THE WAY TO THE TOP
12/31/95 Text Philippians 2:5-11
Many of us have had the experience of making it to the top.
It may have been a job promotion, the best grade on exam, a
contest winner or a host of any number of experiences, it often
times feels good being on the top. Jesus wants everyone of us to
be on top in the kingdom of God, but Jesus has a very unusual
route for us to get there. We have spent the month celebrating
Advent & Christmas. .
Some nineteen years ago when the Lord called me into minis
try, I just knew I was going to be a combination of the next Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr and Rev. Billy Graham. Well reality has
sunk in, and I have discovered that has called me to be me. He
has not given me the gifts of either Dr. King or Dr. Graham. I
was thinking the other day, you know Lord, I really don’t have
any great talent in ministry, and there’s nothing about me that
truly excels. Before I could remind the Lord that He could give
me a little more to work with, God spoke to my heart and said,
"but you can be great in obedience." You can outshine all others
if that is your desire."
I pass that word on to us all today. In preparing to meet
our God, He’s not looking at how many talents, gifts, and miracu
lous things we can bring to him. God’s more interested in how
obedient we want to be toward Him, than He is anything else. Our
love for God is not measured in terms of the sacrifices we make,
but rather in the obedience that we give. Jesus says, "if you
love me, you will keep my commandments." Tragically there will
be those who will attempt to make it to the top of the kingdom
and prepare to meet God with a whole range of good works. Jesus
says in Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, ’LordLord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the
will of my Father who is in heaven. {22} Many will say to me on
that day, ’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in
your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ {23} Then
I will tell them plainly, ’I never knew you. Away from me, you
evildoers!’
One of the interesting things about making it to the top in
the kingdom of heaven, is that one must always take the elevator
of life in the downward direction. Who would have thought that
the tax collector would have been exalted ahead of the Pharisee
in our Scripture text this morning? Jesus said to be first, be
last. Jesus says to be leader, be the servant of all. Jesus says
to be great, be the least among them. Not only does Jesus say
these things, he demonstrates them to be true through the life
that He lives. Jesus knows what it is to hurt in order to help
others, he knows what it is to suffer so that others might have
life. He knows what it is to be criticized and lied upon in
order to do the will of God. He knows what it is to treat folks
right when they deserve a lot less.
Let’s continue our journey into the second chapter of Phi
lippians starting at verse 5 Philippians 2:5 "Your attitude
should be the same as that of Christ Jesus". Here is the key to
being prepared to meet our God and to making it to the top in the
kingdom of God. Now have you ever had to tell anyone, "you’ve
got a serious attitude problem." Now has anyone ever suggested
to you, that you also have an attitude problem. Well its good to
know that God knows that at times we all have an attitude problem.
That does not keep God from loving us, thank God, but it
does not mean God expects us to sit back and say, "well that’s
just how I am and that’s how I’ll always be and you can take me
or leave me.
God says stop right there. That’s a lie. That’s not how you
are for if anyone is in Christ he or she becomes a new creation,
the old passes away and behold the new has come. Now sometimes
the new does not come as soon as others would like for it do so,
but if we are serious about our walk with God, that new is bound
to get here sooner or later. Now there are a lot of attitudes in
the church that you would probably like to deal with right away,
but notice where the word of God starts.
It does not say, your husband’s attitude, your wife’s atti
tude, your children’s attitude, your parent’s attitude or even
your pastor’s attitude. It says your attitude. Turn to your
neighbor and say pray for me, at times I have an attitude prob
lem. The word says, your attitude should be. Now wait a
minute, those words should be are a cause for major alarms to go
off inside our heads. Why do you think God says should be in
stead of is? Because God knows the saints do not always act like
the position they hold.
These two words "should be" tells me, if we are going to
interact with each other, there is going to have to be an awful
lot of love and forgiveness taking place on a regular basis.
Love can only grow bountifully in a place where forgiveness is
abundant. This is true in a one to one relationship, a family’s
interaction with each other, or a church setting. Show me a
husband and wife who remember every wrong each has done to the
other, and I will show you a very unhappy and unhealthy marriage.
One of the most important verses in the Bible for building good
relationships is Ephesians 4:32 in which the word says, "Be kind
and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as
in Christ God forgave you." God is nowhere near as hard on us,
as we often choose to be on one another. God never reminds me of
any sins that He has forgive me of in the past. I may bring it
up, but God never does.
The Bible says our attitudes should be the same as that of
Christ Jesus. Is that easy. No it is not. Is it impossible. No
it is not. Is that what we truly want? Well, now it all depends
on what the circumstances are. If you look closely at verse 5,
it does not say our attitude is to be dependent upon who the
person is or what the person does. There is always a Christ like
response that is appropriate to every situation. Whether we want
to wait and allow the Spirit to reveal it to us is another mat
ter. Sometimes the best response is no response at all. We as
Christians need to learn to keep our cool under intense pressure.
Jesus did not go around blowing his top every time somebody
lied on Him, laughed at him, or called him a lunatic or devil.
He would not have had time for anything else if he had chosen to
follow that path. There’s no sense in us complaining, the more I
try to be Christ like, the worse the situation gets. Where in
the Bible does it say, being Christ like is going to make it
easier for us. Obedience costs something and the rewards are not
always immediately visible. The stress that comes from being
obedient to God can at times feel over whelming. But hang on in
there because as we go down, we’re going up to becoming what God
calls us to be. Every step of obedience prepares our heart to
allow God to walk into our lives. There is no more fulfilled
life than a life in which the presence of God dwells. It’s the
presence of God that gives us hope when there is no hope, it’s
the presence of God that gives us peace when there is no peace,
and it is the presence of God that gives us strength, when our
own energy has been completely drained from us.
Verse six says, "who being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped." This is a
profound theological truth that separates us from other religions
and cults. Jesus is God. He is not like God, or a little God.
The word says He was in very nature God. This is unlike the
message of the Jehovah witnesses’s that claim Jesus was a little
god in addition to God. Jesus knew He was God just as much as
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are both God.
Advent means coming. Jesus was God coming to us in a human
form. Now Jesus voluntarily gave up a lot, to become a person.
He could no longer be everywhere at one time. He would now need
food to eat and clothes to wear just like any human being would.
If you cut him, he would bleed, if you hit him he would feel it.
Yet Jesus did not go around saying, "Even though I am in this
form, I am God. Everybody don’t think I’m not equal with God,
because I am." As a matter of fact, Jesus did just the opposite.
When the demons cried out, "we know who you are, the Son of God",
Jesus rebuked them and made them be quiet. You see Jesus did not
come to direct the attention of people to Him, He instead pointed
them to God the Father. It was God the Father who loved us
while we were yet sinners. This was the God, who voluntarily
gave us Jesus to die on our behalf.
Jesus never tried to compete with the Father even though
they were equal. Jesus constantly says, I have not come to do my
will, but to do the will of my Father in heaven. This is the
model we are to have in our relationships to one another if we
want to make it to the top. I’m not here just to get what I
want, I’m here to serve the one that I love.
Verse seven says, "He made himself nothing, taking the very
nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." Those words
are powerful, he made himself nothing. Jesus could have been the
strongest, fastest, wealthiest, most handsome, and brilliant
person there ever was. Yet he chose not to be any of that. The
bible tells us in Isaiah, that Jesus was kind of homely looking,
and there was nothing about his appearance that we should desire
him. What its saying is that if most of us had of met Jesus and
didn’t it know it was Jesus, we would not have chosen him to be
our friend, nor would we have given him the time of day. That’s
frightening to me, because it means I may be guilty of having
turned away Jesus when He came into my life in the form of one of
the least of these his brothers and sisters.
Not only did Jesus not choose the qualities we practically
worship, he chose the very nature of a servant. Jesus comes all
the way from heaven, to start the process at the bottom of the
order of things. Who voluntarily chooses the role of
servant when so many other options are available. The one who
wants to be like Jesus does.
Verse 8 says, "and being found in appearance as a man, he
humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the
cross." Even though Jesus was in the appearance of a man, he
still possessed a lot of power that he never used. When the
soldiers came to arrest him on the night of his betrayal, a big
fight broke out. Peter took out his sword and started swinging.
He cuts off a man’s ear. Jesus on the other hand is obedient to
the prophecies of God. He tells Peter put away the sword. If I
wanted to, right now I could call together a force of 72,000
angels. My friends, that’s humility.
The phrase even death on the cross is significant because a
person was crucified as a means of ultimate torture and humilia
tion. The victim’s was fastened to the cross with cords or nails.
The victim’s feet were a few feet off the ground. There was a
horn like projection sticking out that was between the victim’s
groin area. This projectile kept the victim’s body weight from
ripping open the flesh where the nails were.
A. Reville described the experience of being crucified as
the acme of the torture’s art and atrocious physical sufferings.
Nothing could be more horrible than the sight of this living
body, breathing, seeing, hearing, and still able to feel, and yet
reduced to the state of a corpse by force immobility and absolute
helplessness. The victim was stripped of us clothing, unable
even to brush away the flies which fell upon his wounded flesh.
The cross represented miserable humanity reduced to the last
degree of impotence, suffering and degradation. It was that kind
of death that the King of kings, and the Lord of lords willing
submitted himself to die on our behalf.
Jesus went about as low as one could get and still be a
person. But the message of the gospel does not end with the
crucifixion. There is a resurrection that takes place just a
few days later. But in order to get to that resurrection place,
it was necessary for Jesus to humble himself. Jesus always knew
who He was. His identity was not wrapped up in what he owned, or
what position he had, or where he lived. Our identity is to be
rooted in who we are in Jesus Christ. All the other things about
us are susceptible to change and to being removed completely from
our lives. If we are not rooted in Christ, we will be ultimately
wiped out and destroyed by the changes. However since we are in
Christ, we are always in the position for God to keep on moving
us to the top.
It was because of Jesus’s attitude of humility and obedience
that we have verse 9 which says , "Therefore God exalted him to
the highest place, and gave Him the name that is above every
name." There is no name greater than the name Jesus. Jehovah
isn’t it, Allah isn’t, Buddah isn’t, and Confucius isn’t. The
name of Jesus is in a class all by itself. That is why the Bible
says in Acts 4:12 "Salvation is found in no one else, for there
is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be
saved." We cannot be prepared to meet God, without having first
come through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.
Look at verse ten, "that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth." There is
a day coming in which if Jesus does not first come back to us, we
are most certainly going to come to Jesus. It does not take a
Rhodes Scholar to understand that every knee, means every knee.
That covers rich, poor, old, young, male, female, Black , white,
brown, yellow, red, Christian, atheist, Muslim, Jew and anyone
else in any other category. Everybody is one day going to bow
down in the presence of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter if we
have been good or bad, it’s going to happen.
Satan and every demon in hell will likewise bow down before
Christ because it includes every knee in heaven, on earth and
under the earth. We will all stand in the presence of the one
that God has exalted and give him the honor that is rightly due
him. For verse 11 states, "and every tongue confess, that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
We are all going to acknowledge that Jesus is exactly who He
said he was. He never said he was a good man, never said he was
a good teacher, he never said he was just a good example. Jesus
said that He and the Father were one. That’s why its impossible
to know God without knowing Christ The Bible teaches us in 1
John 5:12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the
Son of God does not have life.
Many many years ago, people laughed at a man name Noah
because he told them, they need to prepare to meet God because a
flood was coming. They thought he was out of his mind, until the
storm clouds came and underground rivers burst open to the sur
face. They realized that Noah was right, but it did not do them a bit of good because they realized it after there was no hope of
them being saved.
Jesus told us to watch and to pray because He is coming back
for the church. He said it will be just like in the days of
Noah, with people going on with marriages, businesses and life as
usual. Yet everything will change instantly. Those who are
prepared will go to be with Him. Those who are not will be left
behind. It might not be so bad if it ended there, but it
doesn’t. A day is coming in which all of us will declare that
"Jesus Is Lord" with our own tongues. Only on that day, it will
be too late to do anything about it. Our eternal life will have
been decided by what we did with Jesus Christ on this side of the
grave.
No one talks about hell anymore, and we as Presbyterians
would rather believe that everyone is going to be saved anyhow.
But that’s not what the Bible says. After the confession that
Jesus is lord, then comes the judgment. The Bible says, all
whose names are not recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life, will be
cast into the lake of fire that was prepared for the devil and
his angels.
My friends if I could love you into the kingdom of God I’ll
gladly do it. If I could scare you out of Hell, I’d be willing
to do that as well. We’re talking about where are we going to
spend eternity. We are going to bow down before Jesus Christ.
It’s the only way to get to the top. We are all going to ac
knowledge that Jesus is Lord. It’s the only way to prepare to
meet God. It’s simply an issue of time. We’ll do it now or we
will do it later, but either way, we will do it.
