Philippians 2:5-11

Good morning, Arundel Baptist Church. It is a great pleasure to have the pulpit opened yet again to me to deliver the Word of God to His people. Please go ahead and open your Bibles to Philippians 2:5–11.

Now I would like to say that we are in the full swing of the Advent season. And I love the season of Advent. We are singing our beloved Advent songs during the morning worship service. Folks, if they have them, are opening up their little Advent calendars that lead up to Christmas, and these things are fine and can be good, but they are not the heart of Advent. Advent is a season of longing.

 It is a deep desire, a groaning. A season in which the people of God remember the aching of Israel as they awaited the coming Messiah and the ache we feel as we await His return. And that longing finds its answer in the Son’s descent.

Advent is not merely about the birth of Christ, it is about the coming of the Son. Before the manger, before the angels, before Bethlehem, there was the eternal Son choosing to humble Himself for our sake. This was the Son’s willing obedience to the Father’s mission. He did not take on a human nature until His conception, yet the One born in Bethlehem is the eternal Son who purposed to come.

As we prepare for this coming Christmas, we must ask what captures our hearts? Is it whether the tree is trimmed just right? Does the house looks festive enough for our neighbors? Have we bought the right gifts to keep everyone happy?

There is nothing wrong with those things; the beautiful lights and the familial celebrations, the good food, but if those things overshadow Christ, if they hold our hearts more than the One who took on flesh, then brothers and sisters, we have missed the point.

Scripture pulls us away from the sentimentality of this season and pulls us to the Incarnation: the Savior made flesh, the Savior who empties Himself, not by shedding His divinity but by taking the form of a servant, the Maker of the heavens and the earth coming in humility to redeem His people.

Often we begin our Advent studies in the accounts of Matthew and Luke, yet the apostle Paul takes us further back, before Bethlehem, before the shepherds, before Mary’s birth pangs. Paul brings us into eternity. This is what had to happen to make the Nativity possible. Before the child was laid in a manger, the Son had already willingly chosen the path of descent!

Now let us read from Philippians 2:5-11

Thus saith the Lord

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,a 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,b 7but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,c being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Prayer

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus"

Paul is not giving us abstract theology for admiration alone. He is shaping a way of thinking, a pattern of life for the church. “Have this mind among yourselves” means that what follows is not only something to believe, but something to imitate. Christ’s humility is not merely revealed but it is prescribed.

Now look back down at verse 6 who, though he was in the form of God. This is very important. This is before the descent of Christ, before his incarnation. Before the first act of creation there was The SON, who is God. The SON is not a creation of the father nor is Christ a type of God. J

This is not a form he takes on nor is this a temporary function he fulfills. Paul is not saying Christ merely appeared as God or looked divine; he is saying Christ truly is God in His very nature. I am by no stretch of the imagination a Greek expert but here the word form is Morphe.

Stop This form is his true nature or it is his essential form. Paul is very careful when unpacking this. The text does not say here that Christ was like God. The text is not saying that when Christ became the son of God. Christ was in the form of God. This Form is not simply an external appearance. It is who he honestly and truly is. What the scripture says here is that Christ possessed EVERTHING that makes God, God.

And here Paul presses on the church. If the eternal Son, who truly is God, did not seize upon His status for self-advantage, then pride has no place among us. The mind of Christ leaves no room for grasping; no grasping for recognition, no grasping for control, among the people of God.

 Before he took on the form of a servant, which we will look at here shortly, Jesus Christ was in the form of God. This is the same Son John says was with God and was God.

Paul does not say that Christ was made in the image of God. Christ does not bear the image of God. Christ is God by nature. Christ is co-equal with the father and the Holy Ghost in power, co-equal in His glory, and co-eternal in His holiness. There is no inferiority of nature here because Jesus Christ is God.

And this is where we must notice something critical: Paul does not say that Christ was made in the image of God. Adam was made in the image of God. Christ is said to be in the form of God. The image of God is representational. Adam reflected God. Adam resembled God. Christ does not merely reflect God, He shares the divine nature itself. This is not semantic nitpicking. This is Christology. Adam bears God’s image and fails. Christ possesses God’s form and succeeds. Adam resembles God; Christ shares God’s nature.

Look at our father Adam all those years ago in the garden. Adam stood in the as the federal head all of humanity. When Adam was created he was in a state of innocence, and a state of sinlessness, made in the image of God. The Lord gave him a command, one rule he must obey, which was do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good evil. If you eat of this tree you will die. That was the consequence of eating of this tree. And So what did Adam do after his wife was tempted by the serpent? He ate the fruit of the tree from which he was forbidden. Why? because he was told the lie that eating of the tree would cause him to ‘becoming like God. He disobeyed God. He grasped at something that was not his. Something that he, as a created had no right to try to have.

Adam was not God, yet he grasped for divinity. And in this grasping , he brought the curse of sin and death, a death that is both physical and spiritual. When Adam grasped at divinity he did not just bring that curse upon himself, no, as our representative, he dragged the entirety of humanity down with him, to stand guilty before a holy God. Adam's grasping is our grasping. Adam's fall is our fall. Christ, the second Adam, the Greater Adam, did not use His status for His own advantage. The first Adam grasped for what was not his, yet the second Adam did not cling to what was rightly His.

This is where Paul presses on us. That old Adam instinct from is still alive in us. to grasp, to seize, to insist. But the mind of Christ puts that instinct to death. The first Adam climbed; the second Adam descended.

If you are here outside of Christ, this descent was not for imitation but for salvation. Before Christ becomes your pattern, He must be your substitute. The call of this passage is not first, “Be humble like Jesus,” but “Be found in Jesus,” because only those united to Him by faith receive the benefits of His obedience

The coming of Christ in his meaningful as he is the only one with the right to exalt himself. The servant that is obedient has done nothing remarkable. The servant that obeys has done what a servant is required to do. But when the Lord of glory chooses a path of submission and obedience, this is the humility brought forth here.

And yet, the Son did not regard His equality with God, His fully divine status, as something to be exploited or clutched for His own advantage. He did not reach for what He already possessed, nor did He cling to His divine privileges. Instead, He willingly set aside His rights, not His deity, for the sake of obedience.

Christ had every right to stay above, to be served by His angels, receiving praise for His holiness. He did not have to descend to open the way for sinners. He could have remained hidden, He did not have to hunger, to thirst, to grow weary, or to endure betrayal by His closest friends. He did not have to suffer the death of a criminal on our behalf. He would have been perfectly just, as the perfectly righteous Judge, to allow the race of sinners to perish in everlasting damnation.

And this leads into one of the most amazing, yet astonishing verses in all of Scripture. He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant.”

Point II: The Humility Christ Chose

And so, it is the emptying of Himself; it is what theologians refer to as the kenosis. It can also be translated as “made Himself nothing.” To understand the kenosis, we must first begin with what the kenosis is not.

And we must also be clear that Paul himself defines this emptying for us in the text. The emptying is not left unexplained or open to speculation. Paul explains how Christ empties Himself by what follows.

The kenosis is not Christ’s ceasing to be God. He does not lay aside any of His divine attributes. He remains co-equal in power, in glory, and in holiness with the other two members of the Trinity. He does not lay aside His divine attributes. He remains perfectly loving, perfectly just, and all-knowing. He does not become any less than fully divine.

This is because the emptying does not change who Christ is, but how He lives. He does not stop being God; He chooses to live in humility. Nothing is taken away from Him; He simply takes on a lowly life. Christ remains fully God even as He walks the path of obedience and submission.

Christ did not empty Himself by becoming less than God. If He had, He could not save. Because if Christ were not fully God, His sacrifice would have no infinite worth, and if He were not fully man, He could not stand in our place.

A diminished Christ cannot redeem sinners but the Christ who came is fully God and fully man, and therefore He saves completely.

And so, moving to what this emptying is, Paul tells us how this emptying occurs: “by taking the form of a servant,” “by being born in the likeness of men,” and “by humbling Himself.” The participles explain the verb. The emptying is defined by the taking.

This is Him emptying Himself by taking the form of a servant. This is an emptying that happens by addition, not subtraction. When Christ condescended, when He was born, when He was incarnated, He added true humanity. He became fully divine and fully human. He is one person with two natures without any confusion or division between the two.

This emptying is not something forced upon Him. It is not something the Father compels the Son to bear, nor is it an accident of history. The Son empties Himself willingly, in love for His people, by taking the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of men. Christ descends by choice. He humbles Himself freely into obedience. He remains Lord even in His humiliation. This is Christ fulfilling the covenant; it is not a tragedy of circumstance, but a triumph of His obedience.

This emptying has a direction. It is a downward movement. It is a movement toward obedience. This descent begins at the incarnation and moves toward the cross. This was not Him losing His deity; this was Him veiling His glory. And if we are to understand this rightly, we must now look at what Paul means when he says Christ took the form of a servant, because His emptying is defined by servanthood, not separate from it.

  And so the idea of servant here is not someone who is just here to help, but someone who is a slave. It is someone owned by another, who belongs wholly to a master. It is someone who exists to follow the will of another. This is not a hired worker. This is not a temporary assistant or a volunteer. The servant has no personal rights, has no independence of authority, and has no claim on the way that they live their lives.

The One who owns everything takes the form, or the position, of one who owns nothing.

So, as we saw back in verse 6, the form of God, morphē, He is also truly in the form of a servant. This is a real servanthood, this is not a symbolic servanthood. This is not a partial servanthood. As truly as He was God in verse 6, so truly He is a servant in verse 7.

This language of servanthood is not alien. If we look back to Exodus 4:22, we see the Lord speaking and saying, “Israel is My firstborn son.” Israel was called to obedience, yet if we have studied the Old Testament, we see again and again that Israel grumbled and rebelled against the Lord. They continually resisted the one true and living God. The people strove against God rather than submitting to His will.

But here we see Christ as the true Son. Where Israel failed, Christ obeyed. Christ is faithful. Christ is submissive to the will of the Father. Christ is the Son who always obeys, and Christ is the ultimate Servant, perfectly obedient in all things.

Christ did not take the form of a servant in appearance only. Servanthood required assumption. It required that the eternal Son truly enter our condition and take on full humanity.

Therefore, Christ did not merely appear to be human, nor was He acting as though He had human weakness. Because servanthood required true assumption, the eternal Son was truly made flesh. Scripture is careful here. Christ did not enter humanity as a visitor passing through, nor did He hover above the human condition insulated from its weakness. Hebrews tells us that He partook of flesh and blood just as the children do. He entered fully into our condition, not selectively, not partially, but completely.

In His humanity, He knew hunger in the wilderness. He knew weariness at the well. He knew grief when He stood at His friend’s tomb. He lived under the pressures of a fallen world. He experienced weakness without sin. He bore the weight of obedience in a body that could ache, bleed, and die. He could be wounded, crushed, betrayed, and killed.

And this matters because redemption is not symbolic. God does not save by appearance. A substitute must truly stand in the place of those he represents. Representation requires likeness, and if Christ were only partly human, He could not fully represent sinners. A shadow cannot redeem substance. An appearance cannot obey in the place of the guilty.

Scripture tells us that Christ was made like His brothers in every respect so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest. His mercy is not theoretical, and His faithfulness is not distant. He knows what it is to obey under weakness because He has done so Himself. He stands before the Father not only as the eternal Son, but as the obedient Man.

Therefore, He was fully human in body, soul, and lived experience. And because He was truly human, Christ could now do what we could never do. He could obey the perfect and holy law of God on our behalf.

Look at what the apostle Paul says here in Galatians 4:4: “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” When Christ was born, He was not just born a man; He was born into God’s covenant people. He was born under the demands of God’s law. This means that the law stood over Him. God’s law had real demands of Him, and the law of God evaluated and judged His life at every point. Christ never entered history as one above the law, as the law itself, or outside of the law. He entered under the law as a man to obey.

Christ’s obedience to the law begins at the start of His life, not in the middle, and not at the end. He was circumcised when He was eight days old, the first demand of the law. This placed Him under the sign of God’s covenant, and it placed Him under covenantal obligations. He is a member of the covenant of God and a keeper of this covenant even as an infant. Christ actively submits to the law. He bears the sign of the law before He can speak.

Christ does not simply fulfill the law at the end of His life; He fulfills it from the beginning. Christ obeys actively. He attends synagogue, and He honors the holy days and the days of rest. When Christ is accused of breaking the Sabbath, He does not reject the Sabbath. He rightly obeys the Sabbath and rightly interprets the Sabbath.

Christ never broke God’s law. Christ kept the first and greatest commandment of the law: to love the Lord God with all His heart, soul, and mind. He also perfectly obeyed the second greatest commandment, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. Christ obeys the law always, both internally and externally, and in every thought, word, and deed He ever committed. Not once in His life does Christ sin, not in any desire and not in any motive.

This stands in great contrast with us. We do not just break the law occasionally; we fail to keep it entirely. And in living under obedience to the law, Christ submits to the ceremonial portion of the law that was designed to show sinners how helpless they are before an almighty, all-holy God. Although He is sinless, Christ bore the burdens of that system that continually points to condemnation. He obeys the law even where it costs Him humiliation. He is the sinless One who lived under a law written for sinners.

The atonement requires more than forgiveness. It requires more than the removal of guilt. God requires a positive righteousness, an active righteousness. The law demands obedience. Christ provides a perfect righteousness that is imputed to us on our behalf when we come to Him in faith. The perfect submission of Christ to the demands of God is counted in our place when we place our faith in Him.

Christ’s perfect obedience to the law completes what Adam failed to do. He completed what Israel failed to do. He does what we fail to do. Christ did not obey the law for Himself, but on behalf of His people. Christ’s obedience does not end with His life under the law; it is a life under the law that moves to obedience unto death. The law that He obeyed will now condemn Him not as a lawbreaker but on behalf of sinners. “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” The One who fulfilled the law bears its curse.

The Scripture does not treat Christ’s descent and coming in humility as isolated moments apart from one another. The incarnation is not one act, His washing of the disciples’ feet another, and the crucifixion the final act of humility. From the moment the Son incarnates in flesh, the descent has begun. And when we speak of His sacrifice on the cross at Calvary, it is not some tragic interruption of His mission. It is the destination. It is the climax before the resurrection.

From the time Christ was conceived, according to the eternal decree of God, everything was directed toward the cross. The Son did not enter the world in splendor. The eternal Son, the One to whom the entire world is His inheritance, was born as a helpless infant. The eternal Word entered the world not by a miraculous apparition or a radiant display of glory, but by a real birth through real labor. He passed through the very birth pangs that came as a result of the curse from Adam’s fall. The One who would bear our sorrows began His humiliation by entering the world in frailty and in the blood of human birth.

The King whose inheritance was all glory was laid in a feeding trough. The One to whom heaven belongs had no room in the inn, nor a bed in which to lay. His birth in a manger is not sentimental; it is His first visible step downward.

Although Christ teaches with authority, He is misunderstood by those whose ears are deaf to hear Him. He is opposed by those who value their man-made traditions over the Word of God, and He is rejected by those who belong to His covenant people. Christ is called a blasphemer. He is called a worker of the devil and his agents. He is called a glutton and a winebibber. He is accused of guilt by association with sinners by being called a friend of sinners.

One of His closest disciples betrays Him the night before His trial and death. Another friend, who swore his fealty to Him, who swore that he loved Him, abandoned Him during His darkest hour. This is not a failure on the part of Christ. This is the path of His obedience. This suffering Servant must be despised before He is condemned.

This leads Him to the lowest point of His descent. He is crucified over a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. Crucifixion is a public, shameful, violent, horrible, miserable death, reserved for the worst of criminals. It was not merely death; it was death delivered under the harshest judgment. It was death on a cross. This was not a noble death, nor a peaceful death. It was a cursed death, for it is written, “Cursed is every man who hangs on a tree.”

If we look at the suffering Servant that is Christ in Isaiah 53, we see that the Servant does not suffer with the people; He is a Servant who suffers for the people. The language is repeated again and again: it is for our transgressions, it is for our iniquities. This is not a symbolic punishment or some merely spiritual suffering. It is the real Christ bearing the judicial punishment that was reserved for us. God places the guilt on the Servant, and the Servant bears the punishment that belongs to others. The wounds are His, but the guilt remains ours.

Despite the injustice, the violence, and the rejection He endures, the Servant obeys. He does not protest. He does not resist. He entrusts Himself completely to the Lord. His obedience continues into suffering and into His death.

Christ’s active, perfect obedience carried Him not only into a horrible and painful death, but into a covenantal curse. It is not merely that He died for us; He died in our place. So, Christian, Christ became a curse to redeem those under the Law. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. He was afflicted and oppressed, yet He obeyed and opened not His mouth.

Hebrews 2 tells us that Christ shared in flesh and blood. He was made like His brothers. He was here physically, not saving from a distance. He stands with us before He stands for us. Christ enters death not as a captive, but as a conqueror. By His death He breaks death’s claim over His people. He destroys the one who has the power of death, and He frees those who were enslaved by its power.

The suffering Servant is our substitute and our brother. His mercy is experiential. It is real, not theoretical. His faithfulness is proven, not abstract. He is the One who intercedes for us as our great High Priest.

He died on your behalf, O Christian. He took the judgment that was reserved for you. It was the wrath that God had stored for each and every one of you, and He poured this wrath out upon the One who obeyed Him perfectly, the One who humbled Himself perfectly.

This cross was not an accident. This cross was not a Plan B. This cross was the entire purpose of His descent. And because Christ went as low as His obedience could take Him, God exalted Him.

Therefore God has highly exalted Him. That “therefore” matters. It is there because of the cross, because of Christ humbling Himself by becoming obedient unto death. This is not Christ returning to divinity, nor is it God suddenly deciding to honor Him. This is not a change in Christ’s being, but a public declaration of who He has eternally been. Christ does not become worthy here; He is declared worthy. God is responding to Christ’s His obedience, His condescension, His humiliation. His descent was seen, it was known, and it has been answered. This is God publicly affirming the path the Son willingly chose.

This exaltation is public, righteous, and declarative. It is God’s verdict on Christ’s obedience. It is vindication—not a reward. Vindication is the declaration of a rightness already present and a faithfulness proven under trial. A reward implies improvement or deficiency overcome. But Christ did not obey in order to become righteous; He obeyed because He is righteous. In the exaltation, God is declaring that the Son was right, that His obedience was perfect, and that His humiliation was not a failure.

And because this is true, the church does not need to vindicate itself. We do not need to exalt ourselves, defend our honor, or secure our place. God is the One who exalts the humbled, and He will not forget faithfulness rendered in His fear.

God highly exalted Him. Scripture does not say that Christ exalted Himself, nor that He seized glory. The Son humbles Himself; the Father exalts the Son. The cost of Christ’s obedience, as we have seen, was immense, yet His exaltation is cosmic. What the world despised, the Father vindicated.

The resurrection is God’s first public and visible vindication. God’s declaration that death has no claim on this Man and that His obedience was accepted. The ascension is Christ’s return to glory, now as the obedient Mediator. He does not return to His throne empty-handed; He returns having accomplished redemption for His people. He is seated at the right hand in authority, ruling and reigning, the work of His humiliation complete. The humiliation is finished, and the reign of exaltation begins.

The cross was not His defeat. The incarnation was not a loss. The descent was not a failure. The obedience that led Christ to the cross is the same obedience that placed Him on His throne.

This vindication begins with a declaration: “He,” that is the Father, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This is not saying that God gave Him a name or that God invented a new title for Christ or gave something to Christ that He lacked. God gave Christ the name above every name. This is a specific name, a known name, and a name carrying ultimate authority. This name is not Jesus. That is the name Christ bore at His human birth; that is His human name. This is the name of God bestowed after His condescension. This is not Christ receiving a rank or a title that He had previously lacked.

Now what is this name? Paul uses the word KYRIOS, which is a Greek term drawn from the Septuagint. This is not a polite title like “sir.” This is the Greek word that is used consistently for the name of God. It is the divine identifier. It is the divine name. This is the name that was revealed to Moses in the burning bush. This is the name of God that is bound to creation and to redemption. It is the name that Israel would not pronounce. This is why Paul does not explain it—most readers already know its weight.

Now Christ is not made Lord here; here He is declared Lord. There is no change to Him as a person; His being is not elevated. This is a public declaration of His rightful status. This hearkens us back to Isaiah 45:23: “To Me every knee shall bow; every tongue shall swear.”

This phrase is spoken by the Lord alone. In Isaiah 45, God is declaring there is no other God; He has no rivals, and He shares His worship with no one. Paul takes this language that had only been used for God in Hebrew Scripture and applies it directly to Christ. This is not a metaphor. This is not poetic exaggeration. Paul is doing something you never would have done under the old covenant unless Jesus truly is YHWH.

When Paul says every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ is Lord, he is not saying Jesus is a master or some arbitrary figure of authority. He is saying Jesus Christ is YHWH. What belongs to YHWH alone is confessed of Christ Jesus. The one whom the Father vindicated is now the one before whom every knee must bow.

 With the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. This is not a list of abstract categories; this list is naming all possible realms of created existence.

In heaven, we have angels, and we have saints who have passed on and are with the Lord. Angels and saints bow willingly. Those who are present with the Lord give Him glory and praise joyfully and with gladness, crying out, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,” praising their Lord.

The next category is those on earth—those of us who are living now. We, as members of Arundel Baptist Church, bow and declare Christ as Lord. But this applies to believers and unbelievers alike. Some bow now in faith; others resist. Yet Scripture does not present history as a stalemate. The Psalms tell us that the nations belong to Christ, that the peoples are His inheritance, and that the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth. Christ reigns now, and through the preaching of the gospel, many knees are being taught to bend willingly.

Where repentance is refused, resistance does not endure forever. If the knee will not bend willingly, and it will bow in fear.

Those under the earth refer to those who have died in unbelief and to the defeated powers of darkness. Human rebels and spiritual enemies alike are subject to Christ’s authority. They are subjugated. They are compelled to bow. This is not the language of redemption, but the language of judgement. And this is the fate of all who persist in refusing to bend the knee to Christ Jesus the Lord.

No creature remains neutral. No creature remains unaccountable. All knees will bow in submission to Christ, and all tongues will acknowledge the truth that Christ is Lord. This is an objective reality: Christ is Lord.

Scripture tells us, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Confessing freely now, with joy and through faith, leads to salvation. Confessing later will be compelled, unwilling, and under judgment.

Every knee will bow.

Believers, the confession we make in worship today is the same confession the entire universe will make one day. But that confession is not reserved for the last day alone. It is already spreading through the world as Christ gathers His people, disciplines the nations, and reigns in the midst of His enemies. Today, that confession is offered with grace, through the gospel, under the present and advancing reign of Christ.

If every knee belongs to Christ, then there is no neutral ground in creation, and there is no part of life that stands outside His Lordship. “There is no corner of this world over which Christ does not say, ‘Mine.’”

Since that is true, that all things belong to Christ, then there is nothing that is truly secular. What we often call secular is simply that which we imagine to be untouched by God.

Your work, your labors, your toiling—what you do day in and day out—is not merely to sustain you economically. It is service rendered under the authority of Christ. Whether it is seen or unseen, Christ is Lord of it. We do not leave Christ at the church door when we go to work.

To us as parents, our parenting is discipleship. We are to raise our children under our care, training them in the ways of God. Our marriages are covenantal representations of Christ and His Church. The authority we exercise in our homes is authority exercised under Christ, not instead of Him. We should not seek to be obedient and faithful only in public worship, but also in the private faithfulness of our homes.

Our worship is the public confession of Christ’s Lordship. It is meant to shape how we live our lives. We gather and worship because Christ is ruling and reigning now. Worship is not an escape from the world; it is preparation to serve Christ in it.

When we suffer, we must remember that our suffering is not random, nor is it outside the rule of God. The same Lord who was exalted through suffering now rules over ours. In our obedience, we must remember that obedience to God’s law is not self-salvation. It is our pledge of allegiance. We obey because Christ is Lord, not to make Him Lord.

So when we look into the world and see the a hatred of Christ, we must remember this: Christ is not threatened. Christ is reigning now. Christ is ruling in the midst of His enemies. His throne is not shaking; it remains steadfast.

Governments will rise and fall. Cultures may change; for better or for worse. But Christ remains seated. His purposes are not delayed. The gospel is advancing. Christ is gathering His people, and the nations are being discipled.

Though the world may look unstable, Christ reigns. Nothing is secular. Nothing is wasted. And nothing is outside His Lordship.

All of this rests on one unshakable truth: Jesus Christ is Lord. He is Lord over our work and our homes, our worship and our suffering, our obedience and our hope. He is Lord over the nations and Lord over history. Nothing is secular, nothing is wasted, and nothing is outside His reign. The world may tremble, but Christ remains seated. And because He reigns, His people may labor faithfully, suffer patiently, and hope confidently—knowing that the King who humbled Himself for us now rules for us.

Christ is King.

Let us pray.