Transcription
Introduction
Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I want to invite you to turn in your New Testament to Philippians chapter 2 if you’re not already there. Philippians chapter 2. And if you want to put a marker there in that spot and turn with me to Romans chapter 14 as a beginning place.
Romans chapter 14. It’s good to see everybody. It is uh you know we’ve come to the point in the year where we’ve got kids back in school. We’ve got you know hopefully headed quickly to fall at least.
I don’t know if we are not on that. I’m making that up basically. But I’m hoping that we are. But I’m glad you’re here this morning.
You know, the gospel as it was preached by the apostles went beyond the mere fact of Jesus’s death and resurrection to reveal its ultimate purpose. As Paul would say here in Romans chapter 14 and verse 9, he’d say, “For to this end Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” That’s ultimately what was accomplished by the death and the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is Lord.
And so even before that when Peter preached the gospel for the first time on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, he would go through and he would talk about the fact that they had crucified him and God raised him up. So he would talk about the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And then he would say in , “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Again, that was the end result.
Jesus didn’t just die and and was raised from the dead, but he was exalted. He was given this position. [clears throat] And so, the most basic and yet significant confession that a person can make is that Jesus is Lord. In Romans chapter 10 and verse 9, Paul would put it this way.
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. And Paul wasn’t saying there that that’s all a person has to do. There are too many other passages that, you know, tell us that there’s more to it than that. But what he was pointing out is the importance of that basic confession.
And so the phrase Jesus is Lord, it may sound simple and I suspect that some people can say it without ever even really taking into consideration the full significance of the words that are coming out of their mouths. But in our study this morning, I want us to see that these words have enormous implications for both the faith and also the life of Christians, what we believe and what we do. And so we’re going to see that they express first of all a profound a profound doctrinal conviction about Jesus, about who he is. And then secondly, we’re going to talk about a radical commitment to him that comes as a result of all that.
And so I want us to look at these two things this morning. Let’s start though with the doctrinal conviction. The word doctrine is one of those words that’s kind of fallen on hard times in recent years. Uh for some people when they hear the word doctrine they think of something that is both boring and impractical.
You know it’s not just one it’s not just the other. It is both. You know we want we want practical advice. We want something that we can do something with.
But what we need to understand is that the great doctrines of scripture are the foundation for everything else. And we’re fooling ourselves if we think that we can build a life that is pleasing to God without paying attention to the foundation upon such w the foundation upon which such a life is built. And so apart from the foundation, it is it’s really nothing more than kind of a a self-help seminar. And you see that sometimes I think uh in the religious world of today.
So as we talk about the the lordship of Jesus this morning, I want us to look at some things that Paul said here in the second chapter of his letter to the church in Philippi. And so after emphasizing that Christ despite sharing God’s nature and enjoying equality with him emptied himself of his glory and humbled himself to serve, Paul then addressed what God did in return. We’re going to look at verse 5 beginning. Have this mind among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. [clears throat and snorts] And so, I want us to take just a few minutes to look at what Paul says here and especially really the last three verses. I want us to look at uh verses 9, 10, and 11.
1. Paul Gave Jesus a Divine Title
And what I want us to see is that there are three things that stand out in what Paul says here. And the first thing that I want you to see is that Paul gave Jesus a divine title in all of this. I didn’t do that very well. Now, you know my next three points, and that’s all right.
You’re only supposed to know the first one. But Paul gave Jesus a divine title. He said, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” And that word that is translated Lord, curios, if you’re interested, was used with different meanings in different context.
At times it was used simply as basically a polite form of address like you see in John 20 and verse1 15 when Mary Magdalene uh you know confuses the resurrected son of God for a gardener and she says to him there in John 20 and verse1 15 sir if you have carried him away tell me where you’ve laid him and I will take him away you know that word sir is the same word as lord in other passages but when the disciples used this word in relation to Jesus that Greek word curios was more than a polite form of address. It was a title as when they referred to him as the Lord Jesus or the Lord Jesus Christ. You see that all through the New Testament. And that becomes especially clear when viewed against the backdrop of the Old Testament.
You know, when the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into the Greek language, which was the, you know, it’d be like speaking English today, you know, people all over the world knew it. And so Greek was the common language of the the then known world. And the Jewish scholars who worked on that, who brought the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, they they didn’t know how to handle the name of God when they translated that or when they went through those passages. Uh today, it’s often either rendered as Jehovah or Yahweh and they didn’t feel free to translate it or even to transliterate it.
And so what they did is every time the the name of God appeared, they would just insert the Lord that expression into the passage instead. Really, most of our English translations follow that practice today as well. You’ll see it, you know, set aside by how it capitalizes Lord to indicate that it’s the name of God. But the followers of Jesus, knowing that this designation, at least among the Jews, was the traditional title for the creator of the universe and for the covenant God of Israel, didn’t hesitate to apply it to Jesus.
And they didn’t see any problem doing so. It was tantamount to saying Jesus is God. And that’s what they meant when they said that. Again, they were giving Jesus a divine title.
2. Paul Transferred to Jesus a Divine Text
And so, second though, I want you to see and you you may already have this one figured out. Paul transferred to Jesus a divine text and he applied to Jesus a text that again has to do with God. And so when people read today there in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. They may not recognize that that’s what Paul was doing but that’s what Paul was doing.
People who were acquainted with the Old Testament would have recognized that because you go back to the book of Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 23 and God says this. He says, “By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone out in righteousness, a word that shall not return.” What’s that word? Here it is.
To me, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance. That’s what God said through Isaiah. And so Paul in essence, he had the audacity to take this passage from Isaiah and to apply it to Jesus. And the implication of doing that is unavoidable to the the honor which was due to God, Paul says, is due to Christ.
It is universally true as well. Again, as we see there in , at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. There are no exceptions when it comes to this acknowledgement. And you see that same kind of thing in other places as well.
For example, when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost again in Acts chapter 2, he would quote from the prophet Joel there in verse 21. Uh and Joel would say back in Joel chapter 2:32, that it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. Keep that in mind.
And that’s one of the Old Testament passages where the Jews would substitute the word Lord for Jehovah or Yahweh. Originally Joel said that everyone who calls upon the name of Yahweh shall be saved. But what Peter does in this sermon is he applies that to Jesus. You go down to verse 38, a passage that we are all very familiar with and he says, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in what?
In the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” He didn’t pull that language out of nowhere. He pulled it because he had just talked about that kind of language up in the prophecy of Joel. And so now what what Peter is saying is the the saving power of God to Israel, which Joel was talking about in Joel chapter 2, is has become the saving power of Jesus to everybody, both Jews and Gentiles alike.
3. Paul Demanded for Jesus Divine Worship
And so he transfers to Jesus a divine text. And then third, Paul demanded for Jesus divine worship. And at the very least that’s implied in what Paul says there that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. That’s one of those phrases used in the Bible that signifies worship.
You go back for example to Psalm 95 and verse 6. Come let us bow down and worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. And the psalmist there wasn’t describing you know two different activities.
One in which you bow down and worship and the other in which you kneel before the Lord as they typically did. The biblical writers sometimes would emphasize something by stating it one way and then turning around and stating the same principle in different words. To bow the knee is to worship. That’s the point of the whole thing.
And one of the interesting principles we find in the New Testament is that Jesus is not only to be worshiped by human beings, but he is to be worshiped by all beings. And I can’t help but wonder if Paul was alluding to that when he said there that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. whether or not that’s what Paul was trying to get at there, that that same principle is found throughout the New Testament. For example, in the first chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, a passage in which Jesus is being talked about, there’s an Old Testament uh quotation that says, applying it again to Jesus, let all God’s angels worship him.
Even the angelic beings worship Jesus. And so Jesus is worthy of receiving worship. Is that not a statement about who he is? If Jesus is not God, then it would be wrong for people to worship him.
And yet, one thing we see clearly in the Gospels is that Jesus didn’t rebuke people who did that very thing. And so I want to give you a couple of examples of that. If you will turn to Matthew chapter 28, Matthew chapter 28. Uh two of the women that Jesus appeared to following his resurrection, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary as she’s called, and then the 11 disciples.
So look at verse 9 of Matthew 28. It says and behold Jesus met them that is the Mary and Mary and said greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. It says then Jesus said to them do not be afraid.
Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will meet me. Now skip down to verse 16. We pick up the story and they do just that. Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I’m with you always to the end of the age.”
That’s what it looks like when Jesus is Lord. And so again, there are three important things that we see that that stand out here. Jesus was given a divine title. He was the subject of a divine text.
And he was deserving of design of divine worship. And so when the early Christians confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord, what they were confessing is him as God in human flesh. That’s ultimately what they were getting at. But what I want us to see this morning is that this doctrinal conviction that we have about who Jesus is, it requires a radical commitment.
You see, the word Lord, as we’ve seen, could be used just kind of as a respectful designation, but it was most commonly used in biblical times of owners. And it might be the owners of land. You know, we still talk about land lords sometimes. might be the owners of property of some kind or might be owners of servants.
And it was with that understanding that that Christians are referred to in the New Testament as servants of Christ. We have been purchased at the cost of his blood. And as a result of that, we belong to him. We are at his service.
And this ownership by Christ and this commitment to Christ is to penetrate every aspect of our lives. Everything that we have, everything that we are. And there are several dimensions to that of course and I want us to talk about just three of them this morning. There is there is no way that we are going to exhaust everything that could be said about the kind of commitment that we are to have to the Lord as a as a result of the fact that that’s who he is.
4. The Intellectual Dimension of Commitment
But I do want to point out three things quickly. And the first thing that I want you to see, and we’re probably going to get all three of them up here again, but we’ll we’ll see how that goes. First thing I want you to see is that there is an intellectual dimension to all of this. We’ll get one at a time.
Surprises await you. And so I’m going to begin with the mind because it’s at the center of our thinking and our judgment. It effectively rules our lives. But submitting our minds to the lordship of Jesus means surrendering something that we naturally want to retain for ourselves, doesn’t it?
That is the right to decide what is true and what is right. You see, we like to think our own thoughts and we like to give our own opinions. Many people basically approach life that way. You know, if my thoughts or my opinions conflict with the teaching of Jesus, that’s too bad for him because I’m not changing.
And that’s the mindset of the world in which we live. And that’s often as true of religious people as it is of anybody else, unfortunately. But what I want us to see is that Jesus claims authority over our minds. In fact, there’s a passage in Matthewap 11 and it begins and you know it’s very comforting in many ways.
Matthew 11 and verse 28. Do you remember when Jesus says there come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. That sounds great, doesn’t it? that if we are burdened, if we if we are heavy laden, if we labor, if we are tired, Jesus will give us rest.
But I want you to look at verse 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. his followers were to become his disciples to subject themselves to his instruction and to learn from him. You know, Paul would later say in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 5, he would he would express his resolve to take every thought captive to obey Christ.
That’s what Paul was trying to do as an apostle. And we need to recognize that as disciples of Christ, we’re not at liberty to disagree with our teacher and that what we believe about God and what we believe about mankind, both male and female, what we believe about sin and salvation, what we believe about the judgment to come and about a number of other things, about all things really. We’ve learned from him. And there is an urgent need in our day in which we wild and weird speculations abound to resume our rightful position at his feet to learn from Jesus.
5. The Moral Dimension of Commitment
And that’s important. There’s an intellectual aspect to this commitment we are to have to Jesus as Lord. But second, I want you to see that that this commitment to Christ has a has a moral dimension as well. You know, one of the things we see all around us today, one thing we that can’t be denied is that moral standards are being abandoned.
We see that right and left and in the middle. And there are many people who are confused about whether or not there are any moral standards at all, whether there are any moral absolutes left. Is there anything that anyone can say this is right and that is wrong? And all you got to do is do a little bit of reading on the internet and you’ll see that there are all kinds of debates about things that you wouldn’t think we would need to debate, but we do.
And so relativism has permeated the world in which we live. And we would be naive to believe that it’s not also seeping into the church little by little. And one thing that hasn’t really helped is the misunderstandings that many people have about concepts like God’s grace and God’s law. I recognize that Paul would say in Romans 6 and verse 14 that you are not under law but under grace.
But it seems to me that people are often guilty of taking statements like that out of context, making them say more than Paul intended for them to say. And so they misinterpret them to mean that that that whole category, the category of law is now unimportant, is has been abolished. It no longer applies. But Paul meant something different than that.
You see, there is law in Christ. And we are certainly under obligation to obey it. In fact, I want you to notice something that is that that God said about the people who would belong to him under the new covenant. As he as he talked about and as he made promises about what we would experience today in the Old Testament, looking down through the centuries, I want you to look at a statement that’s made in Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 33.
God looking down to the time in which we live said,”I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts.” Does that sound like God’s people don’t really have to be concerned about God’s law? Just doesn’t to me. It sounds like we need to internalize it.
We need to make it part of who we are. It’s not just a a written code. It’s to be something that is upon our very hearts. And so we need to come to terms with the fact that Jesus has called us to this.
He’s called us to obedience. In fact, he would say in John 14 21 that whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my father and I too will love them and show myself to them. That’s the kind of relationship that the Lord wants to have with us.
That if we truly love the Lord, then we’ll do what he says. will not be like the people that Jude warned about in his short letter in in Jude verse 4. Those who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign and Lord. People who don’t live the way they ought to live, who claim to be Christians, they are denying Jesus our sovereign and our Lord.
6. The Social Dimension of Commitment
That’s what Jude tells us. There is a moral dimension to this commitment we’re to have to Jesus as Lord. And then third, I want you to see that this commitment to Christ also has a social dimension as well. And what I mean by that is that our lives are lived in relation to the lives of other people.
And I’m not sure we excel at seeing things that way. That’s not really how we look at it in our day. In fact, far too often and for far too long, people have viewed Christianity as basically nothing more than a a private relationship, an arrangement that is solely between a person and Christ. And there’s a sense in which that’s true, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s true in the way that people often think it.
You see, the Lord doesn’t call us to isolation. He calls us to community. And if there’s one thing you can’t help but notice when you read that through the New Testament, it’s that we are connected to one another as a result of the fact that we are connected to the Lord. You know, when the Apostle Paul wrote about the relationship that we have with God, he would say in 1 John chapter 1 and verse 6, if we say that we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
Okay? And I would have expected him as he went on from that statement to talk about walking in the light as opposed to walking in darkness to say something like this. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with God. That’s a true statement, but it’s not what John said.
He said, ‘ But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. He brought us into this picture. Because you have a relationship with the Lord.
And because I have a relationship with the Lord, we have a relationship with one another in the Lord. And not only are we connected to one another, we are inseparably connected to one another. You know when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he would say in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 27 saying, ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. That’s a significant statement all by itself.
But the point that he was trying to make is that we need each part of the body. In fact, I want you to take a minute. Let’s I want us to read up to how Paul came to came to say that very thing in verse 27. Let’s go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
But I want us to begin reading in verse 12. [snorts] . For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews and or Jews or Greek, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body.” That would not make it any less a part of the body.
If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?
As it is, there are many parts, yet one body, and the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Nor the nor again the the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And on the parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor.
In our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. That’s how he got to that statement. We need one another. We ought to be there for one another.
We ought to hurt for one another when someone hurts. We ought to rejoice with one another when somebody rejoices. Christ is the head and we are the body. And that involves uh that’s what’s involved in being part of it.
Just can’t be otherwise. We have a relationship. I recognize that there’s a sense in which we have responsibilities to all people. In fact, Jesus would talk about that very thing after mentioning the fact that the greatest commandment is that you love the Lord your God with all that you’ve got.
He would go on to say that the second greatest commandment in Matthew 22 and verse 39 is to love your neighbor as yourself. And our neighbor in that sense is anyone who is in need of someone to be neighborly. But we also need to recognize the special obligations we have that come from the fact that we are we are we are the body of Christ. that we belong together.
In Galatians chapter 6 and verse 10, Paul Paul highlights that. It seems to me when he says, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone.” He says, and he says, “And especially to those who are of the household of faith, especially those who are part of your family.” You see, here’s the thing.
Conclusion
our our Lord was a servant and we must be servants too. And so I suspect that the affirmation that that Jesus Christ is Lord, that’s one that probably sounds fairly conventional to many people who hear it today. Yeah, we’ve we’ve heard that before. It it’s pretty easy to say to be honest, but as we’ve seen in our study this morning, it has some far-reaching implications.
Because not only does it express our conviction that he was none other than God in human flesh, but it also is it indicates our radical commitment to him as such. At least that’s what it ought to do. The dimensions of this commitment are many. And again, we’ve talked about a only a few of them this morning, but there is practically no end to the things that we could address where the fact that Jesus is Lord requires something from me.
I once read a story about the the words that were spoken in the inaugural dress address at the opening of the free university of Amsterdam in 1880. I don’t make a habit of that kind of thing. I’ll just go and tell you that. But I did come across these words.
And there’s a guy named Abraham Kyper who later on became the prime minister of the Netherlands. And and he said these words. He says, ‘There is not one inch in the entire area of human life about which Christ who is sovereign of all does not cry out mine. Or as another person put it, Jesus is is Lord not just of the inner life, afterlife, family life, and church life, but of the intellectual life, political life, all domains.
There is nothing left out. Everything is to be brought under the lordship of Jesus. And my question for you this morning is this. Have you done that?
I mean, we recognize that Jesus is Lord. We we sing the words. We say the words. We read the words.
But are we living like it as a result? There’s some area of your life that hasn’t been brought under the lordship of Jesus. Will you change that this morning? Jesus asked a good question in Luke 6 and verse 46 when he said, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you?”
That doesn’t make sense. If we’re going to call him Lord, then let’s live by his teaching. If you’re here this morning and we can help you in some way, maybe you need to obey the gospel. If you do, don’t hesitate.
Just obey Jesus as Lord. You believe that’s who he is. you’re willing to change your life, to repent of your sins, to bring your life into conformity with his will, and to confess Jesus as Lord, as Paul talked about in Romans chapter 10, then come and be buried with Christ in baptism. You be raised up and have a brand new life today.
If you’ve done that at some point in the past, but maybe you’ve not been living like Jesus is Lord, make the needed changes and let us help you. We’re part of the same body. We’re connected and that’s what we’re here for. If we can help you, please come as we stand and as we sing.