Philippians chapter 2, our portion this evening is verses 9 through 11. Let's pray. Our Father, how we thank you for the riches of your glory and your grace. Your glory which you have displayed to us, your grace which you have extended to us. As you have been meeting with us in your means throughout the day and especially in the public worship earlier. We thank you for the ministry of your spirit, which whether we experience or not, we trust you and know that your word is true and that he who has sealed us is with us, alongside us until the day of redemption. But oh God, we pray that you would make us to know to experience the working of your spirit upon us, that we might be convinced of your word, that we might see and rejoice over the glory of Christ in your word and your glory that you display in your son, our Lord Jesus. So help us now, we pray. Come again by your spirit. Testify unto us what we are to believe concerning you and convince and convict us of the duty which you require unto us. Conform us by your word to the image of the Lord Jesus, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Sanctify us by your truth, your word is truth, so that as you are sanctifying those whom you have justified, You may, in part, by what you do now, bring us into the day that we are glorified in Christ in us, you in him. So help us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Philippians chapter two, verses nine through 11. Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth. and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. There is this marvelous truth that's there in the Old Testament, harder for us to see until Christ comes. But that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loves especially His Son to be the display of His glory. That He is to us the image of the invisible God. It's a truth that was there in particular in Psalm 110. So that when Jesus had spent three years having the truth of who He is rejected by the religious leaders of the Jews, he asks them, how can David call him Lord? Yahweh said to my Lord, sit here at my right hand. How can David call him Lord, who is his son? And it is because Jesus is Jehovah. Jesus is Yahweh. Jesus is God the Son in the flesh and the triune God's display of himself to us so that Even as Paul says, the apostle says in the beginning of his letter to the Romans, that he was demonstrated to be the son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead. Remember, of course, if God the Son becomes a man, and he lives a sinful life, and he dies, as the scripture says, death cannot hold him. And his identity is announced with power when he rises again from the dead. Well, his identity is also announced with power when he ascends into heaven and sits at God's right hand, as Psalm 110 describes. And all of the creatures in heaven confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And all of the creatures on earth will soon confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And all of the creatures even under the earth will then confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And so Jesus is exalted in the first place because it is the right of his person. He is, as we heard in verse six, he is in the form of God. That is his original nature and eternal nature. And it is his right as the second person of the Trinity to be highly exalted and given that name which is above every name. So that if a Christian were to stumble in their faith and to give in under persecution and confess Kaiser Kurios, Caesar is Lord, it would not be unto the glory of God the Father that they did so. It would be unto the glory of God the Father that it was atoned for in Christ. It might be to the glory of God the Father that they turned out at last not to be a Christian at all, and they were condemned for having made that confession. But when we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, when we say Christos Kurios, when we say Jesus is Yahweh, it doesn't rob any glory from the Father, does it? It is unto the glory of God the Father, because God has made his Son the display of his glory. And so when you say Jesus is Yahweh, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is glorified. He's exalted because it is the right of his person. So verse nine says, therefore God has also highly exalted him. But He has also exalted Him because in His saving us, He shows Himself to be Yahweh. The Apostle is using words that come from Isaiah 45. If you have a copy of the Word of God, you may want to turn there. And I'll read to you, and you'll begin to see at once when we read it, what He is saying here. Isaiah 45, and I'm going to begin in verse 21 and read to the end of the chapter. Tell and bring forth your case. Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I, Yahweh? And there is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior. There is none besides Me. Look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, that to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say, surely in Yahweh I have righteousness and strength. To him men shall come, and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against him. In Yahweh all the descendants of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. So the next time you have those who call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door, And they have their doctored New Testament, which has a bunch of the verses about Jesus being the one true and living God in the flesh, messed up. Take them to Philippians 2, verses 9 through 11, and then take them to Isaiah 45, and say, there's only one person who can be the Savior. He emphasizes about himself, the Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh, emphasizes about himself over and over again in Isaiah 45. I alone am God. I alone can save. This is why it's so bad for you to want to make up for your own sins to God. Because he says you can't do that. The only one who can make up for sins is Jehovah, is Yahweh. Which is why it's so marvelous. that he became a man because in order to atone for our sins, he had to die. As a man, he can't die, or sorry, as God, he can't die, but a mere man could not save. And so in order to be able to save and to be able to die, Jesus had to be God and man. And when Jesus saves us from our sins on the cross, he shows who he is, doesn't he? that he is this Yahweh who said, I alone am God. To me, every knee shall bow. To me, every tongue shall take an oath. And the apostle says, you see what God has given, the name that God has given his son is not only a name that is rightfully his in his eternal person, but it's a name that he earned by adding to himself that humanity in which he could die for our sins. It's a name that in his human nature, he has earned by saving us because only Yahweh can save. And so Jesus's name is Jesus. It means Yahweh saves. You shall call his name Jesus, said the angel to Joseph, because he shall save his people. from their sins. And so it is His by right in His divine person and His divine nature. It is His by earning in His death on the cross. And finally, His death on the cross is what God responds to the most. Everything that Jesus has done is lovely to His Father. Everything that Jesus has done in his humanity is pleasing to his father, perfectly righteous. And yet, when he talks about what he does, and he says, therefore my father loves me because I, many of you know the text, don't you? Because I lay down my life that I may take it again. You see, of all that Christ did, that which was most lovely, that which was most pleasing, was this humbling himself to be the shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. And so the father responds, to the person of his son. And so the father responds to the desserts of his son, the merit, the worthiness of his son. And so the father responds to the loveliness of his son and his pleasure in his son. And he says, Everyone is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, even those who are incensed against me. You remember that a moment ago from Isaiah 45, will be ashamed. Oh, they will confess that Jesus is Lord in hell. They won't rejoice over in glory the way those who believe in him do at the end of Isaiah 45, as I pray that you do. You glory over the fact, you rejoice in the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. If this is our Father's pleasure, that every creature in heaven and every creature on earth and every creature under the earth would confess His Son, Jesus Christ, to be Lord and to His glory, shouldn't that be our pleasure too? Shouldn't we desire Jesus to be demonstrated and celebrated and praised as the living God who added to himself humanity in order that he might save us by his death, fully God and fully man and one person forever. And so our knees bow. and our tongues confess and we long for all knees to bow and all tongues confess, to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And because He and the Father and the Spirit are one God to be praised forever, we confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for the truth that You teach us in other places in Your Word, that when we humble ourselves under Your mighty hand, You lift us up in due time as well. But we thank You and praise You for this testimony, that Christ who has humbled Himself in a way that only He could humble Himself. And Christ, that Christ You have exalted in a way that only He can rightly be exalted. And so we pray that You would make us to imitate Him in bringing ourselves low and entrusting You who judge justly. But we pray that You would make our hearts desire and delight in His being glorified the way we learn from this passage, that You delight to glorify Your Son, to glorify Yourself and Your Son. And so we pray, Holy Spirit, that that for which you have been sustaining him and his humanity from conception, that which we ask that you would be working in us now to recognize and to respond to, that you would make us to glorify him. that You would make our hearts to love His glory, even as You love both us and His glory, O Spirit, which we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.