Philippians 2.9, wherefore God
also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is
above every name. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need to see him exalted high. No one is exalted for trying. We're watching the Olympics right
now in spite of all the drama. In spite of the fact that man
pretty much ruins everything, but it's still. Enjoyable to
us to watch. People that dedicate themselves
to. To one thing and excel at it, it's it's fun to. Watch the
competition in the. Athletes, but. Nobody stands
on the podium and is awarded for trying real hard. For doing all they can do, and
you see where I'm going with this, and this is so important. The reason that the Lord is exalted,
there's a reason for it. It's because he's worthy of it.
It's because he is the champion of sinners. He is the champion
of our salvation. Notice the last word in the context
of verse nine before verse nine. The last word in the verse previous
to verse nine is cross, cross. That explains verse nine. He's
exalted because when he died on that cross, he accomplished
everything that God the Father gave him to do. Turn with me
to Hebrews 9 and verse 11. And let's look at a couple of verses in Hebrews 9 and then
Hebrews 12 that will hopefully settle this in our
hearts. When we speak of Christ exalted,
we need to see Him there. Religion loves to portray the
Lord in a manger, They love to portray him on the cross or whatever
their imagination conjures up with regard to that. Everybody
talking about how blasphemous it was to copy da Vinci's painting
with horrible debauchery and disgusting depravity. I got news
for you, da Vinci's painting was blasphemy too. All of that's blasphemy. In verse 11 of Hebrews 9, but
Christ being come and high priest of good things to come by a greater
and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say,
not of this building, the Old Testament priests would come
and all of the service of the tabernacle was performed. And you go back and look at all
of that and every aspect of what those priests did, even the priests
themselves and everything they did with regard to that earthly
tabernacle made with hands pointed to Christ. The incense, the bread,
the fire, the animal that was sacrificed, the blood that was
splashed on the mercy seat, everything to do with it, pictured
and pointed to and exalted the Lord Jesus Christ. But Christ
came not to minister in a tabernacle made with hands. That's what
that's saying. The Old Testament was just a
picture. The Old Testament is not irrelevant. It reveals and
shows forth Christ, and that's what we're here for, to see and
learn about Christ. But look at verse 12. Neither
by the blood of goats and calves, as they did then, but by his
own blood he entered in once into the holy place. So you see
why the Lord Jesus had to die. You see why they beat him until
the blood ran down his face. They put the crown of thorns
and they beat him and they punched him in the face and they used
the cat of nine tails on his back and blood flowed down. and
they pierced his side, they nailed his hands and feet to a cross
and pierced his side and all of his blood poured out because
that was the fulfillment of all of that sacrifice in the Old
Testament. That wasn't just some barbaric ritual killing animals
like some kind of voodoo. That was setting forth that the
only way God can be satisfied for sin is by death. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins. And all of us could die and go
to hell forever and never redeem one sin that one of us committed.
But because of who Christ is, the shedding of his precious
blood. He made an offering unto God
with that blood, like the priests of the Old Testament came in
with that offering of animal blood. He made an offering unto
God that was satisfactory for all of the sins of all whom he
represented. And look what it says at the
end of verse 12, having obtained eternal redemption for us. He
didn't just try real hard. He didn't do all he can do, he
did everything. All he can do is all things.
And that's what he accomplished, and that's why he's highly exalted.
Cross, exaltation. Look, just flip over
to Hebrews chapter 12 if you would please, verse two. Hebrews 12 and verse two. looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. And what that's saying there,
I like to always point this out, we look to Jesus because he's
the one that gave us faith, he's the one that finishes our faith,
in other words, it's never taken away, we can't lose it. He finishes it and he's the object
of our faith, we look unto him. Who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, that means
counting the shame of the cross a small thing because of the
joy of redeeming his people and forever being with his people
in glory. And we don't understand this,
but just the sheer joy, maybe this was the greatest joy that
he had, just the sheer joy of pleasing his father. He satisfied
his father. And look at the result, despising
the shame, and he sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God. And that's why. Because of what he accomplished
on Calvary. The cross and the throne are
cause and effect. The Lord Jesus Christ, you think
about this, he sank to the lowest depth of misery and shame and
even the very wrath of God. What is literally the worst thing
that can happen to any person forsaken of God and God's wrath
poured out on you. That's the bottom. If you haven't
had that happen, you haven't hit bottom yet. What's the highest place that
exists? The throne. The throne, where he sits right
now. So only the Lord Jesus Christ
knows anything about either one of those things. So who will
you look to? Who then will you look to and
trust in all of your needs and fears and troubles and trials? Listen to Hebrews chapter two,
if you're still in Hebrews, flip back if you would to chapter
two. Who are you gonna trust now? You think about where he's
been, what he's done, what he's accomplished, what he's experienced. For us, Hebrews 2.17, wherefore in all
things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren.
In other words, he was born of a woman made under the law that
he might redeem them that are under the law. He was made like
his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God. to make reconciliation for
the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered
being tempted, he is able to secure them that are tempted.
Now that word tempted there in that passage of scripture is
defined like this, to try or test, to determine one's quality,
to see how they think or to see what they will do. It's not that
God doesn't know what his son would do or how he would think,
but that test was necessary, wasn't it? It's not tempted in
the sense that he wanted to do something bad. We say we're tempted,
that means we kind of want to do something bad. That's sin
already and our Lord had none of that. but he was tested, tried
to see what he would do, to see how he would think, to determine
his quality. When we are, and the word sakur
means help, it's that simple. He's able to help us because
of who he is, because of what he experienced in our place,
because of what he's done for us. But how are we gonna behave
when we're tested, when we're tried? How are we gonna, Think,
how are we gonna act? Will we look to the arm of the
flesh? Will we look for earthly, fleshly solutions to our problems? You know what the godly thing
to do is when we as sinners don't know what to do? Help. That's why it says that in that
text. Help, we cry for help. That's what prayer is among other
things. And he's able to help, that's
what it says. He's able, if you're gonna have
any help, it's gonna come from him. Not only does he know by
experience what you're going through, but he is exalted with
all authority and power so that he's able to do something about
it. So who are you gonna look to? His name, When it talks about
his name being exalted above every name, he's given a name
above every name. It's not just the words Jesus
or Christ or Lord. He does bear those names and
they're very meaningful. But name in this context is reputation. You see what he's saying? He's
given him a name because of what he accomplished. He's honored. He's honored with a name above
every name. Reputation seems like a weak
word when it comes to talking about the Son of God, but it
has to do with the attributes of Christ, which his name has
come to be associated with. Even men, you know, people's
names come to be associated with Certain things, if I mentioned
a name, if it was somebody with notoriety, you would immediately
think of what they're famous for, what achievement maybe that
they're associated with. Well, that's what this is saying.
It's saying that God the Father gave him a position of honor
and notoriety above all others, above every man, Above every
angel, the book of Hebrews is a lot about that. He's highly
exalted. No one has the honor that the
Lord Jesus Christ has. He's worthy of more honor. The
book of Hebrews says that the one that built the house is worthy
of more honor than the house. And he's the one that built everything.
So the Lord Jesus Christ, what's he known for? Salvation accomplished. When a sinner is lost and all
of us are by nature, when we have no hope, when we can't win,
when we're a failure and we are, you're not gonna get saved. You're
gonna be saved by Christ or you're not gonna be saved. You don't
get saved. He's known for Salvation, not
just a helping hand up. We don't need a shot. We don't
need a chance. We don't need, you know, a boost. We need life
and only one can give life. We need righteousness and there's
only one human righteousness. There's no higher name because
there is no achievement like His. He's known for absolute
authority and power. that man whose servant was dying,
and he came to the Lord Jesus, he said, my servant is grievously
sick. And the Lord said, well, I'll
come and heal him. And the man said, well, I'm not worthy that
you should come under my roof. He knew who he was, didn't he?
I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof. Yairus said that
he was a man of authority, and he was a man under authority.
He had bosses and he was a boss and he said, I know something
about authority and I know this, all you have to do is speak the
word and my servant will be healed. That's who we're talking about.
He has power to raise the dead. And he shall raise all those who
he has redeemed body and soul on the cross. No achievement,
what's he known for? Mercy. Mercy. He came to that woman taken in
adultery and he sent her, the ones that were stoning her, he
said, let the, whichever one of you doesn't have any sin,
you throw the first rock. And they all went away. And he
said to her, where are your accusers? And she said, there aren't any
Lord. And he said, I'm not gonna condemn you either. You talk
about salvation, that's mercy. That's mercy. Mercy on sinners, the worst,
the wretched, the vile. Nobody remembers who tried really
hard, do they? We remember those who achieved. and our Lord's name is high. Because he accomplished that
which is most necessary, most desirable, and worthy of eternal
praise. Listen to this passage of scripture
we're about to read together. In Revelation 5, if you wanna
start turning over there, but we're gonna turn to this passage
and read it. And this passage describes the
Savior exalted. But I wanna see if you can see
in this passage something else. See if you can see in it the
reason he was exalted, he is exalted. I think more than anything
else, this passage of scripture tells us what happened on the
cross. It tells us what happened on
Calvary, if we pay attention, close attention to the wording
of this. You listen to it and then you tell me what happened
on Calvary, Revelation 5-9. And they sung a new song saying,
thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof
for thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of
every kindred and tongue and people and nation. and has made
us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.
And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about
the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of
them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying
with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain. And
look what the result of him being slain. Look at how high his name
is. To receive power. That doesn't mean he's the recipient
of power. It means he receives the glory
for his power. Power is attributed unto him.
To receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor
and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in
heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as
are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying,
blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. Does that
sound like a Jesus we ought to feel sorry for because sinners
won't do what he wants them to do? Does it sound like he made his
best effort to save everybody and didn't get it done, clearly?
Hell is busted at the seams. That's not what it sounds like
to me. What we see in that is what happened on Calvary and
who he is on the cross and after the cross and before the, there's
the name, that name, blessing and honor and power and glory
Unto the Lamb, the Lamb, the Lamb. He's pictured in the character
of a sacrifice, a sacrificial Lamb. A Lamb sits on the throne,
not a literal Lamb, but that's his name because of what he accomplished. For thou wast slain, you're worthy. That's why you're worthy. And
that's what our text is about. God put him on the throne. That's what happened. That's
what he accomplished. And there's the honor that's
due unto him forever. That's never gonna stop. And
that's just us giving him all honor in glory. He's more glorious and worthy
than eternity can ever tell. Look at verse 10 in our text,
back in Philippians 2. when the Lord lifts him up, here's
what's gonna happen, that at the name of Jesus, every knee
should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things
under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father under the earth. There's a lot of talk about who
that is. I guess it's people who are buried
and he raises up when he comes back I don't, whoever they are,
they're gonna bow to Christ. I'll tell you that right now.
And there are two ways to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. One
of them is now. The other one is when it's too
late. Willingly, that's a way to bow
to him, willingly now, because the Lord makes his people willing
in the day of his power. And then there are those who's
gonna bow anyway. You don't want to be one of those, and I don't
either. In spite of a whole life of refusing to bow, and you think
about it now, this book says that the plowing of the wicked
is evil. An evil man that has no regard
for the glory of God, he goes out in his field and plows his
field. What could be more wholesome than that? It's evil if you're
not bowing to God when you're doing it. If you're not thanking
him for the field, for the plow, for the energy to man the plow,
for the mind to know what to even do, for the rain, for the
sunshine, for everything. We literally are nothing, we
have nothing, and we can do nothing. And the sooner we recognize that,
that we owe everything to God, the better. to bow to Him is to recognize
His authority, His power, and the accomplishments that led
to His exaltation. Now, He's God, eternally God. But because of the covenant of
grace, He agreed in that covenant to be surety for His people.
And there's one way to save us. He's got to satisfy the law of
God. He's got to satisfy the wrath of God. And that's what
he came down here to do. That's why he was made of a woman
and made under the law. But those, you're gonna bow anyway
now, you're gonna spend a whole life not bowing and then you're
gonna bow. You're gonna bow anyway and you're gonna bow too late.
The scripture says you're either gonna fall on the rock or the
rock is gonna fall on you. Either way, you're coming down,
you're coming down. And this is a good time to do
that by the grace of God. When this text says that his
name is above every name, that doesn't mean that there are other
names that are exalted also, but his is a little bit more,
you know, that means that he is exalted and everybody else
bows. That's what you see that, you
see that in the text there. I want us to read one passage
of scripture here. I had some more, but let's look
at Romans 10, nine. If you want to read later something,
Isaiah chapter two, if you have a pen, maybe jot this down. Isaiah
two, 10 through 22, the key phrase in that passage, and it's repeated,
it's mentioned twice, is this, the Lord alone shall be exalted
in that day. So given a name above every name
doesn't mean, you know, he kind of like is up there, you know,
but there's others. No, the Lord alone shall be exalted
in that day. It's time to start thinking about
that. It's time to start thinking about that now. Look at Romans
10, nine. If thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus. We pass by that word Lord a lot
in the scriptures as if that was part of his name. And you
could definitely look at it that way. But that's a title. That's
a title. That's where he is. That's who
he is. We've looked up that word before,
and I'll just remind you what it means. It means the one who
decides. Isn't that strange how religion,
without maybe even knowing it, they just contradict who he is
by all of that. In religion, it's you who decides.
What happened in the garden? Satan said, you shall be his
gods. You'll decide. You'll determine good and evil.
No, that's not who we confess. We confess the Lord. We confess
the one who decides Jesus. With the mouth. And shall believe
in that heart. That God hath raised him from
the dead. So it's not just putting the bumper sticker on that says
Jesus is Lord and going around saying Jesus is Lord. It's a
heart thing, isn't it? Which means you live it, you
don't just say it. You live it, you are it. Who
you are acknowledges that he's Lord. Not just your mouth, not
just rhetoric, not just religious rhetoric. Verse 10, for with
the heart, man believeth unto righteousness. Abraham believed
God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. And with the
mouth, confession is made unto salvation. So we confess the
Lord, we confess that he decides. We confess that we didn't choose
him, he chose us. We confess that here in his love,
not that we loved him, but that he loved us and sent his son
to be the propitiation for our sins. We confess everything he
says. Listen to what the definition
of the word confess in that passage, and we'll close thinking about
this. Confess, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus. That word means to say the same
thing as another, to agree with, and to declare openly. To declare
openly. You remember the woman of Canaan?
that was crying for mercy unto the Lord, and the disciples were
saying to him, send her away. She's bothering us. And she kept
crying. She kept crying. And the Lord
said, it's not right for me to take
the children's bread and give it to a dog. The Lord Jesus Christ
told that woman of Canaan that she was a dog. And do you remember
what she said? Truth. That's confessing the Lord Jesus,
you agree with what he said. And you openly confess it, you
openly pronounce it. You declare it openly to say
the same thing as another to agree with. Confessing the Lord
Jesus is to agree with everything that he has written concerning
himself, concerning you, concerning his son, and concerning how God
saves a sinner. You say truth, Lord. You don't
argue about it. You don't twist it around to
get some glory out of it. You say truth, confessing the
Lord Jesus to outwardly profess the truth that Christ has revealed
in your heart. It happens that the heart comes
first, doesn't it? With the heart, man believeth
under righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made. We agree. She professed, that
woman professed that she was a dog and that he was the master. Even the dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from the master's table. And that crumbs are given out
at his discretion. If he wants her to have a crumb,
she'll have a crumb. Now, all that God says about
himself, you think about it. Now, this whole book, everything
he says about me, you're a dog. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. The carnal mind is enmity against
God and is not subject to the law of God. And don't miss this
last part. Neither indeed can be. With men
it's impossible. You're not gonna decide to follow
Jesus. You can't do it. He's got to
come where you are like the good Samaritan and pick you up off
the ground before you bleed out dead and go to hell. And he's
got to pour in the oil of his grace and the wine of his precious
blood and lift you up and carry you to safety, carry you into
himself. carry you to the place of safety
and provision and pay for it. And say, no matter what he ever
owes, it's on me. What's your part in that? You
needed it. That's it. You're gonna have
to agree with him in that. That's what he said, you can't
do it. With men it's impossible. The disciples said, who can be
saved? With men, it is impossible. Truth Lord, truth. I'm at your
mercy. I'm at your mercy. Your children
are at God's mercy. Your loved ones are at God's
mercy. Come before him that way. He reveals it in your heart and
then you say truth, Lord, truth, that's the truth. First the heart
and then the confession. Salvation is when the Lord bestows
that grace, gives that faith to a sinner before this heart
stops beating. And we're not promised one more
beating. Not one more. That's why Scripture says now
is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.
He's highly exalted and given a name which is above every name
and you're gonna bow. And me too, me too, we ought
to. He's worthy of it and we're sure
enough going. Amen, let's pray.