning Christ, "I saw the Lord always before me for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us today. Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would set one of his descendants on His throne, He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption." Even back then. God was making it clear to his people, this is the plan of salvation, that his holy one, the Messiah, Jesus Christ would come, would die, but would not be abandoned to death because death has no power over Him. And He will raise proving His power to save us from our sins. Praise be to God. He has the power to do it. And this is a reality that we can live in if we recognize that Jesus truly is Lord, He truly is king. He is sovereign ruler of all things and we submit our lives to Him. This is why he continues. Peter continues in verse 32 saying, "This, Jesus God raised up..." He raised him from the dead. "And of that we all are witnesses." If you ever wondered what church is, it's a gathering of witnesses in a sense. It's that we are witnesses to the resurrection of Christ, not literally as Peter was saying, that they literally saw the resurrected Christ. But I'm here as a witness to tell you I've seen the power of the resurrected Christ in my life to save me from my wickets sin, to save me from my heart that has been warped into sin and desired that. And God saved me from it to give me a new heart, to a desire to serve Him and love Him, even though I'm not perfect, nowhere close. But He's changed my heart. And every single one of you who's here today bearing the name of Christ that is true of you, you are a witness to the power of the resurrected Christ in your life to change you, to sanctify you, to make you more like Christ. How? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what Peter says in verses 33, "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God..." Now that Christ is there at the right hand of God. "And having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing." So Jesus at the time of Peter is at the right hand of God, had received the promise of the Holy Spirit was pouring it out on the apostles. And this is the day of Pentecost where they are preaching and proclaiming the word and gospel of the Lord so that every person can hear them in their own native tongue so that all can understand that's powerful. And while may not look the same today, it's still true today that Christ has poured out the promise of His Holy Spirit upon all who bear the name of Christ. So that way we can live in a way that exemplifies to the world around us, that we are in the kingdom of God. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, what you are seeing and hearing today is the power of the Holy Spirit to change my life, to change this church's life, to bring honor and praise to His name because He is worthy, he is loving, he is deserving of it all. It's nothing to do with us, it's all about Him. Praise be His name. And the only natural response for us is to bow and confess. For those of you who are like, we're just getting to point 2, don't worry, two-thirds of my notes were point 1, so we're we're coming along. But he says in verses 10 and 11 in our text in Philippians, "So that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Praise be his name. Our natural response when we understand the position, the reality of Christ as king over the universe, but also over our lives is that every knee is going to bow. What does that mean? It's a position of humility. It's a position of total submission and recognition of the authority and power of the one you are bowing to. This was something that has been done throughout history, but especially in the Old Testament. It was a sign of saying, "I come with no arms. I come with no weapons. You can see I'm bowing before you. My head is before you. I cannot defend myself. If you want to kill me, you can. I can do nothing to defend myself because I am not worthy. You do with me whatever you wish." That should be the posture of the heart of a Christian saying, "Lord Jesus, you do with my life whatever you wish and I will follow and I will obey whatever it is you can do it." And this is a phrase about position and about relation. One of the things that I want to point out is that it's all about our relation and position according to Christ, not according to each other. This is something that we talked about in Romans. And actually in the book of Romans chapter 14, Paul quotes the same verse that he is quoting here in Philippians to make a similar point in Romans 14 verses 10 through 12. He says this, "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written as I live says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." We talked in Romans about how this means we shouldn't be judging one another, we should be focusing on the Lord and praising Him and recognizing our position before Him. And that's true here. And Paul's point in Philippians is the same referencing this verse that our position is not to look at each other and say, "I'm better than them or I'm not as good as them, or I fall somewhere in between on the hierarchy." No, God doesn't care about that. God cares about your relation to Him. We don't look at each other and say, "I am humble because I'm not as good as other people. Or I am not humble, I'm boastful and proud because I'm better than other people." God doesn't care. We all need to be humble regardless of our lives here on earth, regardless of what we say or do, it doesn't matter because we are nowhere near the power and authority and might of God, of Jesus Christ, our Lord and king. So we bow before Him, we are humbled before Him. But there's good news here. I know that that sounds a little like we are humbled, we are low in it. But that's good news. That is good news. And one of the greatest news that I don't know if everyone here knows this, but that Christ promises to exalt you, to exalt me to anyone who is in his kingdom, who has been in submission to his rule and authority, He says that He will exalt, He will lift up in honor and praise. How does that happen? This is from James chapter 4, verses 8 through 10. It says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you." It's all so intense. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners." Wow, that's powerful language. But the idea is that we are all sinners. We all have sinned, we've all rejected God. So how are we saved? How are we cleansed and purified from that? We draw near to God, we run to him. When we sin, we don't hide it. We don't keep it away and say, "Oh, it's too shameful to talk about." No, we bring it to God and say, "God, forgive me. I repent. Save me. Cleanse my heart. Make me more like you so I won't keep doing it." When we are in states of mourning, when life is hard and things are depressing, we go to God, we draw near to Him. We don't let those things get in the way and keep us from Him and say, "Life's too hard. I don't feel like talking to God right now. I'm going to stay away." No, we run to Him. We draw near to Him and He promises He will draw near to you. And as we bow, as we humble ourselves before the Lord, He says He'll exalt us. Why? Because again, it's the same teaching that Jesus taught that we talked about for his exaltation, is that those who humble themselves before the Lord will be exalted. This sounds a lot like I'm talking to people who don't know Christ or maybe just know Christ. And I want to be clear, this is for all of us who are Christians. And no matter how long we've been Christian, our goal is to be more and more humble, to be more and more like Christ who was the most humble, who has ever lived to be able to fully submit to the will of God. And as we are humbled, it's not a depressing, woe is me. It's a recognition of the greatness of God. And the more we recognize the greatness of God, the more we recognize how not great we are. And then the more we are lifted and exalted by Christ where he says, "Yeah, but I saved you." By Christ's righteousness, He saved us and we can partake in His power, His glory, His honor in heaven for all of eternity because of Him. Praise be to God. And so we bow in humility and we confess with our mouth that he truly is Lord. We are unashamed of that reality, that He is Lord of our lives. And as we bow and confess this reality, naturally we give Him the glory. We give Him the glory. This is the end of verse 11 where it says, and every tongue confessed that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We are bestowing honor and praise and glory to His name. When we recognize the greatness of His salvation, when we recognize how great of a gift that is to us. We're talking about this on New Year's Day while kind of talking about Christmas still. And it's like, what's going on here? Christmas, New Years? What are we talking about? Well, New Years is a time to look back, to look back on our lives of the past year and say, "What went well? What do I need to change?" And then make changes for the future? And what we are doing today is we are looking back at Christmas, that just happened, but we're looking back at it and saying, "This is the reality of Christ coming. This is true. He came. He was born as a baby. This is great. This was the impetus for all that we've been talking about today." Now, how is that going to affect how I live from now on? We cannot lose sight of that. And the reality is that we need to give God more glory. We need to be more humbled. We need to give Him more glory. We need to give Him more and more constant praise. This is done by, as I talked about, giving all of our lives in submission to the will of God, doing everything that we can to Him, but also being thankful in all seasons to God. No matter what is going on in our lives, we can say, "God is still in control. So I am thankful to Him." And so we should be growing in thankfulness for the Lord and His work in all seasons of our lives. And I take this from Psalm 107 versus 1 through 3, and I find it funny that this is basically a command to us as Christians. It says this, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south." If you are a child of God, if you have been saved by God, no matter where you come from, no matter how far east, west, north or south, it doesn't matter if you are a child of God, give thanks to the Lord. Why? Because he is good. It has nothing to do with our situation. It has nothing to do with what's going on in the world around us. It's just because he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. Praise God. Give Him the glory. And I love to talk about worship through song. If you listen to me preach, I talk about it every other time that I preach because I love it. But also scripture loves it. There's a whole book of Psalms, of songs written to God in praise. But also throughout the Old Testament, as major events happen of God's working they write songs. After the Exodus, they wrote multiple songs of phrase to God because of his goodness. There is something intrinsic about Christians worshiping God through song. And I bring that up to say, let's sing to the Lord. We're going to do that in a little bit, but let's sing. Let's praise him and not be ashamed of what we think about each other or what's going on around us. But just praise him because he is good. And I bring it up to say that sometimes when life is hard, that's the times it's hardest to sing. It's the times where it's hardest to lift your voice in praise. Because songs most of the time are joyful, upbeat things. And if we're sad, we don't want to be joyful and upbeat. But even then, this is from real experience. When you don't want to sing, sing and God will soften and change your heart and help you give Him more glory. Two things before we close. First we will be partaking of communion after this, but then after that we are going to sing some Christmas songs. And I say that to prepare you because I know we live in a divisive culture. Where can we listen to Christmas music after Christmas or not? It's still a worship song, so we're still going to sing it. And I want us to really just focus on that. Not to be thinking of it as a Christmas song, but to be singing it as a song of praise to God. And the second thing, I'm going to read a section from S.M. Lockridge sermon, That's My King. I don't know if anyone knows who S.M. Lockridge is. If you think I'm a passionate speaker, and preacher, I've heard that said about me. If you think I'm passionate, comes nothing close to this guy. S.M. Lockridge, you know his family loved the Lord because the S.M. stands for Shadrach, Meshach, so they really wanted him to be faithful. But he was an African American Baptist preacher in California and he died in 1993. But he has this sermon that's called, That's My King. And I'm going to read less than a third of it. It's a very short sermon, but I cut out a lot. I just want to give you guys a taste of it because it's a song, well, it's a sermon that gets put to music a lot that I listen to every year on Easter. On Easter I listen to him preach this. And on Good Friday he has another sermon called Sunday's Coming. It's also great, listen to that. The idea is how dark and depressing the world is on Good Friday, but Sunday's coming, so we have a reason for hope. Anyway, great sermon. I'm just going to read a section of That's My King, to try and stir up our hearts, to praise and recognition of the true authority of Christ. And then I'll pray and pastor and will come up after that to lead us in communion. "But speaking of Jesus..." He says, "He's the king of the Jews. He's the king of Israel. He's the king of righteousness. He's the king of the ages. He's the King of heaven. He's the king of glory. He's the King of Kings and he's the Lord of Lords. Now, that's my king. I wonder, do you know him? There's no means of measure that can define His limitless love. He's enduringly strong. He's entirely sincere. He's eternally steadfast. He's immortally graceful. He's imperially powerful. He's impartially merciful. That's my King. He's God's son, the sinner savior, the centerpiece of civilization. He's unparalleled, unprecedented supreme. He's preeminent. He's the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality and philosophy. He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology. That's my King. He's the miracle of the age. He's the superlative of everything good that you choose to call him." "Well, he's the only one able to supply all our needs simultaneously. Well, I wish I could describe him to you, but he's indescribable. He always has been, and He always will be. You can't impeach Him and He's not going to resign. That's my King. Great is the Lord. That's my King. Thine, thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. How long is that? And ever and ever and ever. And when you get through it with all the forevers, then amen." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are glorious. You are good. And we praise you that your son, Jesus Christ, saved us from our sins and that he is now seated at your right hand, in all power, glory and exaltation. Help us lift Christ as the one true king and ruler over everything in our lives. Help every aspect of what we say and what we do. Bring honor and glory to your name in submission to your kingdom. Lord, humble us. Give us humble hearts to bow before you and recognize that we are not worthy of your salvation. Yet you are so good and glorious and great that you give it to us anyway. Help us to confess to all those around us of your greatness, of your love, of your goodness, and bring praise to your name because you are good. And we know your steadfast love endures forever and nothing in this world can change that. Give us passion and desire as we leave here today to live in honor and glory of your name so that when the world sees us, they see your power and glory. Amen.
Infinite Glory Becoming Intimate Glory: Part 2
December 25, 2022 • Andy Hoot • Philippians 2:1–11
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Today we're thrilled to celebrate Christmas. Merry Christmas to you all. I forgot to say that at the beginning. Merry Christmas. Thank you. And we are going through a series, we started it last week, in the book of Philippians; Philippians 2:1-11. And this is not necessarily a traditional Admin or Christmas series, in that we're not going through the themes of hope, love, joy, peace. We're not walking very closely in the birth narrative of Jesus Christ. What we're doing is gleaning from this section of scripture that really consolidates the whole Christian message within a small, beautiful, concise statement. And we're pulling out themes around the realities, the spiritual, the historical realities of Christmas that you cannot quite dig into as much while going through the Christmas season in those more traditional methods. If you want to dig into the birth narrative of Jesus, want to go through hope, love, joy, peace as you go through this holiday week, feel free to go to our website and we have several years of those traditional series for you. So this last week I painted a big picture about God, generally. We talked through how Jesus was in the form of God, but did not count equality with God to be grasped. I tried to draw unity around who is God, by talking about Isaiah 6:1-8 a lot. Today we're going to talk about God a little more specifically in the person of Jesus Christ, but there's going to be a lot of overlap because I think the overlap is really good. My mind has just been taking off. I think a lot of people really enjoyed the thorough description of God and his glory, but I don't think quite as many people took whom the idea that his infinite glory has become our intimate glory. And that's where the gold is. So I'm going to repeat that next week. Tyler Burns, our teens director and hospitality director here at Mosaic, will walk us through the infinite glory, the exalted glory that Christ has and what that means for us today. So please join me and listen as I read the word of God from Philippians 2:1-11. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love being in full chord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus Christ, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is the word of our Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are. We praise you that in the person of Jesus Christ, we can look upon him and know your glory, not just generally, but personally. We pray Holy Spirit, that you would enliven our eyes to see the heart of God more and more in the person of Jesus Christ today. We pray, Lord, that as we reflect upon the humility shown by him, that our hearts would in turn be changed, that as we live and go forward in his glory, we would reflect his humility and power to the world. Holy Spirit, just wake up our hearts. Let us grow our expectations for this season that we would not just expect a season, a moment, a period, couple days or weeks of good tidings, but a lifetime of comfort and joy in the Holy Spirit of God by our faith in Jesus Christ. Lord, awaken our hearts and fill us that we may go and serve and be your lights in the world from this day forward until eternity. I pray, Lord bless this, the reading, the preaching of your word, may you be glorified in all that we do. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. So if you weren't aware, last week, there was a big event in world history at 10:00 AM in Qatar. It was the World Cup final. Last week, I preached both services and I tried to ignore the fact that it was taking place because I didn't want any of you to pull out your phones and check the score. It fell perfectly in between both of our services. But what took place? Lionel Messi, who has statistically proven himself over the last 16 years to be perhaps the best soccer player in history, the most popular sport in the world, perhaps the best player in history. Lionel Messi got the crowning achievement. He led his country, his band of teammates; all guys who grew up just worshiping as their idol, to victory in his fifth World Cup. And he got player of the tournament and he just had moments of just holding that trophy. I honestly just got chills thinking about it. I grew up with a coach from Argentina, played a lot of soccer myself. And praise God. I got home, I worked till 6:00 PM last week. I somehow got through the whole day without anyone telling me the result of the final. So I got to really enjoy the moment in the right way. Watched it with my son, didn't realize it went into extra time and he stayed up till about 10:00 PM, going into Monday. We felt that all week. But as I watched Messi, I just was rejoicing for him. I said, "Wow, look at the immortality that he has. The rest of his life, no one's going to doubt him. No one's going to question him. All of his critics are silenced. Look at the piece that he has. No one can count anything against him in his career." And furthermore, that internal, that battle that he had, that question of his worthiness, his greatness is taken away. That voice in his own head. Look at the love that he has. Look at the adoration of the fans. Look at the adoration of his wife and three kids, sitting there, just snuggling the trophy together. Look at the joy, just the pure exuberant happiness in a guy who is generally very mild mannered. And honestly, I looked at him and I said, "I want that. I want that now." And the little boy inside of me said to my 34-year-old self, "It's not too late, Andy. Dig in, go out and train. Practice. You're 34 years old, but you can still get that with soccer." And I believed it for a moment and then I stood up and my back hurt, and baby number three started crying. And very quickly, that goal was put away. But in all seriousness, for a moment, watching Messi just kiss that trophy, the most liked Instagram picture in history, watching him get paraded around the stadium in front of thousands of fans and then having that peaceful moment of just rest with his family, I really wanted what he had; the immortality, the peace, the love, the joy, the status, the guaranteed riches. This was even right after I preached last Sunday, which shows how quick we can stumble, how fickle we are as humans. I genuinely got caught up in the moment and really desired what Messi had, but after preaching my sermon from last week to myself, I realized that through Christ, I have what he has and so much more. And why does this matter this week? To restate myself from last week, because Christmas is all about understanding that God's infinite glory has become our intimate glory. And last week I painted this picture of God's infinite glory and brought us pretty quickly, to the end, how... Sorry. How his infinite glory becomes our intimate glory. But this is really what happens at Christmas. Beneath the details of the birth narrative, beneath hope, love, joy, peace is the reality that upon Christmas, the infinite has become intimate. I want to build off this today. Our great God, in all of his exhausted holiness, who would be fully just to leave man in the predicament before him in his state of sin, faces his sin and sends a messenger from heaven. And not just any messenger, God sends himself. Heaven itself reaches down, touches the sinner. The light of heaven breaks through the darkness caused by man sin. When the infinite glory becomes intimate for us, we realize that the greatest... There's actually an even greater glory than God's transcendent glory. It's God's transferred glory. Christmas is the season that should bring us to our knees in absolute awe as we reflect upon the holiness, glory and character of God and see that he is graciously reaching down from heaven to touch our lives and not just cancel our sin, but to graciously give us a right, a new nature in Jesus Christ. And we talked about this last week. I sped through it, but too often churches preach a half gospel. It only talks about the removal of the debt of sin. They preach as if when someone's made right before God, that it's like going to a bank and paying a debt. And you get a zero sum balance between you and God. And when they preach that lives are not actually changed, it soothes people's conscience for a period of time. But the true gospel says that when God saves people something greater than forgiveness of debt happens. God doesn't just forgive our sins when he saves us, he graciously gives us his own righteousness, his holiness, his glory, the power and presence of his Holy Spirit as we go forward through all of life and eternity. How is this possible? Our passage from Philippians 5 says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. When the passage says, he, Christ was in the form of God, it traces Christ's preexistence before creation as the only holy begotten son of God, a member of the Holy Trinity of God, the Father, God the Son God the Holy Spirits. Christ existed with God in the heavenly of heavenlys. He was infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness justice, goodness and truth, just as much as God the Father and God, the Holy Spirit. He was fully satisfied within the Trinity, fully joyful, fully loved. He did not need worship from man. And yet he, Christ took on flesh that he might save man and give him the chance to worship him. Scripture says of Jesus, in Hebrews 1:3, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And when he walked the earth, though truly tempted to sin, he retained his perfect righteousness throughout his life, walking blameless before God's law. But on the cross, he positioned himself intentionally to receive the wrath of God, due to man, for his sins, his unrighteousness, his imperfection before the law. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that because Jesus Christ, God himself, took on flesh and lived the sinless life before God that we could not live, when one turns away from their sin and turns to God once and for all, all sins of past, present and future or are forgiven. And once for all, the righteousness of Christ is applied to them by God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Once truly in Christ by faith, the Father promises to never leave or forsake his children and gives them esteemed status as heirs of his eternal glory, with his firstborn child. So 2 Corinthians 5:21 captures this gospel in a concise statement, for our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. So that's for our sake. He, God made him, Christ to be sin on the cross, who knew no sin in heaven and on earth, so that in him, Christ we might become the righteousness of God. And so what I'm talking about is typically called double imputation, in the theological world. By faith, our filthy, sinful record is applied to Jesus and his perfect, right, holy record before God is applied to us by his Holy Spirit. If you just pause and take in what I said, this is a deal that works so much for our benefit and just is not very fair to God. This is something that you have to pause and meditate. If Christ came from infinite glory in heaven and took on flesh as a baby in Bethlehem, to live a life with the lowliest of people for the primary purpose of going to the cross, that should wow you. That should make you in awe of God. That should make you in awe of Christ. And when you pause and think about who you are in your sin before a holy God, the only way you can justify why God would do such a thing, send his own son to go to the cross in your place, is you find that it's only love. There's no reason that he loves you in his holiness. He loves you because he loves you because he loves you. That is a freeing love and that's what we get offered to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we want to see this. I want to press upon you and just keep building off of what I said last week, that Christmas offers us so much more than the chance of getting a right balance before God. It's not just a chance to receive a shot of jolliness or nostalgia that powers us through a few days or a few weeks. Christmas is all about this transfer of glory. That light in the distance that we foresaw in the prophets, in the symbolism of the sacrifices and the temple and the tabernacle, that light far off, that's God's light coming into history and man are no longer left to toil. Peace on earth, goodwill to man, praise be to God. The gospel is now going to be transferred and offered to the world, not just a single people, the Israelites. That's the beginning of what is happening. And so some verses that describe the transfer of glory from God's manic Christmas and scripture are Ephesians 1:3-1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. 1 Peter 29, he says to Christians, Peter says, "But you are a chosen race." Christians, we are a chosen race. We're like a new form of immortal being, "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." Going further, scripture talks about God's gracious transfer of glory to his children in the church is something that angels, even in their present heavenly glory long to look at in wonder and amazement. And the Christmas story verses mention this. Luke 2:8-13, and in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. This is close to where Christ was born. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased." This is legions of angels, lighting up the sky to look upon God's taking on of human flesh and they are brought to worship to see this taking place. 1 Peter 1:10-12 mentions how prophets of old and angels further long to look ahead to Christ's life on earth in this gracious salvation that it garnered. Concerning the salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, Christians, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them, the prophets, that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. The angels, long to look at the gospel of Jesus Christ being played out, his taking on of the flesh, his righteous life, his going to the cross in our place, his rising from the dead, his ascension to the right hand of God the Father. And they're also waiting with us for his pending return. And when you pause and think about the prophets who prophesied about this grace that was to be ours, that says the God of the Old Testament is not a mean God, who wants to punish us and hold his authority over his head. This is a common myth about Christianity. The God of the Old Testament and New Testament is the same. He's a God of grace. Going back to the Garden of Eden. All he wanted to do was to walk in the garden and enjoy life with man. This relationship where God is creator, man is the created one and man finds his ultimate joy and freedom walking with his father, with his creator. And man breaks that relationship. And so there's a few confusing things. But even in Genesis 3, the gospel is first preached. When it says the serpent will bruise the heel of the man, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head. God all along has been planning for this gospel to come forward and we're seeing it take place at Christmas and Jesus Christ being born. This is the middle of history. This is why history's called his story. It's Jesus' story coming to this earth to be our savior. In Ephesians 3:7-10, the apostle Paul once said, of this gospel, as made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me though, I am the very least of all the saints. This grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring light for everyone. What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities, and the heavenly places? Isn't that amazing? The rulers and authorities in heaven, they already have access to God in all of his holiness, at least greater access than us. And they're even more excited to look into this gracious transfer of glory to man on earth through the Son of God. The gospel for them, it gives them a deeper understanding of God's heart, his heart of love for his created children. So at Christmas we celebrate the gracious heavenly glory becoming our intimate glory. And this should cause us to take a view of the life that Christians get to live. At one point during the World Cup celebrations, while still on the field, there's a moment where a great Argentine soccer legend and world soccer legend who's retired, Sergio Aguero, lifted Lionel Messi onto his shoulders while he held the trophy and carried him around the stadium as Argentine fans cheered and sang and cried in celebration and worship. It's this beautiful picture, but the grand picture of our life as Christians is even greater than that of Messi being paraded around the stadium on another soccer legend's shoulders. The grand picture of our life is one of Jesus himself, the son of God, parading around with us, not with him on our shoulders, but with us on his shoulders. That's the life we get to live and the power of the Holy Spirit of God, all thanks to faith. Scripture talks about life as a Christian, as a triumphal procession, like the parade taken by a victor of war who is then given dominion to reign in the conquered territory by his Lord. In 2 Corinthians 2:14-17, it says, but thanks be to God, who in Christ, always leads us in triumphal procession and through us, spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one, a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. Do you view yourself, your life as a triumphal procession, as one commissioned by God, as a righteous victor over sin in Jesus Christ who God uses to call other people, living in the domain of darkness and death, into his kingdom of heavenly light and resurrection power? Do you? How many of you feel like you're just limping through life, feeling bad for yourself because you have to face the challenges that come with walking through life in this world as a Christian? Living in Boston, perhaps three or 4% evangelical Christian that's in four or five years old now? Being of the extreme minority? How many of you are just feeling bad for yourself? Are you forgetting that the very Holy Spirit who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is in you? Some of you who just come here at Christmas and Easter, we are very glad you're here. But are you just ashamed of being Christian in a day where it's not popular or are you too busy? You're not understanding all that you have in Jesus Christ. Christians who know what a blessing it is to be saved and made righteous in Jesus Christ, to have his glory should look at Messi and realize that he has nothing on us. We know a greater glory in our salvation. We have a greater glory living within us. We have a greater joy, love, peace, and true eternal hope of victory. Do you know this? Do you know that Christ's glory is already yours today if you're in him? Or that it can be yours today if you receive his invitation to follow him? Or are you stuck pursuing your own glory or watching other people pursue earthly glory, living vicariously through them while rotting away on the inside? Can you look upon earthly heroes, those athletes, artists, musicians, those people who live in the neighborhood next to you who have multi-million dollar houses... or if you have one, there's the ones who have bigger houses than you, and say that I have more in Jesus? Or are you caught living vicariously through people or trying to catch up with them? I met this one guy. It was the weirdest thing. He tied his peaks and valleys and development in life to the peaks and valleys of the career of the famous tennis player, Roger Federer. It was just the weirdest thing. His whole Facebook, social... multiple social media profiles were him with, not Roger Federer, but pictures of Roger Federer; pictures of him with the TV, watching him. It sounds crazy, but a lot of us practice such functional ideology. One thing that I don't understand is America's obsession with the British royal family. Why does the media make millions and millions by telling us about this royal family? What's our fascination with them? Why are we living through life through their experience? Didn't we say goodbye to them a while ago? But if you think about it, the Kardashians, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Hillary, Obama, anyone else who is known by only one name, your soccer team, football team, basketball team, baseball team, social media influencers, Jesus Christ took on flesh that we might take on an infinitely greater glory than any of those people or groups. One of the things that Christians who really understand the glory that they have in Jesus can actually say with confidence is that life in Christ is just better. That's one of the things that I say in my evangelism. Just life... I've tasted some things of the world and I wish I never even tried to because life in Christ is that much better. A lot of us Christians are afraid to go too close to a prosperity gospel and say this, but even in suffering with Jesus, it's better. Life with Christ is better. It's the most rich and glorious life to live in this life and in eternity. And so the apostle Paul, he knew this, that our writer of Philippians, and that he commented on his knowledge of his present glory with a really just powerful statement in Philippians 3:7-16. He said, "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. That by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I've already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Jesus Christ has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. Let those of you who are mature think this way. And in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Paul, perhaps the most influential Christian, aside from Christ, renounce all spiritual, ethnic and professional privileges. And he had many, he was the Jew of Jew, the Pharisee of Pharisees, the top at the top PhD program in his course of study and he gave it all up for the sake of knowing Christ and becoming more and more conformed to his glory and likeness as his life went on. Will you leave your vice grip on those things to which you desperately cling in order to conjure up your own glory, your own righteousness before God and man? Your own faux hope, fake hope, peace, love passing riches in order to receive something far better? That's the offer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so with all of this, I think I've made myself clearer in trying to get you to realize that the greatest glory of Christmas is realizing that God's infinite glory has become intimate glory. But I want to expand on what I've said to say how we make this glory our own today. How can we continually increase our experience of this glory in our lives today? I had one sister say to me this week, "I'm really captivated by the idea of that infinite glory becoming my intimate glory. But what does that mean for my day-to-day life?" This is what Philippians 2 is all about. Have this mind among yourselves. This is an active thing. We're to take on this mind of Christ when he in humility, took on flesh. This is what the whole book of Philippians is about, if you want to explore it further in detail this week. Paul, as he talks about in the quote that I just read, this making his identity in Christ's own, pressing on, holding true to what we have attained. Our lives as Christians should be marked by continual progression in making Christ glory our own. So how do we make Christ's infinite glory our own intimate glory on a day-to-day basis? And so first, we have to believe the gospel. We have to really want the glory of God, the righteousness of God in our life. Do you really want that? Then we repent of our sin, of living for our own glory and trying to conjure up our own righteousness, before our heavenly Father and see that it's only in Jesus that we can be made right before him and receive a new nature and glory. And then we do this on repeat, every day, every hour, every time you begin to slip again. And if we cannot see, we ask God to help us see his glory and our sin before him. And then very quickly, the grace that he offers to us, the glory that he offers to us in Christ. And once we believe, the way that we make God's infinite glory, our intimate glory in a sense that it becomes personal to us and changes us, is by realizing that we're given such a gift of glory in order to live for God's infinite glory. And this is where I want to expand on my statement of the past two weeks. The most glorious part of Christmas is understanding that God's infinite glory has become intimate glory for his infinite glory. God's infinite glory has become intimate glory for his infinite glory. And so it has become our intimate glory for his infinite glory. So we don't get saved and then continue to live for ourselves. We don't become Christians and then continue to live as Johns and Joes and Marys and Amys, trying to use God's power to get that better job or bigger house, or more friends or spouse or children, or retirement nest egg or whatever it is that we believe will make us happy. We become Christians. What does Christian mean? Little Christ. We follow in his way. The original Christians are called the way because they lived like Jesus, for his glory. So how did Christ live? Philippians 2 says, being born in the likeness of men, he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on the cross. How did Christ live? He continually died to himself and ultimately, died on the cross. Christ showed great humility. The Christian life is the glorious life. But the paradox of Christianity is that the way we access that glory personally, and the way we bring more glory to God is by dying daily. And that's something really hard. The world wants us to be firm, be proud, be strong in our own strength. The Christian life is one where we step out constantly to the ends of our own strength so that we get to see God's power at work in us and through us. It's a constant cycle of extending yourself, praying that God would work in you and through you and serving others beyond your capacity, stretching the limitation of your gifts and saying, "God, use me." So how can you have the best Christmas? How can you have the best life from here on? Believe in Jesus, take up your cross daily and follow him. Live for his infinite glory, not your own. And this should not be a forced dying. It shouldn't be a drudgery to follow in the way of Christ, but a joy to do this. In Philippians, Paul calls the church of Philippi to rejoice over and over again. He says, "Live in this way and rejoice. I say, rejoice." And he says, "It will be the source of my rejoicing to see you live and die like this." That's what we should want to see when we do evangelism, when we make disciples and we invest in people. We want to see people who don't just adhere intellectually to the faith, but take that information, learn how to use it for wisdom and just in their daily dying. We want the Lord... We can't feel bad, we can't nurture our babies, spiritual children in the faith. We can't nurture our own physical children. What do I want with my children? I want them to grow up and I want them to lay down their lives for Jesus. And I have to accept that that's going to be a life of risk taken, not following the way of the world, but standing on the word of Christ and laying themselves down to get his truth, get the lord's heart and character across to people. And as Christian, in living in this way, all of your life becomes a song that you sing with dally life. A song that you sing by laying yourself down like Jesus, with the hope of being used by him to draw more and more people into his flock. And historically, this section of Philippians 2:5-11, it's been called the Hymn of Christ, the Song of Christ. And in the original language, there's some elements that would suggest that Paul wrote it to be a song. As you reflect on how great God's glory is, how amazing it is that he offers you glory, your life becomes a song, a form of worship as you joyfully lay yourself down for others as Christ did for you. That's the view we are to have of this life. Not sitting around feeling bad for ourselves. Even in modern day Boston, our life can be this song. We can have joy to die to ourselves. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, let us lay aside every weight and sin which sings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. In other words, Christ's joy and life song to take on flesh and endure the cross for us. It should be our joy and life song to take up our cross daily in this life so that others might get to experience the glory that we know. And who do you lay yourself down for? That's a really important question that Christians need to ask. And it's more confusing than ever with just the amplification of social media, the existence of the internet, the way to engage in life in a variant, impersonal way, essentially without human, people incarnate in front of you. But who do you serve? Who do you lay yourself down for? The people that God has placed right in front of you. And that's probably the people that you are going to celebrate Christmas with today. And you know what? They're probably the hardest people to lay yourself down for in life because you know them. You know their sins, you know their shortcomings and their stubbornness, and it's really hard to love them sacrificially. And I say this about my family. They're great, they're lovely, my wife is incredible, but every day I say, "Lord, fill me up. Give me your power to love her well, as Jesus Christ did, to lay myself down as Christ did for his bride, the church." So who do we lay ourselves down for? For your wife, your husband, your kids, your roommate, brothers and sisters in the church, physical neighbors, parents, in-laws, siblings, coworkers, friends. And probably that order, especially when you gather together at Christmas. And I just want to close with a reading from Ephesians chapter 1. I actually don't have the verses in front of me. My Bible doesn't have verses here, but where do you get the power to keep loving? You look to the Lord. You look upon his infinite glory and see that in Christ, he has given you his infinite glory. That's how we continue to lay ourselves down. That's how his glory becomes more personal. That's how it grows in us, and we grow more into the likeness of Jesus Christ with our lives. So this Christmas, my prayer is that which the Apostle Paul has here for the Church of Ephesus, very much like he had for the Church of Philippi, just with grander language. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also into the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head, over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would give us your fullness. Give us the fullness of your joy. Give us the fullness of your love, your mercy, your grace, your humility. Lord, light a fire in our souls whose source is your heavenly glory so that when we just go out and spend time with our family, our neighbors, our friends, those people who are to believe, we can begin today properly serving you. Lord, we know that you want us to be your children. We know that your power is what truly saved us. Help us to know how we can walk in it. Let your joy, your light, your love just grow in us. And we pray that as we do so that other people would see you in us. Lord, let us go forward with confidence that we have greater glory than the greatest champions, the greatest icons, the most influential people of history. We have greater power than them. You have called us to be your ambassadors in this world and let us take to the world your love, hope, and grace today. I pray this in the name of Jesus' holy name, amen.