The Downward Path of Jesus
First B Jackson
2025-10-19

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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More more... Are you, like, in the throes of it or can I ask you some quest? More questions? Well, you're very kind. So normally, we start...

And then how long is it before we kinda get to the

message? So... Yep. The

the announcements. Right. Okay.

Uh-huh.

Think think Brad is going to because he's gonna read the text. But then... So that kinda gets you to what? 09:20? And then how long do people normally go?

Thirty five, thirty? My goal is not to... Right. Right. Leave them asking for more.

Stop. Stop. Okay. I just wanna kinda... In my mind, have a sense of pacing and all that to us.

Okay. I'm sorry. Aye. Thank you. Hey.

Yes. I am. I'll pray for you soon. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thanks, honey. Thank you so much. Help me not forget my water bottle. Well, you won't be here, actually. I may throw up.

You know? I don't know. It's hard to say. And afterwards, I won't. Yes.

What?

It's Good morning, everybody. Welcome to First B in Jackson, Wyoming. You made it. We're here. Would you stand with us, and and we'll join together in in song I am sorry.

Praising our God. Here's an encouraging word from first Peter five seven to lead us into worship. It says, cast all your worries and cares on him because he cares for you. Would you join us in singing? We're gonna sing Fall Afresh.

Okay. Good morning. Have a seat, everybody. It's time for our morning announcements. Don't we feel fresh and lovely this morning?

There's a children's choir that's gonna start on November 16 downstairs in the basement. All the information on the website and in the email. Would you please sign your kids up in advance? It's super cute when they get up here and sing for Christmas, so we'd we'd love to have as many kids participate as possible. You can contact Warren at the information there.

Again, it is on the website. Iwana is off and running. It's been a blast. Tons of kids fill this space. It's super exciting.

05:45 to 07:30. Still time to sign your kids up to if you wanna participate. The JH Women's Bible Study is almost ready to wrap up. So if you haven't been before the ladies, make sure you show up on Wednesdays over at the Presbyterian Church. It's not here.

It's at the Presbyterian Church. More information, again, is on the website. Men's lunch study. If you haven't been to this, guys, it's a super wonderful way to connect with other guys in the church. Pick up a couple of verses through...

From the Bible, and we just discuss them openly. It fills up the time. An hour just goes by so fast, and there's a lot of guys coming too. So won't you add to our numbers and and and show up? Seeking truth in your twenties is a wonderful group that's meeting up at the McKuys tonight, actually, and we did have the time incorrect in the email, but it's correct up there on the slide.

I told you it was at 06:00 tonight.

Oh, it's at 06:00. See, I I worked hard to get it aligned so it's 06:30. You know what? Show up at 06:30. Be fashionably late.

It's fine. It's Jackson. Yeah. So 06:00. Actually, 06:00 is the real time, but 06:30, you know, it's fine too.

That's good. But if you have good questions about the faith, if you just wanna meet other people, young people, show up there. It's it's supposedly just been explosive and wonderful, so please please show up for that too. There will be a discovery class November 2, which is if you're seeking information about membership into the church, would you show up in pastor Ray's office between service for staff, drivers, and sponsors for children. If you've ever been part of one of those organizations that we can sponsor child every month, they have wonderful.

You get to connect with the kids. You can write them letters. And they have a school where they they help bless the kids. They give them food. They teach them about the gospel and educate them as well.

And it just... It sweeps through the whole community there. It's amazing the the stories that Dave sends out about people being saved, about gangs just laying down their fights. They're not doing those anymore. It's just...

It's changing the whole community there. So let's be praying for them. Actually, let's pray for them real quick too. God, would you be with Dave and Kim Hatfield and the rest of the mission at Maisha Mafia and that school there, Lord God? Would you bless those kids?

Would you help them to know that they are loved by you, Lord? Would you protect them? Would you save them? Lord, would your love radiate through that whole community and change them there, Lord? Give them hope, give them joy, and most importantly, Lord Jesus, give them you in your holy name.

Amen. For any more information, you can go to our website. And if you get a second, would you mind moving towards the front? We have plenty of seats up here. More people are gonna be coming in late.

Look. My brother's gonna be a perfect example. Look at this guy right here. There you go. You could do it too.

Yeah. And would you consider also moving towards the center, not leaving seats between you so that way more people have space? And would you stand up, greet one another, and we'll bring you back with some songs?

Yeah. Stand up and greet one another. We'll bring you back.

Morning. I'm John. I'm Josh. Did we

meet before? Have you met us both briefly? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You guys are trying to get here.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

Use to your name

Heavenly father, it's great to be here in your house, Lord, this morning. I am thankful that we have the privilege and freedom to be here and to worship you, Lord. I pray this morning that you will bless us and touch our hearts in such a way that, lord, we can feel your presence in this place. Lord, it's good to hear the church singing and worshiping you. Lord, may we be here because we wanna hear your voice this morning, lord.

I pray that your word would be straight to our hearts. I pray that we learn here in this wonderful gathering to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit in such a way that we can go out and present the gospel to others, lord. It's a joy in my heart, lord, to be able to praise you just as we just sang the songs. We praise you, Lord. We praise you, Jesus.

We are thankful for all you have done for us, Lord. How beautiful it is to fill in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are saved. We belong to you, Lord. That's why we are here, Jesus. Now, Lord, train us.

Help us to become more like you in our everyday life. Lord, you know it's not easy. Definitely, it's not easy. But, Lord, touch our hearts and mind and transform us transform us by the renew of our mind. That's where the battle is, Lord.

And you know I need your help in this in this way, Lord. Transform my mind in such a way that I I will become more like you, that the light that comes from you will shine through me in my everyday life, Lord. In in the name of Jesus, I pray that you would continue to work in us and through us. And, Lord, I also wanna pray for the team that is in Guatemala right now with pastor Ray and the team. Please bless them to have a great time over there as they serve you, as they serve the people in Guatemala, but also bless them so they can receive something from you.

And then when they come back here to use that in this beautiful community, Lord. How great it is that we can serve you in many ways. And with this freedom that we have, we can be serving you here or in all parts of the world because you loved us and because we believe in you, Lord. In Jesus name I prayed, amen.

Amen. You can have a seat. We're gonna enter the time of worship through giving part of the service, and I'll invite the ushers ushers to come on forward. Brad, would you would you pray for us?

Father, we thank you for this awesome opportunity to participate in what you're doing. Lord, we recognize that we don't achieve anything of our own strength, and you don't you don't need our time, our talent, and our treasure. And yet, you ask us to give of that. And God, we recognize in this moment that it is a blessing to participate in what you're doing. So would you encourage us?

Would you enable us? Lord, would you spur us on towards love and good deeds? We pray a blessing on everything that goes in these plates and on the people that that provide it, that we may do the work of the ministry. But, Lord, we recognize that you're the one that does the work. We love you,

Lord. Amen. Amen.

We're gonna sing a song about gratitude from first Chronicles. It says, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. And sing with us.

All my words fall short. I got nothing new. How could I express all my gratitude. I could sing these songs as I often do, but in every I've got one response

Time for children's church. Good morning, first b. So I'm not teaching today, but it is my privilege to read our scripture for this morning and introduce our speaker. So our speaker for today is gonna be John Hammond. If you have not met John and Christy, John is a very gifted teacher.

They're fairly new to our congregation, but have been in the valley for five, six years now, joining us from New York, where they were involved in the Redeemer network of churches, planting churches, leading churches, things like that. So we are very fortunate to have them there. So our text for today is gonna be Philippians two five through 11. So you can pull that up in your Bibles or on your phones if you wanna read with me. It might be on the screen, and I'll be reading it aloud.

This is how you should think among yourselves with the mind that you have because you belong to the Messiah Jesus, who though in God's form did not regard his equality with God as something he ought to exploit. Instead, he emptied himself and received the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of humans. And then having human appearance, he humbled himself and became obedient even to death, yes, even to the death of the cross. And so God has greatly exalted him, and to him in his favor has given the name which is over all names. That now at the name of Jesus, every knee within heaven shall bow, and on earth to and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Messiah is Lord, to the glory of God the father.

It's the reading of God's word. Would you guys all welcome John Hammond?

Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Am I on now? Excellent. Let's start with this.

How about at this... How about we pray? Does that sound good? Bow your heads, please. Father in heaven, we come here today with expectation.

We wanna hear you, Lord. We wanna see you, Lord. We wanna experience you. We don't come to hear men and women sing and play, although that's beautiful, or a man teach, although that's that's a gifting that you give us. We come to encounter you, the living God.

So Lord, could you still our hearts? Could you still my heart as I seek to communicate your word? And Lord, may the light of Jesus shine through, and it's in his powerful name that we pray. Amen. Well, you heard who I am.

I was going for back and forth yesterday with Brad on text. He said, what do you want for an intro? And I said, I don't think about that. Married to Christie for thirty six years, three grandkids, lived in New York. And then somehow we crossed our wires and he sent me back another text and he said, I said, look, I'm looking at you brother.

What do think my intro should be? And he said, well, I think some place where God has really humbled you and you failed would be a great intro. And I was like, oh my God. This is the kickoff? This is how Brad's going to introduce me?

I thought, oh man, I'm in trouble now. And then, you know, last night I wrestled. I wrestled with God and I thought about what he'd said, because he explained to me this morning that's not what he was saying. He was telling me how to think about my intro of myself to you. But my story is a story.

I pray and hope like your story. A story of God redeeming unbelievable failures with glorious beauty. That's my story. And I pray that this text today would help us to draw closer into that beauty of who God is. I'm gonna put this down here.

So as Brad said before we came to the valley, Christy and I spent five years in Manhattan where we planted a church in the more, more, more city where everything is more and bigger and faster and bolder and brighter. And I remember thinking, how is this all gonna work? You know, it's just a lot going on here. We came from San Diego to this megalopolis. And my friend Dan said to me at the end of a Bible study pretty early on, he said, you know, in any given week in New York City, I give up the opportunity to do more cool things than you could do an entire year in some other place.

An entire year in some other place. And I thought, wow, this is just typical New York. Right? You're so arrogant. Everything's bigger, better, brighter in New York.

But you know what? I soon discovered he was right. There was so much stuff to do, so much happening. And And in the midst of all that, where everybody was coming, people are coming to New York, coming to make their name in the theater, coming to make their name in the law, coming to make their name as an academic, coming to achieve their financial success through being an investment banker. We were trying to teach people at our church to think not to consume, not just to consume, but to contribute.

To be givers and builders and self givers. But New York just embodied this spirit of acceleration. Everything was bigger, bolder, faster. I mean, if you've ever been to Times Square, if you've ever been in Grand Central Station at at at midday... At in the evening, it's it's just unbelievable.

And so, you know, efficiency there was a was a god. And downtime was a sin. You're just trying to figure out how to get things done faster. And here in Jackson, we're not moving at the same speed. But even though the pace is different, we still have a drive to consume.

We want more, more, more. It doesn't look quite the same, but it seems like, oh man, Pompe was amazing. You need to make that trip. I crossed it off my bucket list. Or I got one hundred ski days last year and I am definitely going to get it done again this year.

Or my new truck pulls the Airstream so well. By the way, it does. Although Christy thinks we need to go to a two fifty, so there you go. But but what I think is going on is we're all starved for glory. We we feel a pull towards something more.

It's this sense that there's some place for deeper fulfillment. And I'd ask you this. What if this longing, this desire for glory is absolutely God given, but in some way, shape or form corrupted by the way that we handle it? What if instead of going up into the right, glory is something different? I think there's a physics to glory, a spiritual physics to glory that we don't understand.

We tend to have a scarcity mindset. We want to grab, we want to get what we can, we want to can what we get, we want to poison the rest because it's ours and we got to hoard. But the spiritual physics of glory is that the more you give it away, the more it grows. And so where we seek the glory of in life through achievement and acquisition, deep down, we're made for something greater. And that upward steps often lead us to a sense of emptiness, of weariness because I think we mistake what glory is.

We we have a scarcity mindset, as I said, and we find fragility in our circumstances. Our glory is dependent on our circumstances. Paul will say later in this letter to the Philippians, he says, know how to abase and abound because it's in Christ. It's not the present circumstances, not having what I want, but wanting what is before me. So what if the true path to glory isn't more and more as our world tells us, as if you watch football like I do, that's all that ads are, right?

There's more to get. You'll be a better person when. You'll be cooler when. You'll be healthier when. There's more to ground.

We used to say it had a bumper sticker in San Diego back in the day. He who dies with the most toys wins. I think that just about epitomized it. But what if the creator chose glory chose humility over glory over raw power? And what if real glory is is not in getting but in giving?

That's the profound invitation of this Philippians hymn. Paul wrote it from a prison in Rome exactly where we ended last week in acts. It's kind of a thing that God does. Right? We got done with Paul getting to Rome and here's a letter that he wrote from from Roman about '62.

It was addressed to the Philippians who they brought him a ton of joy, but they were facing external pressures and internal strains. And his job was to address a need that they were feeling, how to deal with conflict. So Paul doesn't give commands, but he offers a new way to see the world. He doesn't call a foul or call a penalty on that team. He doesn't say, you've done this wrong.

He calls them to have a higher view of the world. He says, have this mind among yourselves. He doesn't behave differently, think differently, which is yours in Christ Jesus. And it's a revelation of who we are and how we can live. Without this understanding, we end up pursuing our own glory.

And a great way to think about this is the two sons, the two lost sons, I like to call them. Luke 15, we call it the prodigal son prodigal son, excuse me. But honestly, I think it's more accurate to call it the two lost sons because both of them are alienated from their father. The younger son, you know, he chases freedom to in excess. He he pretends that he chose his life, right?

Like, think about your own life. Did you choose your parents? Did you choose your height? Did you choose your hair color? Did you choose your athletic ability?

Well, he kind of does that. He says, dad, I'm going off on my own. I don't need you. I don't need anybody. I definitely don't need God.

And he ends up really humbled and he comes back. On the other hand, the older son, he works faithfully, dutifully and he resents the fact that his older brother is welcomed home. He says, look, I've earned my place. Why are we celebrating him? It's a kind of duty without delight.

It's a nearness without intimacy that he has with his father. But both of these guys are lost. They're separated from their dad, the real source of love. So Grace offers a third path, not effort, but encounter. It's not striving for glory, it's entering into Christ's glory in a union with Him.

So to take on Christ's mind is to receive a new self, to slip away from striving and into His rest. And this hymn turns worldly glory and power inside out. It's a guide to joy. It's a bridge to how we can be one and how we can enter into rest. So there's three movements in this, which we'll explore.

There's if you're a note taker and I didn't give you a lot of slides here, there's three there's three parts. There's eternity, emptying and exaltation. Christ's eternity, his place in eternity, Christ's emptying of himself, and then the father's exaltation of Christ. Eternity, emptying, exaltation. Let me put this slide up here.

Have I got this going? Yes. Okay. Can everybody read this clearly? Good to hear you laugh because it's supposed to be a joke.

But I wanted to show you something about this because this is poetry. This hymn was a poem. And I think prose types, I think about my believe it was eighth grade typing teacher, Mrs. Korea, F D S A J K L Sam, carriage return. But prose paints, it paints pictures.

It moves our hearts, not our heads. And it's hard to see because we read these Bibles that are in translation and everything. But I've laid this out just to show you because we'll go study the text work line by line, but there's a motion here where Christ starts in eternity, in joy, in glory, he becomes a man, he empties himself, He goes to the cross. And then the Father raises Him up back up to glory. So He starts in eternity, comes down into time and space, goes back up into eternity into glory.

And this is the exact opposite. That's the spiritual physics of God. Ours is one where we go up and down. You think about Icarus flying to the sun and he crashes down. You think about a great athlete, oh man, he was awesome in his day, but not so much anymore up and down, where she was a great beauty, not so much anymore.

So this is the exact opposite of the way that we as humans live. And so I just want to show that to you because it's in there and it's hard to see. So let's go to the first verse here. I got to take a sip of water. Sorry.

I'm super nervous.

Thanks.

Thanks, bro. Okay. Where is that? This is how you should think among yourselves with the mind that you have because you belong to the Messiah Jesus. That's the intro to the hymn.

The next one is verse six. Who though in God's form did not regard his equality with God as something to exploit. So Christ, who is he in eternity? That's what I said.

The

first part Paul wants us to see, this hymn shows us is who Christ is. And who he is is the scandal that's the very center of Christianity. It's what everybody trips over. Not just unbelievers guys, You and me too. What does it say?

It says that Christ is eternally God. He's he's not a great moral teacher who gives us precepts that we can live by, self improvement strategies. He's not a man who worked his way up by being obedient and kind of leveled up, got to level 57, 58, and then he got to godhood. Nor is he a guru who meditated his way into some sort of enlightenment. It's it's something quite different.

He's God himself. John one puts it this way, in the beginning was the word, that's Jesus. And the word was with God, and the word was God. There's no room in that. John makes it super simple.

By the way, John's what we're studying on Thursdays. Love to have you guys come. That's who he is, simple declarative. And John goes further in that same section talking about the oneness, the intimacy, the relationship between the Father and the Son in eternity. He says, if you have King James version bibles, it says, he's he's in the bosom of the father.

The only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father. And I picture this, I'm now a grandfather three times over, huge blessing. But have you had that moment? Well, I see that moment over there. A baby who who falls asleep on your chest, beat for beat, breath for breath, absolute peace, splendid.

It's a magical moment. Well, if you expand that by an infinite amount, that's the relationship between the father and the son. And Hebrews one goes further to tell us that He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. And that He upholds the universe by the word of His power, three things there. He is the radiance.

He is a source of light. He's not a reflector. He's a source. He's the radiance of the glory of God. He's the exact imprint of his nature.

That in the Roman culture was a picture. That word is the word of character, character from what we should get character. But it's like when you have a coin stamped with the exact picture of a a of a Caesar on it. It's his image. And we might say that Jesus is the spitting image of the father.

He's the exact representation, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. He is the power source of all things. He's he's it. And so at Genesis' dawn... Genesis' dawn.

At the dawn of the creation, when God says, light be, he's there. When you look at the sky around you here today, when you saw the sunrise on the range, it was gorgeous this morning. That's his work. Every quantum cork dance, every pedal on every wildflower in the Garden of God up in the high country in the summer, all of it. All that he made, he...

Every child, 10 little fingers and 10 little toes, all perfect, he knit the child together. And yet, this eternal son, who is the radiance of the glory of God, who is God's form, he he doesn't... So secure in his equality with God. He doesn't think about it as something you ought to exploit it says. In the King James version, again, because some of you have those, it says he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.

Have you ever puzzled over that one? I know I certainly did for a long time. I needed to study it to kind of wrap my mind around that what it means. Means this, he can leave home. He could leave heaven because he doesn't feel ripped off because he already has it all.

He's already got his glory. That's who Jesus is, who we are. Well, in the garden, Adam fell to the serpent's whisper, you can have your own personal glory. You can be like God. In one bite and paradise dissolves, exile, thorn, sweat and death, Adam grabbed and creation sank.

Well, we echo that story the way we live our daily lives seeking for glory. The younger son, he's grasping for glory in all sorts of ways. I got 147 likes. I know cool people. I've got a great resume because position whispers, status whispers, you matter.

The glory of God is the life I said, so you see on TV, all the stuff you can get. Or the older son is the gutting it out mindset, The the good boy who who does his duty and and works on winning God's favor. And the Pharisees lived it out. The... They paid their tithes.

They prayed so people could see them. Paul talks about this in Philippians four, you know, or three, excuse me, the next chapter after this one, he says, look, you want to look at resumes? Look at my LinkedIn. I was a super Jew. I was that guy.

And then he says something quite remarkable. He says, I'm telling you, it's garbage. The word he uses is actually quite a bit stronger than that, but we don't use it in church because we're good Christians. I'll just tell you, it's a we'd call it a dirty word, I think. That's the Greek.

Because what happens, what Paul knew, he came to understand is that so many of us, we confuse sweat with sanctity. It's the trap of proximity without intimacy. We're home with the father as the younger... As the older son was, then our hearts were a million miles away. And so we're bitter when grace flows to the freely to the undeserving.

We say, I've I've slaved away. Where's my barbecue? You laugh, but you know it's true. But grace shines. Jesus, is eternally secure, releases his privilege without regret.

It's it's it's no rupture when he leaves heaven because the father's love surrounds him. And he doesn't grasp tightly because glory isn't what we think. Think of the fish and the loaves. Glory, like the fish and the loaves, is multiplied out of his hands and into our hands as we give it away. So what about you and me?

How do we put this on? Well, Galatians four tells us that through faith we're adopted as sons and daughters. And we can say, Abba, Daddy, Father, that we're full heirs and that he's given us his glory and that we've been seized by grace. We don't have to claw for significance. Ephesians one tells you even more certainly who you are.

You were chosen in love before the world began, predestined for his glorious grace. We are adopted. When you get adopted, you can't get unadopted. It's not a choice that you make to be adopted, and we have been adopted. So what if we allow this truth to absolutely get to the center stage of our hearts?

What if we embrace this idea that we're absolutely loved every day? Then at work, we'd we'd make proposals that are pitched for provision, not for approval. If we transform our family lives, we put our cell phones down so we can have dinner together and look at each other and listen to one another because every moment of every day is a gift from God and we need to treasure that together. Or in church, unity becomes really natural. Your win is our win.

We'd enjoy our one another. And so did these folks at Philippi who were struggling with a fight. There's a fight between Euodia and Syntyche. We see it. He explains it later in the story.

The mind that we belong to Christ is the way to enter into his glory. We don't gin it up through grit. We don't... But we get stirred up by the spirit and surrender. Because God loves us not for performance, but because we're his children.

So we can let go and embrace his glory. And that's the downward path of Jesus, that glory grows as we give it away. Okay. Instead, he was he was in the form of God. Instead, he emptied himself and he received this form of a slave being born in the likeness of humans.

This is a thing that Jesus does. It's an active emptying. The Greek word is kenosis. But he's not divorced from his divinity. See, this is so important.

Starts as God, becomes a human. He he voluntarily veils his glory. He sets aside heaven's harmony for the limits that you and I know so well. We're tired. We're sick.

We're out of breath. We're out of energy. He steps into the shattered paradise that Adam left and takes takes on our world. He received the form of a slave. Most of your translations say he received the form of a servant, but I chose anti rights translation because it's the most accurate.

The word is doulos, slave. Slave, slave, slave. It's an ugly, dirty, horrible word to us in America because they are history. But Rome's economy ran on chains. One third of the one third of the Roman Empire were slaves.

And it's a life where he was in glory, the form of a slave in contrast to the form of God. Think about that. It's an absolute inversion. No agency, no autonomy, what to do, where to go, what to eat, who to marry, none of it. You don't get to choose any of it as a slave.

And it's utter powerlessness. And that's the antiflex, the antiflex that Christ makes. The king arrives cloaked in common. As John one says, he was in the world and the world was made through him, but the world did not know him. That's the Itaiflex.

And we love this story. It's because it's I tell you, because it's wired into creation. Think about this. Why do we love the prince and the pauper? Or why do people binge on undercover CEO?

Do we do that? It's because of something that J. R. R. Tolkien described as a you catastrophe.

It's the story of going from glory down to a basement back up to glory. And that story, all these little stories, the prince and the pauper or now we have CEOs who go and they'll spend a week or a day working at a fish... I don't know, whatever, Chick fil A, something like that. They go undercover so they can discover things. But this is what Jesus is doing.

This isn't like a one day wonder to stop by and see how things are going. He sheds himself of all his all his abilities to become a slave, of all his divinity, outward divinity. The second Corinthians puts it like this, though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor so that by his poverty, he could make you rich. It's like I said, it's not an influencer going to make a slum reel what it was like in Bangkok. This is him letting go of everything.

And from there, he emptied himself, becomes a slave. It says, and then having human appearance, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even became obedient even to death. Yes, the death of the cross. Now human... Having human appearances, the full reality, it's it's not God in a man's suit.

Isaiah describes this this way. He says, he had no beauty or majesty to attract us. He was Yeshua from Nazareth, a regular Joe. His glory still remained, but it was hidden. You remember at the transfiguration?

For a moment, for a brief moment, that glory was unveiled. And it had never gone. It was simply hidden. And the thing is, this idea that Christ is fully man and fully human, it's so... It's another fulcrum.

It's another hard part of our faith because he's the bridge from God to man. Why do we care? Well, if you sin, I sin. I've sinned in some really big ways. You could talk Christie if you'd have some time during the fellowship hour.

Sin does damage. Sin does damage to God. Sin does damage to our sin does damage to others. And it corrodes our own souls, it does damage to us. It makes us unacceptable before God.

It creates a chasm of human offense that we can't settle. No no finite payer can pay the debt. And so there's... Is why Jesus, the God and man become so important. Because his perfect sinless life as a human carries divine eternal merit that only God can carry.

And so his full humanity makes him our perfect substitute. So Jesus steps into our humanity, not as some aloof man upstairs, but as the man next door. He's a man acquainted with grief. Grief in your own life, grief's gut punch, the loss, the loss of somebody you love. He says, I've been there.

I stood outside Lazarus' tomb. He sees you and he says, your deepest wound, I was pierced too. Your isolation, oh, I've I've been abandoned by my my closest. And your shame, I've borne it all, not to pity, but to pull you through. Tim Keller said it like this, I know you've heard this one, most of you.

Jesus lived the life that we should have lived and he died the death that we should have died. And I would add, so that we could have the fullness of life in him. Jesus lived the life we should have lived. He died the death we should have died so that we can have fullness of life in him. He knows your every grind, your hidden struggles.

And so for those of us who have that younger brother mindset, the lie that we're self made, that we do things our way and that obedience would somehow like detract from our worth, that gets destroyed because Jesus leans into the father's call. He goes right to the cross with a love that sees our worth. And what we really crave, an anchor, freedom, unscarred by regret, the cross really affirms for us. And for the dutiful heart worn out by scorekeeping, well, the deepest lie is that your suspicion is you really don't deserve it. You really don't deserve his love and that affection must be earned.

Jesus demolishes that too because he's our older, truer brother and he folds our efforts into the grace that he's already received. So Paul's plea to the Philippians is a spot... Is to to understand who this Jesus is, this liberation of Jesus to both the cultural slaves, the the the slaves, the cast offs, and the wealthy. And his dive into loneliness, low... Loneliness dignifies every every one of us because now we're all brothers and sisters.

So in in our marriages, then we can empty ourselves of unmet expectations to serve our spouses. In parenting, we can model obedience like Jesus, not as something to be dreaded, not as a chore, but as a joy. And at work, we can pour ourselves into the greater good everybody. That's the downward path of Jesus that that glory grows as it gives itself away. And the last slide here.

And so God has greatly exalted him and to him his favor, given him the name which is over all names. That now at the name of Jesus, every knee within heaven shall bow on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Messiah is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The abysmal silence after the cross gives way to a resounding affirmation from the Father. Exaltation beyond imagining, not restoration, but a lifting higher than ever before. It's a divine endorsement.

It's not a payment. And the father's clear vindication is is is is to show that the the payment's made in full. It's not for his merit, but for love poured out. And now the suffering servant stands as the sovereign. At the heart of this exaltation is a gift of a name, Kurios, Lord, which is Caesar's title.

So now this is subversive in Philippi where they had to call this God, this man God who pretended he was God, Kurios. Now we call the God man, the true God, Kyrios. And the Lordship rests with the one who was nailed at the at the cross. It says that every knee within heaven shall bow and on earth and under the earth. What is the posture of kneeling?

We don't do it a lot anymore. But the posture of kneeling was in those times, you could dub me, you could knight me, or you could lop off my head. It's a position of absolute vulnerability, absolute submission. And that's what we're talking about here, that all of all of creation kneels recognizing who Jesus is. Tongues from every corner confess, Jesus Messiah is Lord.

He follows the parabola down and now back up. But Jesus is the true Lord. And this is the the story for those of us who are still struggling with the the younger son hearts who wrestle with this. We're welcomed home to share in the glory of this new world. And for older sons who are still laboring, who are trying to prove ourselves, the kingdom is yours.

It's always been yours. And you can trade in your claim chits of goodness for the kinship of Christ. To a watching world, we bear witness to a totally different kind of lordship, a lordship marked by service, not by subjugation, by invitation, not by imposition. And the hymn circles back, We are to share not as a burden, but as a union. Emptied with him, we're already seated in the heights, citizens of the heavenly kingdom.

Will you join that course? Will you call him Lord in your heart? Will you sense the grace that the reshaping that grace can do in your life? Paul's prison words carried the power to his tired church at Philippi. Joy endures beyond circumstance, forged in humility, and it's lifted in exaltation.

I'd like to ask the band to come back up. We've traced this hymn from the son's unshakable union with the father through his solidarity with our frailty, and then ultimately back to his place of... At the right hand of glory. And we've seen how there's there's two ways we miss the boat here. Our restless departure or our dutiful diligence as as sons who are trying to figure it out apart from him, apart from grace.

But in Christ's steady descent and ascent, we find the turning point, a love that that gathers our scattered efforts together and declares them complete in him and sets before us a wholeness that we could never make of our own. That's the downward path of Jesus, that glory grows as we give ourselves away. So to any of us who are drawn to the open road of escape, we've already got everything we need here at home. To those of us home laboring in expectation, let go, you're a child of the eternal one. To each of us, let's take up the mindset of the one who humbled himself.

Lives marked by gentle attention to others, by love that bears quiet fruit, and by bonds that hold us as one. If if this word stir stirs something deep and you speak his name in your heart and know his compassions renew with every dawn, And if this is your first time to to hear this invitation, his arms stand welcome open. Let's pray. Father, for the son's deep entry into our shadowed world and his soaring triumph, we offer our gratitude as a song. Loosen our tight hold on what we cannot keep and shape our lives to the song that spans the ages.

Let him be lifted high among us now and always. Amen.

Would you stand with us? Thanks for being here today. We're just gonna close with just singing that last verse.

Actually, if

you wanna say something,

that'd be great. No. I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you to the band for a credible rendition of that song. You know, for I am his and he is mine. But I wanted to read...

To to give the offer you this benediction, which is this, receive the benediction. Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think on these things. In the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, amen. Have a blessed day.