God's People Exalted

Introduction

There is a glorious truth in this text that we, in the circles we exist in, perhaps do not talk about enough, and that truth is this: God loves to exalt his people. They are his children, and no good father loves to see his kids pressed down, defeated, and unable to rise in success. If you have children I’m sure you'd agree that when your children succeed at something, you praise them. When they achieve their dreams, you celebrate with them. You don’t discourage them or aim a blow at their self-confidence, a good parent loves to see their children exalted. God is no different. David was confident about this when he wrote in Psalm 37,

Psalm 37:34 ESV

Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off.

In our text today, we finally see Joseph exalted. After years of slavery and imprisonment, he is lifted up to an unparalleled position in all of Egypt. His position is enviable, and yet God was very specific as to how he exalted Joseph. God doesn’t just exalt anyone, and he exalts his people for very specific reasons. In the end, God exalts his people that they may exalt him. While Joseph was exalted among the Egyptians, it was meant to bless them with the glory of God exalted in their midst so that the words of Psalm 46:10 might be true to them,

Psalm 46:10 ESV

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Today we will look at how God exalts his people, who God exalts, what God exalts in them, where God exalts them, and of course why God exalts them as he exalted Joseph.

How does God exalt?

So how does God exalt his people? The story of Joseph should give us a clue. In his case, God used the road of humiliation to bring him to the heights of exaltation.

Through the road of humiliation

God uses the hardships of humiliation to bring them to the peaks of glory and exaltation.

Joseph’s story has been one from humiliation to glory, and cycle where each season of humiliation is greater and followed by a greater season of exaltation. Born humbly as the second youngest in a family of brothers, he was exalted to be the favoured one in his fathers eyes. Humbled by his captivity in Egypt, he was exalted in the house of Potiphar. Humbled by his false arrest and imprisonment, he was exalted to be the second in command in all Egypt. God often uses humbling circumstances to exalt his people.

Why a Christian is on this road

Why did Joseph need to go down the road of humiliation before he was exalted to be second in command in all Egypt. Why do Christians need do go through the hardships of humiliation and suffering? Didn’t Jesus come to beear our burdens and take away our hardships? Yes, he certainly did. But Christ came to do far more than that, he came to free us from the burden of living for our selves and the freedom to live for him. As difficult as the years on the bottom rung of society had been, and as frustrating as his false accusation and imprisonment has been, God has not wasted these years. It’s not as if Joseph’s humiliation being taken from favoured son to household slave was an accident that God now has to work around, God orchestrated it for the purpose of one day exalting him to a level and for a purpose that could not be reached by any other means.

This point should be very clear to us, and this text takes ample time to make it. God only brings his people through times of hardship, tribulation, and humiliation in order to one day raise them up to a right and glorious exaltation. God does not purposefully and needlessly crush his people without the end of it being an even greater exaltation. God is willing to let his loved ones suffer if their final state is eternally more glorious than there

Richard Sibbes: "Christ's way is first to wound then to heal. No sound, whole soul shall ever enter heaven."

To Increase our Trust in God

The test of humiliation for the people of God shows the nature of our faith and will either build it up or destroy the useless charade and reveal the fundamental lack of the faith that was claimed.

God is not looking for those who trust in themselves to carry his name to the ends of the earth, and he has no interest in exalting them so that they may glory in their own ability. This was the exact way of thinking that Joseph challenged Pharaoh with by declaring that it was not in himself to interpret the dreams.

To have sin burned away

The test of humiliation for the people of God is a test that most accurately determines the true nature of our relationship with sin.

Isaiah 1:25–26 ESV

I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.”

This is especially true of the sin of pride.

To be more deeply united to Christ

The New Testament makes it clear that this journey of humiliation to glory is something that Christians are meant to follow their Saviour through. Roman’s 6:5 puts it this way, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his (humiliation that sheds our old, sinful self), we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (exaltation that puts on the holiness of a new creation)”

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Paul then tells us that the reason we should embrace humility is because Christ did. He emptied himself of his glory and embraced the weakness of the human state only to be exalted in due time. This humiliation of Christ is also expressed in the book of Hebrews,

Hebrews 2:10 ESV

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Being made perfect through suffering does not imply that Christ had sin he needed to put off, but rather his experience of humiliation in the human experience had to made complete. The end of Christ's humiliation and hardship was a future of glory and triumph, as is captured in Revelation 5:12-13

Revelation 5:12–13 ESV

saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

This glorious and heavenly exaltation before all creation was done through his humiliation both in becoming a human being and in dying naked and bloody on a cross for our sins. So it is clear that Christ embraced suffering and humiliation in order to embrace the glory of resurrection and exaltation, and he means for us to take the same road.

When we came to be in Christ, we embraced by faith a special, mysterious, and supernatural relationship with him that is unlike any union that we are familiar with. It brings us so close to Christ that the Father loves us like he loves his own son. Christ has positioned us as his people to be one with himself, and this union extends both to his mission to draw the world to his glory and his humiliation in a world that has rejected him. This humiliation is taken on by God’s people in the hope that Paul gives us in

Romans 6:5 ESV

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Likewise, if we are united with Christ in the way he embraced lowness, meekness, and humility, we will also be united with Christ in the way he was exalted.

Who does God exalt?

Matthew 23:12 ESV

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

It is clear in our text that God exalted Joseph in the midst of his humiliation and suffering. The book of Luke is known for being the Gospel that likes to emphasize this paradox, how God lifts up those who are low and counted as nothing in the eyes of the world while bringing low those who are great and mighty in human reckoning. A perfect example of this kind of switch from the low to the high is found in Luke’s account of the Beatitudes,

Luke 6:20 ESV

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Interestingly, Luke differs from Matthew in where Matthew says “Blessed are the poor in heart” Luke simply says, “Blessed are the poor.” This little difference may raise question, does God raise people based on the low state of their heart or on the low state of their bank account? What kind of person does God exalt?

God Exalts the Humble, not the merely humiliated

The answer that we discern from our text, and I believe from the whole of Scripture, including both sets of Beatitudes, is that God exalts the humble in heart and he humbles our hearts through humiliation. However, not everyone who is humiliated becomes humbled.

Humiliation is outward, it is being brought low by outside forces. It broadly means the feeling of being brought low in a social setting. It is the pain of perceiving that you are viewed as low by society or by those around you. This can take the form of public shame and the embarrassment it creates as a response to how other people see you in a negative way.

To be humbled, on the other hand, is embracing a low view of yourself in your own heart.

Not everyone who is humiliated becomes humbled, and not everyone who is humble has been greatly humiliated. However, God often uses external humiliation and difficulty to develop humility in our hearts. Only someone who is able to see how low they are can say with the Psalmist

Psalm 28:6–7 ESV

Blessed be the Lord! For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

God exalts the one who comes out of the valley of humiliation with a humble heart that recognizes God’s greatness, our lowness, and shows a humble trust and faith in God to provide, rather than relying on our own ability to do so.

God Exalts the faithful, not the mere professor

Likewise, although many may profess Christ through their seasons of hardship, God is looking for the faithful.

Matthew 7:21 ESV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Those who do the will of the Father are those who remain faithful to the worship of God, not simply those who keep up the appearance of being a Christian. Joseph never let his bad circumstances stop him from faithfully serving God. He didn’t let the fact that he was a slave become an excuse of self-pity to flirt with Potiphar’s wife. Although his situation changed greatly, his faithfulness to following God did not change. He was consistent, and this is the kind of person God is looking for to exalt.

Our example is Christ. If we want to be exalted, we should seek the humility and sacrificial love he exhibited. We cannot be exalted without union with him.

What does God exalt?

When someone is exalted and lifted up, it is almost always for a reason. Either something that they did or something that they are (Olympic Gold mentalist for example). What does God exalt his people for? What does he mean to exalt in them?

God exalts the faithfulness of his people

Once again faithfulness is key to this exaltation. God does not exalt someone who is unfaithful except to humble them in the end. God wants to exalt his faithful servants so that the world can see their faithfulness. This is to:

Show them the character of God, whom they represent as image bearers.

Give God’s representatives credibility as they work to be a blessing to the world around them. Remember that God is exalting Joseph for the good of his people and for the good of Egypt so that they might perceive the kindness of the LORD and repent. We are professional God-reflectors, and just like a company will promote someone who is qualified for their job, God exalts those who credibly bring the blessings of God to the world.

In short, God exalts what is like Christ in you.

Through them, God exalts his own work of providence

Through the weakness of his people, which they in humility recognize, God shows the powerful work of his own providence.

Where does God exalt?

When God exalts his people, in what context or realm does he exalt them?

God Exalts before earth

In our text, this is the obvious exaltation, the one we are able to see and even the pagan unbelievers could see and appreciate.

This may not happen in this age. Many die humiliated who will one day be exalted in heavenly reward for all to see on the day of judgement.

God exalts before a heavenly audience

Ephesians 2:6–8 ESV

and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

God’s exalted are his trophies, forever showing his power to take a low sinner and make him a man or woman after his own heart. Our existence in the exalted glories of heaven will forever be a reminder to the entire universe of the great power and mercy of God.

Why does God exalt?

Finally we come to the most important aspect to God’s exaltation of his people: why? Why does God even bother to exalt us? The Psalmist asked the same question,

Psalm 8:4–5 ESV

what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

God exalts to glorify himself

A glorified saint shows his glory to be from God

Remember last week when we looked at verse 16 how Joseph was emphatic that the ability to interpret dreams was not in him, thus rejecting the worldly way of emphasizing the strength and ability of man. After the interpretation is made and the advice of how to proceed is given, Pharoah is quick to realize that Joseph could not be the source of this power to interpret dreams. This lowly Hebrew slave could not have outsmarted and out-divined his professional astrologers and magicians. He must have a divine presence with him, and so Pharaoh asks whether there is anyone who has the Spirit of God with them like Joseph does, the assumed answer being “no”. Later, Pharoah renamed Joseph with a name that means, “God speaks and lives.” Because Joseph was careful to not take the glory for himself, even his Egyptian name given by a pagan king declares God’s power.

Despite his exaltation, Joseph remained humble and never saw himself as one who deserved this glory, and so always pointed people back to God. The way he names his children show this. His first child, Manasseh, means to forget because God has made him forget his hardships by exalting him. It glorifies God by looking at God’s deliverance in the past. His second son, Ephraim, looks to the present and how God has continually blessed him with success. Joseph does not forget God in his exaltation, instead he forgets himself.

God is glorified by an awareness of his presence

God’s presence with Joseph has been the stabilizing and hopeful factor that has led him to continue his walk in righteousness. God does not expect his people to live the life of an image bearer alone. Just as the moon needs a clear, unobstructed view of the sun in order to light up the night sky, so God’s people need a clear view of God and a deep conviction of his presence with them in order to show him to the world.

God’s presence is then proved to the nation when the interpretation of Joseph comes true.

God is glorified when we want him, not when we want his glory

God does not exalt people looking for exaltation for themselves. He exalts those who are faithful in poverty or riches, in low positions or high positions, in slavery or in freedom, in happiness or grief. God does not exalt those who exalt themselves, he exalts those who humbling and faithfully in all circumstances exalt him as God over all.

Conclusion: Pursuing Exaltation through Humiliation

· Scripture never tells us not to pursue exaltation, but the kind of exaltation we are prone to pursue as those with a sinful nature. Sinful exaltation seeks to raise ourselves up as something great, Godly exaltation seeks success for the sake of God’s glory.

In our sin, we are unable to pursue true Godly exaltation, even when we think we are.

In God’s grace, he works to raise us up to godly exaltation through the humiliation that has the potential to put our pride to death by the sanctifying power by the Spirit.

The way we are exalted is not to pursue our exaltation, but the exaltation of Christ. We do this with the knowledge that, just as we partake in his humiliation and suffering, we will partake in his eternal exaltation.

Seeking eternal exaltation rather than temporary.

Seeking God’s favour rather than man’s.

Seeking God’s glory rather than and through our exaltation.