Follow The Leader
Samuel Prime · Tidal Church Moncton · October 11, 2026 · Joy Anyway series
Samuel Prime preaches on Philippians 2:1-11, showing that Jesus gave up His authority to serve and was exalted. We are called to use our own authority the same way, setting aside pride and fear, serving others, and keeping our eyes fixed on Him.
More from Samuel Prime · The Joy Anyway series
Topics: Fear & Anxiety, Relationships, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:01] I just want to start this morning with a little bit of a question. And so if you're a married man in the room, you'll know exactly what I mean when I ask this question. But have you ever won and lost at the same time? Have you ever won but lost at the same time? For a little bit of context, growing up, and if you know me to any degree, you know that I'm a pretty stubborn person. But growing up, I always had to be right. My dad would tell me that the sky's blue, and I'd begin to tell him why it isn't blue. And so just to give you a little context, I'm a fairly stubborn person. And so my wife and I haven't been married terribly long. We've been married for about four years. And when we lived in Halifax, we got invited to somebody's house for the first time, and it was in a new part of the city with some new people.
[0:48] And so we hop in the car, and we're driving along, and my wife is incredibly intelligent, but I will tell you, and she will tell you, she's just a little bit directionally challenged. Okay? She's a little bit directionally challenged. And so we're driving along, and I go, "Hey, isn't this our exit?" And she's like, "No, no, this is not our exit. It's the next one." And so we're driving along, and I take the next exit, and I hear through the speakers of the car the recalculating thing when Google Maps tells you that you went the wrong way, and now it has to find you another way. And so when I'm driving along, I have a little bit of a smirk on my face. You know the smirk that's like, you don't say it, but you're like, "I told you so." That kind of a smirk. And so we drive into the driveway of our friend's place, and I just go, "You know what?
[1:39] We're about 15 or 20 minutes late." And I look at my wife and I say, "Honey, I was right, and if we would've taken that first exit, we wouldn't be 20 minutes late." I know, probably not the best thing to say. And so in that moment, we walk in, and we're sitting down, and I'm joking around with our new friends and having conversation. And I look over to my wife, and she's sitting there dead quiet. She hasn't said a word. She's just kind of looking over at me just a little bit. And so when I was driving home, when we left and I was on my way home, I was thinking about it, and I was like, "Man, I did the right thing. I listened to my wife. I did what I'm supposed to do. It was a missed exit.
[2:25] That was it." And what I did is I took it, I turned it into a contest so that I could put myself on top. I had influence in that moment, and I used it to prop myself up and to make her feel small. And I didn't think of it this way at the time, but as I've reflected on it in preparation for this message, I had the authority in that moment. I was the one who was driving the car. I had the complete ability to go the direction in which I thought I was supposed to go, where I was like, "Hey, I'm right. This is the exit that we're supposed to take." But no, I listened to her. I trusted her. I gave her a say. But the second that it went wrong and we ended up being 20 to 25 minutes late, I took the authority back, and I used it to make her feel small. For the purpose of where we're going in our time together here this morning, I'm going to define authority simply as this: the capacity for meaningful action. So that's how we're going to define our authority for our time here together: the capacity for meaningful action.
[3:34] And the truth of the matter is, I didn't come up with this definition, and I'll get to that a little bit later. Now, meaningful action can look like a lot of different things. It can mean directly changing something yourself or getting somebody else to do it, but it can also be through all sorts of other influences. For an example, the easiest one that comes to mind is if you're a film director, if you're somebody who directs films, you have authority over that cast and crew that you can reasonably expect them to do what is asked of them. But also, a film director could have authority over the audience. The people that are actually then watching that film, who are consuming, who are taking it in, by how they make them feel, by encouraging them, by inspiring them, maybe by even giving them new perspective.
[4:24] A film director might even show authority in the whole industry by influencing the way that other directors and other filmmakers can make their movies and the messages that they actually communicate through those films. People come about having authority in all kinds of different ways. Some people are born into authority because of who they are and who their family is and where they come from and what part of the world they were born into, or a whole bunch of other ways. Many people earn their authority through years of honing a certain skill or in a workplace or wherever it may be. You spend years kind of honing it in, and then you're elevated to a place of authority. Maybe you're in school and you were put in charge of a group project, and you know how poorly that goes sometimes, and maybe you found yourself frustrated, but nevertheless, you were put into a position of authority.
[5:15] Maybe you're a teenager and you were asked to babysit somebody that is younger than you. Anybody who's a parent in the room would know the weight of the authority of having a child who's completely dependent on you. And however you arrive at authority, if it's going to be long-term, you're going to have to decide what you're going to do with it. And the truth of the matter is, there's a lot of questions that we have to wrestle with, and we're forced to answer questions when we come into positions of authority. Questions like, "Do I want to keep the authority I have?" So if I have authority, do I actually want to keep it? And if so, if I do want to keep the position of authority that I'm in, how is it that I actually go about keeping it?
[6:00] You might go like, "Okay, well, then do I actually want more authority?" And if you do want more authority, then you have to wrestle with the question of, "Okay, if I want more authority, what is it that I have to do, and what do I have to go about to actually then get that authority?" If you're in a position of authority, you have to ask the question, "What will I do if my authority's challenged? If somebody comes up to me and threatens my authority, if somebody comes up and doesn't do things the way that I thought they would?" And then I would argue one of the most important questions that we have to ask when it comes to authority is, "What am I using this for? What am I doing with this authority anyways? Whose good am I seeking?" And of course, the truth is, we're not the first people to wrestle with this question of authority.
[6:48] And right now, we're in the middle of a sermon series where we're going through the book of Philippians, and we're studying Paul's letter to a church in a place called Philippi. And so what Paul's going to do in this letter is he's going to show us what it really means to have the mind, to have the attitude of Jesus. We often say, how we're going to put it this morning is, to have the mind of Christ. What does it mean to have the mind of Christ? And what does that look like, not just for us as individuals, but how we live in community together in the body of the church? So in chapter 1, which was the past previous few weeks, what Paul does is he thanks them. He thanks this church for partnering with them in the gospel.
[7:38] And he tells them, "Even though I'm in prison, I'm encouraged at the fact that even though I'm in prison, the gospel is still being pushed forward." He tells them that even though he is in prison, the gospel is still spreading. And then he reflects on what it actually means to live or to die, where Paul says, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." He concludes the first chapter by saying, "Hey, there's just really one thing that I want you to do. There's really one thing that I want you to know. There's really one thing, if you get anything out of this, is to stay united. It is to keep focused on the message of the gospel, the person of the gospel. Don't get divided up. Don't get stuck in divisiveness. Don't be torn apart as a body. Don't be frightened by your opponents." But what's most important for our passage today is that, similar to other Roman cities, Philippi had an imperial cult at the time of Paul's letter.
[8:36] So the people that he was writing to, especially the Gentiles, they were Gentiles in the church. They had grown up surrounded by people who worshiped Caesar as their lord. They worshiped Caesar as their lord. And so this meant that they thought of what it meant to have and to use status and power and authority, and the model that most easily popped into their minds was that of their emperor. But for this church in Philippi and for their brothers and sisters throughout the empire, Caesar was not lord. Caesar was not what Jesus was. And so what Paul's going to show us in today's passage is that King Jesus, the church, is a completely new vision of how to use our authority and what it actually means to have authority in the first place.
[9:27] And so what we're going to do in our time together here this morning is we're going to unpack this, of how he encourages the church to live as citizens of the kingdom of God, as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, even as they and we continue to live in the kingdom of the earth or in this world here today. And so we're going to start in Philippians 2, starting in verse 1. I'm going to be reading out of the ESV translation. If you have your Bibles and it's different, that's okay. If you don't have your Bibles and you have a phone, I would encourage you right now to go to the App Store or go to the Google Play Store, download the Bible app, and follow along with us here this morning. Again, we're in Philippians 2, starting in verse 1. But before we jump in, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just come before You, and we just thank You for the ability to come and to gather and to worship You freely.
[10:18] Holy Spirit, I pray that You would come and You would do what it is only You can do. Father, I pray You would begin to just soften our hearts here this morning, Lord. That if our hearts are hardened, Lord, that Your Word will begin to pierce our hearts, Lord. Lord, I pray that we would keep our eyes fixed upon You as we continue here this morning. Lord, we love You. We worship You, and we praise You, all in the powerful name of Christ Jesus. Amen. Amen. So we're in Philippians 2, starting in verse 1, where we read this. "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy." And we're just going to stop there for a moment. Paul is basically saying that if you've received any encouragement in Christ, if you're here and you're encouraged by Christ, if you have any comfort from Christ, if you have any love in Christ, if you have participation in the Spirit, if you have affection and sympathy.
[11:13] And so what Paul is saying here is it's easy enough for us to kind of look at these questions and say, "Of course, there's encouragement and belonging to Christ. Of course, there's comfort in His love. Of course, there's comfort in the participation in the Spirit." But in Paul's fourth question, and for the rest of the passage in Philippians 2 we'll read this morning, it revealed that he's not asking these things in abstract. He's not asking them as some far-off, airy idea that we can't grasp and wrestle with. The question isn't whether all these qualities kind of exist somewhere far out there that's unattainable. The question is, do they exist in you and in I? Are you and I encouraged and belonging to Christ?
[12:00] Do you and do I take comfort in His love? Do you and do I, do we take fellowship together in the Spirit? Are our hearts tender and compassionate? Has the reality of who Jesus is and what He's done, and the walk and the journey of knowing them, has that sunk into the core tenet of our beings, to the core of us, deep into our bones, to become the wellspring, the abundance of our strength and the wisdom for each day? The anchoring point for which our attitudes and our outlooks are built, the lens in which we see the world, that we see others, that we see our siblings in Christ in the wider world around us in. Then the question is, if so, what kind of life does that produce?
[12:49] Not just for us as individuals, but for the whole communities that we're a part of. For the greater city of Moncton. What does that actually look like for a church, for a body who's being transformed by Christ? Paul continues here. He says, "Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." And so there's an important distinction that we need to make here just for a moment, between the difference of unity and uniformity. The difference between unity and uniformity. Unity is like everybody kind of working together, putting things aside for the greater good. Putting things kind of aside for the gospel.
[13:34] It's like everybody is using their strengths to kind of push things forward together. Uniformity squashes people's giftings and abilities and unique qualities and just kind of expects everybody to be a clone of one another. Where unity, on the other hand, embraces people's unique qualities, and it uses them for the greater good of the whole community. And as the church, the truth of the matter is we can lean on each other's strengths and insights to reflect God's love more fully and authentically together than we could apart. Something I often say to our students is, faith, following Jesus, is truly and wholly an individual choice that you have to make.
[14:19] You have to make the choice to give the Lord lordship over your life. But how that is lived out happens in biblical community. It happens in the wrestling with brothers and sisters together. I think one of the reasons that the scripture uses the analogy for the church as a body is because could you imagine if I was standing here before you today and my feet were hands, and my hands were feet? First of all, that'd be pretty distracting, I'm not going to lie. It'd be pretty weird if I was moving around up here and my hands were feet, but that's beside the point. After a while, what's going to begin to happen is if, again, my feet are hands, and my hands are feet, after a while, if I could even walk, eventually those hands are going to become pretty damaged.
[15:06] Like the hands under my feet, and my feet, I'm not going to be able to pick anything up or hold anything. And so I think that's part of the reason that unity is so important for us as followers of Jesus, that we all have strengths. The expectation isn't that if you're a hand, you operate as a foot, and if you're a foot, you operate as a hand, because that wouldn't make much sense. But the truth is, living and working as a community has so much beauty, but it also, if you haven't lived in a bubble, would know that it has its fair share of challenges too, right? Living in community is hard. Patience is tested. I often say don't pray to the Lord for more patience because He'll test it. Patience is tested. Commitments fall through. There's disagreements and strife that kind of happens.
[15:55] And if we're going to be in this together for the long haul, the way that we treat each other needs to reflect the grace that we have been given in Jesus. And this is so incredibly important because Paul says that, "If you want to complete my joy," he's like, "I'm so joyful that the gospel is continuing to be spread." But he says, "If you want to complete my joy, I want you to be of one mind. I want you to be focused and keep the main thing, the main thing. Not getting all ugly and divided among one another, but staying true, keeping your eyes fixed upon Jesus." And this is what it is for the church to really walk in unity. In John 17, Jesus is praying this high priestly prayer for everyone who is a believer and who will believe in the future.
[16:42] He says, "Father, let them be one as we are one, so that the world may believe." And Jesus doesn't just do that once. He actually doubles down on it a few verses later and a few verses in between. He says it again, "Let them be one like we are one so the world may know." If Jesus says that twice, that's probably a good indication that's pretty important. So in other words, if you really want to know what the church should look like, if you really want to know what we should be so focused on, we should be so focused on the gospel that none of the other stuff even gets into the body. That we have our eyes so fixed upon Jesus, that the little disagreements that we have of methodology, that the little disagreements that we have of like, oh, that person wronging me in this way, that none of that should be into the body.
[17:27] That we keep our eyes so fixed upon Jesus. And so the scriptures continue on to say this. Because you might look around at the world around you and say, like, "You know what? The church is pretty divided." You might look and go, "Well, the world is pretty divided. I don't actually see this unity that you're talking about, Sam. I don't actually see this take place in the world." Well, if you're somebody that's thinking that here today, or maybe that's a question that you've wrestled with, what Paul is basically going to say here is really important. And so it's almost like Paul's going, "Hey, lean in here for just a moment," where he says this in verse 3, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit." What is selfish ambition? It's getting to where I want to be. It's things going how I want them to go.
[18:13] It's things working out how I think they should be. And then conceit, it's I know more than you do. And just an honest question, how have we done as a body? How have we done as a church on those in the last few years? How have we done on selfish ambition and conceit? And so, like I want it my way and conceit like, "Hey, man, I watched eight YouTube videos on this thing, so I know. Like I know, and you don't know anything." Like how have we done on those things? Well, if we're going to have one mind and be one group to do this thing right, we have to, the Apostle Paul says, "But in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." Notice here that Paul says, the Apostle Paul says, "Let each of you look not only to your own interests." It's almost like the Apostle Paul knew like, hey, you're going to look at your own interests.
[19:12] But he says, "Look not only to your own interests, but look to the interests of others." And so Paul advocates here for a life that isn't measured by me, myself, and I, and what I can get and what I can do. For the Christian, for the follower of Jesus who's been transformed by the blood of Christ, it isn't about propping myself up on the things that I can get and the things that I can do, or how highly people think of me, or the possessions that I can get, or the opinions on earth, because we are already held up by our Father in Heaven. No matter how much you have valued or devalued other people, no matter how highly or how lowly you think of yourself, there is only one who gets to make the final call on how valuable you are, and He has made His decision loud and clearly. Because I know what my Father in Heaven says about me and what He says about you, that we are set free from trying to build up a status and build up a life that's built on our own accord and to build up our own image and our own kind of thing, and that we are set free to live a life that is measured in mercy and compassion and reconciliation.
[20:22] A life that declares Jesus is Lord, that Caesar is not, and I and you are certainly not either. I don't know about you, but I find so much comfort in that. And so I have a question for truthfully myself, but also those of us that are sitting in this room that we call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. Why is it that we, as followers of Jesus, so often struggle to not put ourselves in the center of our lives? Why is it that so often we struggle to not put ourselves in the center of our lives? What is the root of holding onto the self proper upper rather than fully embracing what God has already decided about us?
[21:07] There's a book that's called "Strong and Weak" by Andy Crouch, and in this book, he focuses on two characteristics of the human life, authority and vulnerability. And so authority, Andy defines authority as the capacity for meaningful action. Again, I didn't come up with it. This is where I got it from. And he defines vulnerability as this, the exposure to meaningful risk. His main argument of the whole book is that a truly flourishing life for an individual and for communities requires us each to embrace a combination of both authority and vulnerability. We each need to have the opportunity and the dignity of making a meaningful impact on our world and to put into actions the gifts and the abilities in which God has given us. And in order to express those things well, in order to express the authority well, we can't keep others at an arm's length and continue to build our image and status.
[22:02] That we actually need to step out of our comfort and to run into the risks of loving and serving and standing alongside one another. And here's the problem. Risk in that, because being vulnerable is a risk, right? When you're vulnerable in a relationship, there's a level of risk that's associated with it. If you are somebody who's younger or you can think back to the time that you had your heart broken, you maybe went through a moment in your life where you're like, "Oh, man, I just don't want to be vulnerable again. I don't know if I can take it." It's a level of risk that happens, right? There is a level of risk that takes place in vulnerability. And so real risk truthfully creates fear, right?
[22:48] In that moment, if you're somebody that you're heartbroken, and you're all sad about it, okay, that creates fear. Real risk creates real fear. And it's really easy for us to accept greater authority. Many of us actually strive for it. But taking on greater vulnerability, that's not something that we try to do. We actually try and avoid it if we can. We're like, "I don't actually want to be vulnerable with anybody because I don't actually want them to know the stuff that's going on in my life." It's something that we try to avoid if we can because the fears and anxieties come with stepping up into risk. Let's go back to verses 3 and 4 of Philippians here for a moment, if you don't mind. Verse 3 says, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit." But the question that you probably wrestle with then is like, but what will they think of me then? If I'm being vulnerable, what will they think of me?
[23:41] How will I know if I have their approval? The Apostle Paul says, "But in humility, count others more significant than yourself." How do I know that they won't think of and treat me as less important? Those are some really tough questions, right? And verse 4, he says, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." And you might be thinking like, man, if I don't put my own interests at the front and center of my life, who else is going to? And when we ask these questions and we wrestle with these fears, they keep us locked away from one another, away from this abundant life, this truly flourishing life that Jesus talks about in the scriptures. Our idols know that we have fears, and they play into us, promising us risk-free authority.
[24:30] Whether your idol is Caesar or Baal or Astarte or whatever it is, whether you simply call it greed or power or money or control, idols promise that if we imitate their ways and give them what they ask, then they will give us the ability to take what we want and do as we please without having to worry about uncertainty or mistakes or the side effects of our actions. Let's go back to Genesis for a moment. Think of the serpent's words to Adam and Eve in the Garden. "God doesn't have your best interest at heart. Did God really say?" He's trying to keep you from your full potential here. That's the fear part. Where the serpent then says, "Eat from this tree and you'll have authority and be like God without the vulnerability of trusting Him and obeying Him." And of course, just like the serpent's words, these promises turn out to be empty in the end. They actually lead to hurt and destruction, not just for you, but for also the people around us.
[25:23] Idols continue to ask for more and for more and for more of us while also giving us less and less and less. And instead of paving this way to the abundant life, what idols do is they only lead to suffering, and we're deceived by them, and we deceive many others along the way. And so the question that we ask is, who will release us from this snare? Who will release us from these idols to have life and to have it abundantly? Who will go before us and be a new representative? Who will go before us and be a second Adam to pave the way for humanity living in trust and obedience to God? Who will guide us and teach us to walk with real authority, and who will be by our side in the moments that we experience real vulnerability? Many scholars believe that the next little bit that we're going to read in Philippians 2 are taken from an early Christian hymn.
[26:20] In fact, you may have heard this passage called the Hymn of Christ. Would you guys do me a favor? I know we've been kind of up and down. It's all right. Would you guys stand with me for the reading of God's Word for these next final verses? Just, would you do that as we declare this together? And I would ask that instead of just listening to me, that you would declare this scripture in your heart, that you would pray this scripture, that you would sing a song of this scripture in your heart where we read in verse 5, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but He 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.
[27:15] 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, so every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." This is the Word of the Lord. Amen. You guys can go ahead and grab a seat. And so what we're going to do is we're going to do what we've continued to do here this morning. We're going to take this in little bite-sized pieces, and so we're just going to go through it verse by verse, starting in verse 5, where it says, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus." This is where we get the idea of putting the mind of Christ on. Notice how it doesn't say the mind that could be yours in Christ Jesus if you just try hard enough, or you like doing things a certain way.
[28:02] It says, no, it says, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus." Jesus didn't just come to set an example for us to imitate. He didn't just come here as a moral teacher with a few good things to say. He didn't just come here as somebody who walked this earth maybe with some neat things, maybe with some things that we can take it or leave it. He came to this earth to establish a kingdom, a kingdom that is not of this world, that does not trust and rely on the powers of the world, but the one who has come to overcome it. This is what it's about. It is about putting on the mind of Christ. It's about putting on the mind of Christ.
[28:48] In verse 6, it says, "Who, though He was in the form of God," though He already had all authority and honor and power and glory and majesty, worthiness to be praised and to be glorified. The scripture says that He did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped. And so He didn't stay separate from His creation. He didn't keep us at an arm's length. He didn't keep us in safety, risk-free authority. He was moved by love to step off of His throne into vulnerability. And the scriptures say that He emptied Himself. The Greek word here is kenosis, that Christ emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant. Jesus fully entered the human experience.
[29:34] And just an aside here, the God of heaven, the God who every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth, came and took the form of a servant, fully entering in the human experience. Why is it that we begin to try to put our authority above the Lord's? If God came, as the scriptures say, that Christ came to serve, not to be served, why is it that we come every day, whether it be our workplaces, our families, our church, in this world, why is it that we come with the expectation to be served? Why is it that we don't serve in our workplaces? Why is it that we don't serve in our families? Why is it that we don't serve in our communities? Why isn't it that we take the form of a servant?
[30:20] Why isn't it we put on the mind of Christ, which actually calls us to serve others, to walk in humility, to actually walk in what this passage talks about? Why is it that we don't do that? Jesus fully entered into the human experience. He didn't just appear as human. He didn't just act human. He lived a human life, and a difficult one with that. It's full of joy and of beauty and also challenges and of pain. He embraced the vulnerability of the full human life. He stood alongside of us and our weaknesses and our pain, while at the same time never losing His divine authority, but instead revealing it in a way that nobody expected, where it says this, "Being born in the likeness of men." All throughout the scripture, people expected the Messiah to come and be their political hope and to overthrow the Roman Empire and to be this political power figure.
[31:15] But no, Jesus was born in the likeness of men and being found in human form. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even on a cross. Here's an aside, a little bit of an aside. The Roman crucifixion was a terrible thing. It truly was. It was painful, it was horrific. And truthfully, artistic renditions of crucifixion didn't happen until years later, years and years later. They were painted by somebody who would have never actually seen a crucifixion happen because it was that bloody and gory and horrific and awful. And so people didn't talk about it or paint pictures of it until years later, after everybody would have passed who would have actually seen a crucifixion happen.
[32:04] It was not just painful and awful and bloody and gory. It was meant to be the most humiliating and degrading thing. It was the most degrading way for somebody to die, and it was reserved for people who were enemies of the Roman Empire, who rebelled against Rome. And truthfully, what it was supposed to show is it was supposed to show a total failure of the rebellion, that the empire had completed their control over their life and their death. A victim of crucifixion spent their last moments on earth powerless, alone, despised, and even in His death, Jesus took the full weight of evil upon Himself and allowed it to crush Him. Isaiah 53 actually prophesied of the Messiah's death, where it said, "It pleased the Lord to crush Him." The Lord took on everything.
[32:57] Jesus Christ took on all of our sin and all of our shame on that cross. And Paul tells us in doing that, He became a servant. Not only that, He became obedient to the point of death. That the mind of Christ, Paul goes, and he goes, well, so Jesus put on the mind of Christ, and look what happened. "Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed upon Him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, on heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." The very cross was meant to show us Jesus' weakness and defeat. What was meant to show Jesus' weakness and defeat became God's ultimate show of His life-saving power, His victory over the grave.
[33:51] This brutal means of death became a wellspring of eternal life flowing to the ends of the earth and raising Jesus to new life. God exalted Him to be at the right hand of God the Father, and God the Father transformed the cross of shame into a throne of glory. And as followers of Jesus Christ, we still continue to face effects of human evil on this earth. You don't have to look far. There are many modern-day Caesars on scales of big and of small, who try and gather and control authority any way they can to try and shield themselves from the exposure of risk. We continue to face temptations day to day and run from vulnerability, yet we have been given a hope and a promise that one day every wound will be dealt with, every sin will be healed, every heart that is broken by evil will be restored, every tear will be wept from our eyes. One day the lies of the enemy will be exposed for what they are: lies.
[34:58] They'll be exposed for lies, and the worship of Caesar will be put to shame, and all will acknowledge the glory and the honor of belonging alone to the Lamb of God. And in the meantime, knowing that this is our future gives us the confidence and the strength to walk and trust and have obedience to our Savior each day. Earlier, when I started this message, I told you about that drive that I had with my wife Joanna, and how I kind of propped myself up and whatever, how I kind of won the argument, but I kind of made her feel less.
[35:43] You want to know the truth of that? Jesus gave up everything. He gave up everything, and yet He won everything. So what do we do with the authority in which we've been given? What do we do with it? What does it mean for us? Philippians gives us: we use it the way that Jesus used His. We use our authority the way that Jesus used His, not to protect ourselves, not to prop ourselves up, not to make an image for ourselves, not to make a name for ourselves, not to get our way, but to serve. Jesus had all authority in heaven and on earth. He has all authority in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and He spent it on us. So whatever capacity you have to make a difference as a parent, as a boss, as a friend, as a coworker, as somebody in your high school, as somebody in university, wherever you are, the question isn't how do I keep this authority, but who can I give it away for?
[36:41] And that's the mind of Christ. And if that sounds risky, it's probably because it is. Which brings us to the real issue this morning. What is it that you're afraid of? What fear keeps you trapped in this self-preservation? Why is it that we have this uncanny need to hold onto self-preservation, to not be vulnerable, to not actually share what's going on in our lives and our hearts? I think it's because we're trying to protect our own authority, that we're actually trying to put our authority above the Lord's, but we don't actually get to do that as followers of Jesus. We don't stand in our own authority. We stand in His authority. What do you fear to lose by standing in solidarity with people who are suffering, by offering the gifts that God has given you to bless other people around you, by giving up the image you've built for yourself, by becoming a humble servant of Jesus Christ?
[37:41] And then ask yourself this: how are those fears overcome by Jesus? By the life that He lived, by the kingdom He established, by His death and resurrection, by the promise to make all things new. And the truth of the matter is, this was never about trying harder to be humble. This was never about trying harder to get yourself into the mind of Christ, to be able to conjure it up or to say the right things, to have a mindset. No, that's not how you get the mind of Christ. You can't white-knuckle, you can't strong-arm your way into the mind of Christ. It's not how it happens. You get it by fixing your eyes upon Jesus.
[38:29] You get the mind of Christ by fixing your eyes at Him, by looking at the one who holds the universe together, the one who all the angels bow, who every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth will someday bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We get it by looking at Jesus, the one who carries all authority, who wrapped Himself in flesh, who kneels, who serves, who carried the cross for you, who carried the cross for me, who carried the cross for the people that aren't in this room right now. He stepped off the throne. He stepped off the throne, and He chose a painful death so that He could have you.
[39:21] And the ask is that we fix our eyes upon Him, that we look at Him. And the more that we look at Jesus, the more that we keep our eyes fixed on Him, the more that we begin to know the person of Jesus Christ, the less you need to be right. We have in our world today this desire and this need to be right. We argue ourselves to our death. We argue ourselves with our friends and our coworkers and come up with these elaborate schemes why Jesus is Lord, and we don't ask people if they simply want to know Jesus. Why is that? Why is it that we hold to our power and our authority and what we are capable of and what we can do, and we don't rely on the one who has all authority, that we don't stand in His righteousness, that we don't stand in His camp? We instead try and bicker and argue.
[40:23] The Apostle Paul says, "When you preach the word, don't use all of this lofty language. Preach Christ and Christ crucified." And the truth is, I think in the Apostle Paul talking about unity and division in the church, and if you want to be of one mind and as Jesus said, that "I want you to be one as me and the Father are one," I think the thing with that is we have to put some of our differences aside and focus on the message of the gospel. The truth of the matter is we treat the gospel, we treat Jesus sometimes like a Sunday school answer, but He's so much more than that. The depth of the gospel is not for just the new believer. It is for all of us who are in Christ Jesus.
[41:11] And my encouragement for you today will be: fix your eyes on Jesus. Man, it's not about you. I'm sorry to tell you, it's not about you. It's not about me. It's not about Caesar. It's not about Muhammad. It's not about Buddha. It's not about anybody else. It is about Jesus. He is the one who came down to this earth, who walked and took on human shame and suffering, entering into the human experience, who went to the cross, who died carrying our sin and shame, but He rose and was resurrected in power. Amen. And when He was risen from the grave, He ascended to be seated at the right hand of God the Father until someday He comes back.
[42:00] And the question I have is, are our eyes fixed upon Jesus? Do we allow things to seep into the body? Do we allow division to seep into the body when we're supposed to be focused on Him? And if we are not focused on Him, it is time that we come back. The Book of Revelation talks about this thing, and we often use it wrong, where it talks about Jesus is standing at the door and He's knocking, and we're like, "Oh, Jesus is standing at the door knocking at your heart." That's not what He's talking to. The Book of Revelation was written to churches, and Jesus is standing outside of the door knocking, asking to come in, and He's like, "I just want fellowship with you, and I want to sit with you, and I want to eat with you, and I want to be with you." And if the core tenet of our being is not that we desire to be with Jesus, what is it that we're doing?
[42:51] What is it that we're doing? Man, there is power in the blood of Jesus. There is power in the name of Jesus. There is power in who He is. There is power. And if you are breathing in this room, if you have life in your lungs, if you are a follower of Christ and you are after Him, He is not done with you yet. He is not done with you yet. There are people that are on their deathbeds who can hardly speak, and they proclaim the name of Jesus, who share the gospel, who God leads people back to Himself. Do we believe that? Do we believe that He moves? Do we believe that He died a death on a cross and carried the weight of our sin and our shame and our suffering so that we could be restored to God the Father? And if we believe that, it fundamentally changes everything for us. It changes how we live our lives.
[43:51] It changes how we see the world. It changes how we see one another. And there is no division. Amen? Let's pray together. Holy Father, God, I just thank You. Lord, I thank You, Lord, that You stepped into the human experience. Lord, that You carried the weight of sin and shame and suffering for us. That You paid a debt that we could never pay. You paid a debt, Lord, that we can never pay. And I just get a sense that there's some people in this room who have been on the fence of following You, who maybe grown up in church, who maybe heard a lot about You, have maybe gone through the motions, but have not made a commitment to actually follow You, to live in the resurrection power, to live and to share in Christ's sufferings.
[44:54] Who have maybe even been sold a false gospel, that if you do these things, then your life will be better, whatever it may be. I get there's some people that fall into that category. And so, Lord, I just pray that if those people are here, Lord, that they will take a step towards You. Lord, that they will know You, that they will, for the first time, put on the mind of Christ, not because they can muscle their way through it, because of the finished work of the cross. Lord, I pray for those who maybe need to make a commitment to follow You again, Lord. Who maybe have strayed off the beaten path a little bit, who have maybe been trying to do things their way. Father, I just pray that You would bring them home. I think of the prodigal son, Lord. I think of You leaving the 99 for the one, Lord. And so I pray that everybody in this room would know that You love them, that You care for them, Lord, that You'd call them out of their sin, that You'd call them to turn, to repent.
[45:46] And so, Lord, we just in this moment declare the blood of Jesus over us, Lord, that we'd be covered by the blood. Lord, we love You, we worship You, and we praise You. All in the powerful name of Christ Jesus. Amen.