DECEMBER 23
PHILIPPIANS 2:1–18

Our hope in this life and the one to come rests on
the humiliation and exaltation of the Son.

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It’s important to confess that we love being exalted and dislike
being humbled. None of us enjoys moments when we are
proven to be less than others, and we revel in situations where we
are elevated. Acclaim, respect, appreciation, power, control, and
position are seductive idols for us all. You and I might walk away

hurt if we were at a party where no one noticed us. We are prob-
ably devastated when we are mocked and rejected. We hate to be

embarrassed or shown to be weak. Being humbled is hard for us.
Philippians 2 makes it clear that Jesus is not like us:
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 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.
(Phil. 2:5–11)
As the apostle Paul calls the Philippian believers to live a life of
humility, he encourages them to have the mind of Christ. Jesus,

equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit in divine majesty, sov-
ereignty, holiness, and power, willingly humbled himself. Paul

assures us that Jesus wasn’t humbled, but rather willingly humbled
himself. What did his willing humiliation look like?
He emptied himself.
He took on the form of a servant.
He took on human likeness.
He became obedient, even to death on a cross.
Jesus didn’t come to earth in a display of divine splendor. From

the manger to homelessness, mockery, rejection, and public cru-
cifixion, Jesus’s life was a portrait of humility. He came to be not

an earthly monarch but a sacrificial Lamb. Our justification and
adoption as the children of God rest on the willing humiliation
of the Son. We should be his humble and willing children. But,
thankfully, our hope rests not on our willingness but on his.
Paul doesn’t stop with Jesus’s willing humiliation; he also points
us to Christ’s exaltation. Humble Jesus now sits at the right hand
of the Father as the reigning King. The final defeat of sin and death
and the delivery of the final kingdom of peace and righteousness
rest on the exaltation of the Son. There will be a day when every
knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is, in fact,
Lord.

Be thankful today for the willing humiliation and the great exal-
tation of the Son. Your hope today and for eternity rests on both.

The sacrificial Lamb is now a reigning King. Hallelujah!

 

Prayer

Lord, even now I bow before the throne of Jesus. Even now I con-
fess that he is Lord, master and ruler of all things, king of the

universe. And yet what humility he has displayed! What tender
love to stoop so low, even to die on behalf of me and all his chosen
people. May I display that same sort of humility in all that I do.

In Jesus’s name, amen.