02-03-13 Every Knee Shall Bow

Phil. 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

Phil. 2:6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

Phil. 2:7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

Phil. 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Phil. 2:9 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Phil. 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,

Phil. 2:11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We began studying this passage last week,

but we’re not even close to being finished with it yet.

So far we have seen

that the passage was actually

written by Paul as an illustration

of the way he wanted

the Philippian Christians to act towards each other.

Then we got a little bit side-tracked

and spent the rest of the time

talking about learning doctrine

through our ongoing relationship with Christ.

And we’ve also touched on the remarkable knowledge

that this passage gives us about our Lord.

In these few verses

Paul paints for us a panoramic portrait of the Person and work of Christ,

a portrait of the all-powerful

omniscient Creator God

choosing to empty Himself of all those attributes that could not be contained within human flesh,

humbling Himself by becoming the human bond-servant of the Father,

then submitting to the leadership of the Father

to the point of death on the cross,

so that He could offer Himself

as a sacrifice for our rebellion against Him.

And we have seen that what He did

He did, not because He had to

but because He choose to

because of the “great love with which He loved us”.

We saw that because of His actions,

and His obedience,

and His perfection,

and His death for us

God the Father highly exalted Him

and bestowed upon Him the Name

that is above every name -

the Name JESUS,

the Name SAVIOR,

the name THE LORD IS SALVATION.

No longer just the all-powerful,

all knowing,

ever present Creator God of all that is.

But now also the Hope

and Redeemer

and friend to all those who come to Him.

We were created by God for God...

Now think about that -

think about what that really means.

The reason we exist -

each of us,

is because God wanted to share a friendship with us.

And we were designed by Him specifically for that purpose.

And don’t misunderstand me here -

I am not even remotely talking about

our needing to go to church more

or read our Bibles more

or saying more prayers.

I am not talking about the need

to be more worshipful,

or more reverent,

or more obedient to what God says.

God brought us into being

not so that we would DO certain things,

He brought us into being

so that we would BE with Him.

If you are a parent

why did you have children?

Now I know that very question

has been on your mind a great deal

this past week.

WHY oh WHY did we ever have children?

But if you can back off from whatever

child-driven disaster is currently causing total chaos in your life,

why is it that we as parents

go through the incredible amount of

work

and turmoil

and endless expense

and sleepless nights

and sicknesses

and dirty diapers

and terrible twos

and school problems

and broken bikes

and dating

and college costs

and broken down cars

and junk scattered all over the house

and spills

and broken dishes

and stubbornness

and thousands and thousands of hours of added work

that comes with children?

Why?

Because there is something about

that child-parent relationship

that makes us think its worth the cost.

And when God seeks to communicate to us

what’s really going on between us and Him

He chose to use the parent-child relationship

as His favorite model.

2 Cor. 6:18 "And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

You see, it wasn’t just our worship,

or our obedience,

or our faithful performance He wanted.

It was a living,

growing,

unending friendship with us.

If it was simply our worship He wanted

He could have remained Creator God

and simply revealed Himself

in His supreme power

and majesty to us in justice

and ultimate power.

Driving us to our knees was not the problem,

the problem was drawing us to His heart.

And so our Creator God

laid aside everything that carried

the aroma of deity,

and clothed Himself in a human body

so that He could get close enough to us

so that we could see His heart,

His love.

For God so loved the world...

And we ended our study last week

with Paul’s comments in verses 9-11,

where Paul tells us that

Phil. 2:9 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Phil. 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,

Phil. 2:11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I want to take these verses

and put them back into the context of the passage again here in a couple of minutes,

but first of all

there is one other fascinating comment about Christ

I want us to notice in this passage.

Paul does not just tell us that every Christian shall bow before Christ

and confess Him as Lord,

he says,

that at the name o Jesus every knee should bow

and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord.

We live in such a strange world -

a world in which right now

nothing appears to be

as it really is.

You see,

Christ is the central personality

of all creation,

and all of history

and all of humanity.

He is the central issue of every human being.

It isn’t that He should be the central issue-

He is!

He is both the Creator and the Redeemer

and each of us enter this world

with exactly the same pilgrimage assigned to us -

to follow His leadership

from our rebellion

to our King.

Christ’s absolute supremacy

and unquestioned right to rule all people

is not the issue,

it is a fact, a given of human existence.

The fact that most of the world

spends most of its time

and energy

and effort in running from Him

and hiding behind all sorts of other issues

that we then pretend are more important

doesn’t change a thing.

Christ is who He is,

and none of our little human games will alter that in the least.

He is the supreme being of all creation

and every single human being

who has ever lived on this earth

will bow in submission to Christ.

You see, the question is not IF we will bow before Him,

the question is WHEN

and WHETHER we will do so voluntarily

or under compulsion.

Let me show this to you

through the evening news broadcast

that’s going to air just a little bit in the future.

You see, I know the future -

well, I know a little bit of it,

and the day will come

when that favorite evening news anchor of ours

will sit in his chair,

staring at the camera,

and even under all his make-up

everyone will see that his face is all pasty-white,

and sick with fear,

and he will say, “I’m reporting to you live from the valley of Megedo here in the Middle East,...

Rev. 19:11 And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war.

Rev. 19:12 And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself.

Rev. 19:13 And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God.

Rev. 19:14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses.

Rev. 19:15 And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.

Rev. 19:16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."

Rev. 19:17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, "Come, assemble for the great supper of God;

Rev. 19:18 in order that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men (and the flesh of news commentators) and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great. "

With the exception of my one little addition

that is a bit of pre-history

from the book of Revelation,

chapter 19:11-18.

You see,

this world is not as it seems right now,

and the time will come

when all the games will come to an end,

and all the hiding places will be revealed,

and the central Person of Creation,

the Lord Jesus Christ,

will suddenly and irreversibly

be revealed to all creation for who He is.

And then every knee shall bow

and every tongue will confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And that passage from Revelation

makes it clear that there are two

distinctly different groups

who bow the knee to Christ -

there are those who have fought Him

and secretly (or openly) hated Him

and who have resisted His love

who bow in terror before Him.

And then there are those

armies ... clothed in fine linen, white and clean, ... following Him on white horses.

That’s us, you know - all those who have bowed before Him by choice,

not by necessity,

those who know Him not just as Lord,

but also as Savior, and as friend.

And when someone asks

what we’re doing there

we’ll just say,

“Oh, I’m with Him, -

the big guy up front,

the one who’s all glowing

with the sword coming out of His mouth.

He’s my friend, you know,

and my brother.

Go ahead, ask Him - He knows my name,

He knows me real well.”

Phil. 2:9 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Phil. 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,

Phil. 2:11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

OK, that’s a little of what’s going on

in the area of doctrinal knowledge about Christ in this passage.

Now, rather than trying to rush through

how Paul intends for us to apply this pattern of Christ to our own life

and our relationships with one another

I think we’ll hold that until next week when we’ll have more time for it.

But I do want to take just a few more minutes

to tie some of what we’ve been looking at to some ideas we were talking about

last week.

You may remember we were talking about the way in which the growing Christian life

is really a process

of our developing our doctrinal belief systems

through our own personal interaction with Christ Himself.

True doctrine,

the kind that literally transforms our lives

doesn’t come out of a book,

it comes out of our own personal wrestling with our God,

discovering in the process

who He really is

and what it really means for us in our daily lives.

Now,

in this passage we’ve just looked at

there are a number of major doctrinal statements presented about the Person of Christ,

chunks of knowledge that we can

learn intellectually

and file away in our mental file folder

labeled “The Doctrines of Christ”.

We have seen that Christ is the all-powerful

Creator of the universe.

We have seen that His love for you and me

was so great that it motivated Him

to do anything He had to do

including taking on human form

and allowing us to kill Him

so that He could communicate His love for us

in a way we could receive it.

We have also seen that Christ now holds a position of ultimate supremacy

over the entire created world,

a position that will eventually bring

every human being

before Him in undisputed submission

to His authority.

That’s great! Those are powerful truths

to understand.

But grasping them intellectually

is only the first step,

because doctrine doesn’t become “real” doctrine in our lives

until we have learned it not just intellectually

but until we have also seen it lived out

in our personal friendship with our Lord.

So let me tell you the kind of process

I believe we can expect to take place

in our lives.

Let’s just take the truth that Christ is the all-powerful

Creator of the universe.

That is an intellectual doctrine about Christ.

But the real question that faces us daily

is not just whether or not Christ

was sufficiently powerful

to create the universe,

but whether He is sufficiently powerful

to recreate MY universe,

to take all of the chaotic bits of my life

and begin to recreate them

into an ordered, functioning world.

You see,

Christ does not really become all powerful to us

until we have seen Him all powerful

at the hardest places

and the hardest times in our life.

For years it has fascinated me

to realize that at those times

when my life seems to be totally out of control

and I feel powerless to fix anything

and way down deep inside

I wonder if God cares enough

or if He is really able

to do in me and for me what must be done,

at those times I have never doubted

the account of Moses parting the Red Sea

or the truth of the Creation story in Genesis

or the miracles surrounding

the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

I never doubted that God was all-powerful

in theory, or in history,

at the intellectual doctrinal level.

But that isn’t real doctrine-

that kind of doctrine that grows out of

what is going on personally

between myself and my Lord.

And in order for that doctrine

to become real doctrine

I have to walk with Him

through my chaos

and my pain

and my confusion

and see Him bring order

and peace

and purpose to me.

That’s the process of closing the gap

between the doctrine I believe

and the doctrine I really know.

And this same growth process applies to

our discovery of the true nature of the love of Christ for us.

We have seen in Paul’s presentation of doctrine

that Christ’s love for you and me

was so great that it motivated Him

to do anything He had to do

including taking on human form

and allowing us to kill Him

so that He could communicate His love for us

in a way we could receive it.

That’s great doctrine!

That’s amazing truth.

But from there

our Lord then seeks to,

well, as Paul puts it in Romans,

shed abroad in our hearts the knowledge of the love of Christ.

The doctrine of the love of Christ is great,

but the discovery of the love of Christ in our own life personally

is the only thing that truly has the power to transform our lives.

And that discovery comes slowly, and often painfully into most of our lives.

With most of us

it involves our reaching out to our God

at the point of our greatest failures,

our greatest hurt,

our greatest need

and then finding Him there with us, in us, for us, loving us

and bringing us through to Himself and to His love.

It’s one thing to proclaim the doctrine of a God of love.

It is a very different thing to say with David,

Psa 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.

Psa 40:2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

Psa 40:3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.

The first comes from our intellect,

the second comes from our life

as we look back at those times of agony

and see Him there with us, in us, for us,

carrying us through the storm.