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Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

God has also highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Notice the word "therefore" in verse nine refers back to the thought in verse eight. So here's the thought: Because Jesus humbled himself before the Father, the Father has exalted Christ. This is what the Father has done for Jesus. What has he done? Highly exalted him. Highly exalted him. The words "highly exalted"—it's one word in the Greek—it's "huper up sao," which means hyper exalted, huper hyper or super exalted. It means to lift up and over. So Jesus said, "I'm going low, low, low." And God says, "I will lift, lift, lift. I will hyper lift. I will say super exalt Jesus."

A thought struck me as I was going through the study this week. I'm looking at what God's estimation of Jesus is in exalting him, and this thought struck me: God the Father's treatment of Christ, view of Christ, estimation of Christ is the polar opposite of the world's estimation of Christ. For the most part, it is. So here's an example. When Jesus came to heal the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, in Luke 8 it says they laughed him to scorn. When Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters. You can't serve God and money," we are told the Pharisees sneered at him. When Jesus raised up Lazarus from the dead, the leaders plotted to put him to death. When Jesus stood before that same crowd, the Sanhedrin, in Matthew 26, they spat in his face, they beat him, and others struck him with the palms of their hands. And when Jesus was given by them to the Romans, it says they struck him, they mocked him, and they led him away to be crucified.

So how did the world treat Jesus? With rejection and extermination. How did God treat Jesus? With hyper exaltation. Super exaltation. Now the focus of Paul is the upward trajectory after the cross, the upward trajectory of being exalted. God highly exalted him. What I want you to do is sort of expand your knowledge of that and let you know that the exaltation of Christ came in four phases.

First of all, there was the resurrection. Jesus died at the hands of sinful men. But it says in Acts chapter two, Peter says, "This Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised up to new life." Resurrection: the first phase of the exaltation. The second phase is his ascension into heaven. The disciples were there when it happened. They stood on the Mount of Olives, and suddenly he starts floating up. They're watching. Bye. He vanished out of their sight. He left. He ascended up into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God.

This takes us to the third phase. After the resurrection, after the ascension, his dominion. Jesus, after the resurrection, said, "All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me." So Jesus took his rightful place of dominion with the Father in heaven. The fourth phase was a new position for Jesus: intercession. Intercession. Here's what I want you to think of: Jesus is not inactive. He's not just sitting around heaven looking at the Father going, "So what do we do today? We're just going to hang out together?" No, he's very busy. He's very active. Jesus died on the cross. He acted as savior by becoming the sacrifice. Today he is playing the role of the great high priest.

So this is what the book of Hebrews says in chapter seven: "He always lives to make intercession for us." You know what intercession is, right? He's praying for you. How does that make you feel? Jesus Christ is praying for you, speaking about you to his Father. Can you lose with that? I mean, I don't know how you feel when somebody goes, "Hey, I've been praying for you lately." You go, "Thank you. That makes me feel really good." Jesus is saying to you, "I've been praying for you lately." He ever lives to make intercession for us. So his work of redemption is over; his work of intercession is ongoing. He is our heavenly attorney. No lawyer jokes here. He is our heavenly attorney. You can't get a better attorney. Mary is not your heavenly attorney. The saints are not your heavenly attorneys. Jesus himself is the one who talks to the Father on your behalf.

Humility is always hopeful. Look at verse 9 again. God has super exalted him. He's highly exalted him and given him—does it say a name? It says the name. Thank you. The name, definite article. He has given him the name which is above every name. In other words, God the Father has given Jesus a God designation. Not a common name, but some superlative name that marks Jesus far and above all others, all comparison.

Now, what is the name that is above all other names? We could say, well, it says in verse 10, "is at the name of Jesus." Yes, but that was his name at birth. And that is. That was. I mean, when you hear Jesus today, everybody knows who we're talking about. But 2,000 years ago, if you say Jesus, you know what they're going to say to you? "Which one?" It was such a common name that Jesus had to be called Jesus of Nazareth because there was Jesus of Cana, Jesus of Capernaum. There were so many different people named Yeshua. Jesus was such a common name. So when Paul says God has given him a name, the name above all names, we're told what that name is, but not until verse 11. It's not the name of Jesus, his common earthly name. It says, "and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is what?" That's the name: Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Here's what I want you to see. Here's what Paul is saying: God the Father is calling Jesus Christ the Lord. This is monumental. In the New Testament, there are two uses of the term Lord. The first term is sort of a term of respect. It's the equivalent of "sir," small "l" for Lord. So you might say to a master of a house, "Lord," but you use it in the small lowercase "l." It's a term of respect, sir. The second and most common usage is God the Lord. Because the term Lord was a typical Jewish term for referring to God.

And here's why: Jews had long believed that the name of God was ineffable, that is, unpronounceable. You as a human being should never utter the name of God. And because of that, we still don't know how the original name of God is to be pronounced. We only have four letters in Hebrew, four consonants. That's all they left us, and that is the equivalent of YHVH or YHWH. Some might say Yahweh or Yahowah or Jehovah. We don't really know how it's pronounced because when they got to the name of God, they didn't pronounce it. They would either bow and say Hashem, which means "the name," or they substituted it with the Hebrew term Lord: Adonai.

So much so that even today, the English translation of your Old Testament, most modern translations will render the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, the Y H, V H as Adonai or the Lord. It says in English, "the Lord." The Lord. So the Lord was their designation for God. So God is giving Jesus the supreme divine title as the Lord of all.

Now, this was predicted. This isn't something that should throw you. It's like, really, God the Lord is calling Jesus God the Lord? Yep, it had been predicted. Back in Daniel, chapter seven, Daniel gets a vision of the Son of Man. The Son of Man was the title Jesus called himself. Right? Listen to the vision: "To him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom. His dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom is the one which will not be destroyed." That's a description of lordship. That's a description of sovereign control for the Son of Man. It had been predicted. It was also preached. Peter in Acts chapter two on the day of Pentecost says, "This Jesus God raised up, being exalted to the right hand of God. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." Not only that, but it will be proclaimed. It will be proclaimed.

Speaker 1

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Now, let's return to today's teaching.

Speaker 2

John gets taken up in a vision and sees heaven. And he hears all the angelic hosts and all the people who are in heaven praising God. We are told in Revelation 5 that they say, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain 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, I heard saying, "Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever." It is the wholesale worship of the Father and the Son.

Now, when Jesus comes back, Revelation 19 tells us he's coming with a sign. He's coming with his own name that is written on him like a banner. And you remember what it's going to say: "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." So I just want you to get this. The reward for Jesus' humility is being super exalted by God the Father with this designation as Lord of all. In fact, you know this verse really well. You know, if you were out on the street, you could finish it. If I were to say, "At the name of Jesus, every..." you would go, "Knee shall bow and tongue shall confess." You know this verse. What you may not know is that Paul is quoting this verse from the Old Testament. He's not presenting new material; he's quoting Isaiah 45.

Now listen to it in the original from the Old Testament. Isaiah, chapter 45 says, "I am God. I am God, and there is no other. Unto me, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess." So here is God with that name, giving it to Jesus Christ, that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Now, as amazing as this passage is theologically, that really isn't Paul's point. Paul's point is, ethically, he's using Jesus as an example for us. So what Paul is trying to say is, look, here's the principle: God exalts the humble. God exalts the humble. First Peter, chapter five says, "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time." Humility is sometimes painful, but humility is always hopeful. You're going to be raised up when? In due time. What time is that? I've been down here in Humilityville for a long time, and it hurts. In due time, God knows just the right time to raise you up, to lift you up.

Here's the grand point: Trust God enough with your life that you don't live for people's affirmation, but you wait for God's exaltation. You see, some people just live to be affirmed by others. "Pat me on the back, tell me I'm nice, tell me I look good." I need that all the time. But I'm saying, trust God enough with your life. Rather than having to live for people's affirmation, you will wait for God to raise you up—God's exaltation. That's Paul's grand point. Humility is sometimes painful, but humility is always hopeful; it will be rewarded.

Here's the third and final truth: Humility is ever needful. Now, can we just step back from this whole passage and understand that what Paul has been saying is that this is how we ought to treat each other. We ought to treat each other a certain way. Back to verse three: "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, humility. Let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look not only on his own interests, but also on the interests of others." That's verse four. Then it says, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." He got really low, and God raised him up really high.

Now, I want you to think about this. Here's the thought I'm kind of boiling down each time. If Jesus Christ can humble himself, you can humble yourself. What do you mean? You know, when somebody gets in our face, we kind of puff ourselves up and say, "Do you know who I am?" Hey, reality check here: If Jesus Christ can humble himself, you can humble yourself, buckaroo. What do you mean, Jesus? Yeah. If he's Lord of all and God the Father designates him as Lord over all—so much so that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess—if that guy humbled himself, guess what? I think you can give up a little pride.

And the other complementary point is that if God the Father in due time exalted Jesus and has stated the principle over and over again five times in the New Testament that He will exalt the humble, then He'll exalt you. If God can exalt Jesus, He can exalt you. So here's the principle: The way up is down. The way down is always the way up.

Hey, the fastest way to get down? I don't mean get down with your bad self. I mean, if you want to go down, just puff yourself up. You might not be today, but you're going down. And if you want to be raised up, you go low. You humble yourself before it happens to you, and it will. So the way up is down. The way down is always the way up. Jesus said in Luke, chapter 18, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." This is a principle of Scripture.

Question: How do I know when I've arrived at humility? Well, that's the thing about humility: You never do. Because once you think you have, you haven't, right? Humility is that thing. The day you think you have humility, that's the day you lost it. You're walking around going, "Man, I'm really getting good at this humble thing," and out the window it goes.

So following Jesus will cost you sacrifice and service, but following Jesus in obedience and humility also pays. God will reward humility, and it will bring unity. It will improve the lives of people around you. When you and I look out for other people's interests, it makes a dramatic impact.

I want to close with this true illustration that happened just this last week. At the beginning of the service, you saw the little video announcement of Feed New Mexico Kids, right? Holly was on the screen talking about it. So what that showed me is that there are a lot of self-sacrificing, loving people here who are willing, when they go to the grocery store, to spend a little bit extra and think of kids who don't have something and make sure they have something. And God has so blessed that and so rewarded that that last week she gets a call from a ministry leader here in town saying, "I want to give. I've been given a huge donation of cookies. I want to share this donation with you." She goes, "Like, how many cookies are you talking about?" He says, "I want to give you 350 pounds of cookies." She goes, "Okay, I'll take them."

So she gets a truck, picks the cookies up, and drives them here to the church. When she gets to the church, a staff member comes up to her and says, "Hey, you came at just the right time. Somebody heard about Feed New Mexico Kids on the tv, and they just donated 160 quarts of milk—shelf-stable milk. The expiration date hasn't arrived; it's good milk."

So she just thought about that and said, "What kind of a God is it that we serve who is that merciful that He sees New Mexico as the number one state in the United States for childhood hunger, but He thinks that kids this year ought to start their school year off with some milk and cookies?" I love that it makes a dramatic impact in people's lives.

How much is God into humility? How much is He drawn to humility? Well, in Job 22, we are told God saves the humble. In Psalm 10, God listens to the humble. And in Isaiah, chapter 57, God says, "I dwell with the humble." I think He's into it. I think He responds to it quicker than just about any other attribute. When you're humble, broken, needy, and you go low, God says, "I like that." He's drawn to that.

One final thought: I mentioned Adonai as the Hebrew word for Lord, but it's uniquely written. Adonai has a personalized ending, and it just doesn't mean "the Lord." It means "my Lord" or "the Lord who is my Lord." Adonai—He is my Lord, sovereign over my life. So when Thomas saw Jesus after the resurrection, he said, "My Lord and my God." He personalized it.

The first step toward God, if your life is not in His hands yet, is humility. Never pride. You never walk up to a guy and go, "Do you know who I am? I work really hard at getting you to like me." Wrong approach. "I'm sincere, devout, deeply religious." Not a good approach, not a good tactic. If you go, "God, I got nothing," ah, what's that? "I got nothing. I'm broken. I'm a sinner. I need you. I need forgiveness. I have nothing to offer, but I will receive what you want to give me." God says, "No, I'm all about that." He'll respond to that.

God saves the humble. He listens to the humble. He dwells among the humble because He knows the truth. And that is the truth: He is the Lord, and you are not. You need Him. And if you have never personally asked Jesus to be your Lord, your master, your Savior, that's what you need. You can't say, "I was raised in the church. All my life I went to church, I went to mass. I have people in my family who are in the ministry." Have you personally surrendered your life to Christ? Is the issue, is the issue. Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of God. You come humble, you come broken, you come needy, you ask for forgiveness. The Bible calls that repentance, and you'll be saved.

Speaker 1

Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember that your generosity helps share God's word around the world, bringing truth and hope to people who need Jesus.

This month, we'll send you the Making of a Biblical Leader: A Practical Guide to Leading Others by Robert L. Furrow as our thanks for your gift. With chapters from Skip and Lanya Heitzig and other trusted pastors, this book will equip you to lead with integrity and purpose in 2026 and beyond.

Give now at connectwithskip.com or call 800-922-1888. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a Connection.

Speaker 2

Make a connection at the foot of the crossing Catch all burdens on his wood Make a connection.

Speaker 1

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