“Jesus Christ Is Lord”

Philippians 2:5-11

5) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6) Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7) But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8) And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

9) Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

10) That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

11) And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Preface

M

an would like to give himself some credit” in salvation simply because he knows the name of Jesus. Frequently, he feels that by attaching that name to the things that he does, he is validated. The truth of the matter is that if one does not know Person attached to the name, using it is unproductive. Because we know Him, our focus is Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

It is also possible to know Him, yet not be able to operate in His authority. You see, in order for us to have authority, we must recognize the authority of the Man, Jesus.

Main Thought

Not understanding the “Lordship” of Christ poses many problems for us. In that “Lord” means absolute ruler,” obviously, there exists no room for personal decisions. The “decision” to which we agree upon accepting salvation is to accept all of the Lord’s decisions for us. Being born fleshly creatures, unless we make a conscious choice to really “follow” the Lord, we will continue to think of ourselves, first and all subsequent decisions will reflect this.

Scripture admonishes those who would serve the Lord to think of others, first. Trying to please or to make another happy will take one’s focus off himself and allow him the opportunity to please God.

Jesus deserves to be loved because of Who He is, rather than what He has done, is doing or will do. Anything less is not pure love—and Jesus shares with us love in its purest form.

Acknowledging Jesus’ Lordship does not make Him Lord. You see, being “absolute ruler” is His rightful place. Therefore, what He says, is what we must do—period! As it is, we seem to believe that we are entitled to make decisions and express our opinions and preferences. We seem not to believe that if left on our own, we would “suffer” nothing at the hand of God. Basically, this is why we continually attempt to choose “the path of least resistance”—which, believe it or not, would make us weak.

A misconception that we seem to have is that God is to make sure that we are “comfortable,” when actually, He is careful to inform us that we will, indeed, receive “opposition.” What we do not recognize is that the opposition that we perceive comes not from the “enemy,” but rather, from our “loved one.” Who is it that allows us discomfort? It is Jesus, Himself Who recognizes that if we were not challenged, we would never be moved to change.

In the sports world, man will do anything to develop what he feels is his “talent.” He will “lift,” strengthen, stretch and pull—all in order to hit a ball, shoot a ball, throw a ball or roll a ball (among other things). And to think that none of these activities carries any guarantee of success! On the contrary, denying oneself for the Lord guarantees total success!

“Nature” demands that any organism that would survive must gain strength for living. Therefore, any tasks associated with that life cannot be easy. If anything or anyone interferes with what must be learned, the organism will be without its necessary skills and it will die. How much more then, would the One Who created us not interfere with our learning lest we die?

If a human being encounters a situation he recognizes he is unable to handle and believes himself without the resources to do so, he panics. Man does not like the feeling of panic and in general, attempts to “control” as much as possible. Unfortunately, he can erroneously feel that once saved, salvation will give him the “tools” to be able to handle situations on his own. The truth is exactly the opposite: salvation is granted to us that we might recognize our total dependence on the Lord—and yield to it!

What Jesus did in verse 7 we seem to be unable to do. That is, make ourselves of “no reputation.” If we are honest, we will admit that this comes from a fear of “losing our identity.” This is, perhaps, the greatest impediment to our relationship with Christ, Whereas He is all about “humility,” we are all about “us.”

Not only is this the “antithesis” of all that Jesus is and therefore, something that we must avoid, we have no route to growth but through humility. Humility is that which allows us to know that we do not know everything and this knowledge opens us to learning what we need to know in order to be pleasing to God. Now, that is growth!

When Jesus really becomes “Lord” for us as individuals, we will find our most pressing problems solved. You see, we “suffer” from having little to no personal relationship with the One Whom we say that we serve. We try to live as human beings, yet try to overcome (ourselves) simply by listening to words spoken to us over a pretty wooden “desk” by a hooping, hollering man. No matter how anointed that man might be and how “validated” by Jesus, we will gain no knowledge of Christ simply by “being under” a great teacher. His “job” is to keep the precepts of God ever before us that that word might be committed to the spirit and submitted to.

What he cannot do and what is not a part of his job is to lead us into faith. He can lead us to it, but cannot take us in. We must take ourselves there.

Jesus Christ is Lord—having been born God Incarnate and having sacrificed everything in order to take away all of our excuses for all time. Until we accept His “absolute rulership,” we will continue fighting a battle that we cannot possibly win. n