Easter • 2026

We often look for a king who will meet our expectations—one who brings power, control, and immediate change. But in Jesus, we find something entirely different. This Easter, we’ll see how the King we needed is the One who humbled Himself, took on flesh, and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. And because of that, God has highly exalted Him above every name. The resurrection declares that this humble King is now the reigning King. Come celebrate the risen Jesus—the King we didn’t expect, but the One we desperately needed.

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All right, Philippians chapter 2. Last Sunday, Palm Sunday, we looked at the king we wanted in 1 Samuel chapter 8. We looked at how we really are created to be ruled over. We long for rulers and kings that will fight the battles we feel are urgent and important, that will give us the things that we desire, right? If we look at just five years ago at COVID, look at what we were willing to give up if someone above us promised to give us what we wanted or needed and alleviate our fears. We would crown anybody, king. And this is a natural propensity of man that's actually been carried throughout history that we long to crown human kings to give us what we want. But the truth is, we really don't know what we need. So this morning we're going to be looking at the king we actually needed in Jesus. Alright, here's something I want to submit to you. You and I, we were born reaching upward. Right? From the time that we were old enough to understand how this world works, we were striving to accumulate power, to contend for prominence, to secure our position. And it's not just us, it's not just an individual reality that we have to wrestle with. It's actually every kingdom and every power that the world has ever known. It's been exactly built this way. Every king who has ever lived has had one direction in life. Up. Ascending, conquering, arriving at the very top, and then striving to stay there. And many of us, even in this room, if we're honest about our perception about God, we may expect Him to operate in the same way. We want a king who ascends. We want a King who conquers, who scrapes and claws his way to the top. And then we're faced with the reality of Jesus. Jesus starts in eternity. He starts at the height of the cosmos, possessing the full glory of God, worshiped by angels, ruling over everything that exists, and his movement is the complete opposite of every earthly king who has ever lived. He doesn't climb, he descends. He doesn't grasp, he opens his hands. He doesn't accumulate, he empties himself all the way down into human flesh, into servanthood, into suffering, even death on a cross. And then on the third day, God the Father raised him to the highest place. You see the passage this morning, Philippians chapter 2, it gives us a portrait of true kingship that actually reorders everything we've ever assumed about power or glory. The king that you and I needed doesn't begin at the bottom and just claw his way to the top. No, he begins at the highest place. And he willingly and lovingly descends to the lowest for your sake and for mine. Now, Paul, he's writing this letter to the church in Philippi. It's one of his epistles or letters that he wrote to the churches, and he's writing in a very practical context, right? Here's what he's calling the church at Philippi to. He's calling them to unity. Unity to look out for the interests of others rather than their own self-interest. And then to ground that call specifically, here's what Paul does. He doesn't point them to a principle of trying harder and doing better. No, Paul fixes their eyes on a person. Look at verse 5 with me. Verse 5 says this have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Paul isn't saying just try harder to be humble and nice and kind. He's saying, look at what's already true of King Jesus and let that reshape your perspective on life and the way that you relate to others around you. And so what is true of this king that Paul wants us to see? Well, there are three realities of Jesus' kingship that Paul puts forward for us to observe in the text. The first one is he wants us to see that Jesus had everything and didn't grasp it. Jesus had everything and didn't grasp it. Look at verse six. Who, being Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Now, the word that Paul uses for form in the original language, it's not describing merely outward appearance. He's not saying that Jesus was like God in imitation or in appearance alone. It's actually describing the very essence of who Jesus is. Jesus existed in the form of God, meaning he possesses the fullness of divine nature. He is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, full of majesty, glorious, worshiped by angels. And he didn't cling to it. He didn't hold it in clenched fists, even though he had every right to do so. Here's what you and I have to understand. There has only ever been one who had the right to grasp for what he declared was his. God. All glory and power and majesty. He is the only one who can reach out and white knuckle what is rightfully his. But what does he do? He releases it. Right? That word grasp that Paul uses. He did not count it a thing to be grasped. It carries the idea of seizing something for yourself, holding on with this white-knuckled insistence. Jesus had every right to that glory. And instead of clenching his fist to preserve it, he opened his hands to surrender it. Now the second thing Paul shows us is that he descended when he could have stayed. Remember, Jesus was at the highest in glory and eternity. He descended when he could have stayed. Look at verse 7. But emptied himself by taking the form, there's that word again, of a servant being born in the likeness of men. Now that word emptied has fueled centuries of theological debate. And I'm not here to set the argument straight, but I am here to try and provide some clarity about the reality of what it's communicating. The eternal Son of God took on himself human flesh. Now, he didn't set aside his divinity, he veiled his glory and added our humanity to himself. The king taking the very form of a servant. Think about that trajectory for just a moment. He was worshiped, but he became dependent. He was served by angels, but he washed the feet of fishermen and prostitutes. He held the cosmos together, but yet he learned how to walk. This descent into our human existence and experience, it wasn't reluctant. It was willing. Lastly, Paul reminds us this Jesus humbled himself to the point of death. Look at verse 8. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Now, Paul could have stopped at Jesus' obedient death. That's it, right? That would have been enough for the very Son of God. But he specifies death on a cross. You see, the Roman crucifixion, it was reserved for the worst in society. It was reserved for criminals and rebels, slaves and the condemned. Because the cross wasn't designed just to kill. No, they were much smarter than that. They were much more intentional than that. It wasn't designed to just kill someone, it was designed to humiliate them. The cross was as much of a message as it was an execution device. It was public. It was so that all would see if you come against Rome, this is what happens to you. You will be humiliated publicly to the point of death. You see, the king that we needed descended from the utter height of eternal glory all the way to absolute humiliation. Because you and I needed him to. We needed him to not just come down to our level. No, we needed Jesus to sink lower than our state, to become lower for a glorious purpose. Because here's the result of that humiliation. God exalted him. God exalted him. Let's look at verse nine. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. Now, that word, therefore, it might seem like a simple word, but it is carrying all of the weight that was written before it, and it's connecting to everything that precedes it. So here's what we see in that is that the exaltation is a direct reality, an outcome of Jesus' humiliation. Because he went lower, the Father raised him up. And then verses 10 through 11 show us the effect of this exaltation. 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. Now, Paul's quoting Isaiah 45 here in the text. And Isaiah 45 is a passage that was written more than 700 years before Jesus. The prophet was speaking about the absolute sovereignty of God over all creation. And here he, Paul's connecting that. And here's what he says: that at his name, the one who went lower than our state, every knee will bow before him, every tongue will confess, every realm will be under his authority because the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord over all of it. Now, Paul's not writing this part of the passage to try and just make some sort of happy ending to the sad reality of Christ's suffering and death. No, Paul is pointing us to the coronation of a king. And what we see in all of this is that the crown belongs to the very one who first wore the thorns. And here's the great shock of what we were just shown in the text. Jesus is the humble king, humble, exalted king we needed. Jesus is the humble, exalted king we needed. You see, the path to exaltation runs straight through humiliation. The crown is reached through the cross. The throne comes after the grave. Jesus did not become king by seizing power. He became king by surrendering it completely, willingly, all the way to death on a cross. He had every right to cling to his glory, but he did not white knuckle it. He opened his hands to surrender it. He chose to descend to a lowly state to save and redeem us as his people. And because he was willing to go that low, God raised him to the highest place in all creation. You see, this is the great inversion at the heart of the gospel. This is the reality of the upside-down kingdom of Jesus. The world will say, do everything and anything that you can to exalt yourself. But the gospel says, the one who humbled himself, he's been exalted. You see, you and I, we we believe that to become something in this life, we have to grasp what we can and hold tight to what we claim as ours, but Jesus says, I open my hands to be emptied and to be pierced through. This is what Easter is declaring to us this morning. The resurrection of Jesus is the Father's public verdict on his perfect, obedient life and his sacrificial, substitutionary death in our place. It is God declaring clearly and permanently that the humble way is the glorious way. The cross leads to the crown. The descent leads to exaltation. But here's what makes this more than just some inspiring story on a specific Sunday about a remarkable man in history. Jesus didn't descend for his own sake. He descended for yours and mine. He descended to the lowest so that we who could never climb high enough on our own strength and striving could be raised up with him. The king we needed didn't come to make our kingdoms bigger. The king we needed came to give us his own. And Jesus purchased that kingdom at the cost of his very blood. But we struggle with this kind of paradox. You see, you and I, we want the exaltation without the humiliation. That's what we really want. Every one of us wants to arrive at the good life, right? At a place of honor and glory and power and influence. We all want to achieve what you and I have personally determined is life to the fullness. But we want to arrive there without traveling the road necessary to get us there. We want shortcuts, we want quick fixes, we want resurrection without crucifixion. We want the crown without the cross. We want the exaltation without the humiliation. And when we're really honest with ourselves, the path that Jesus walked, right? Downward, surrendered, poured out, emptied, it feels like the wrong direction. Because to us, in the way that we view life in this world, it looks like weakness. It looks pathetic. It feels like loss. And so we resist it. But we resist it in two very different ways. And I believe at least one of us in this room can relate to this reality. Some of us, man, we just refuse to be humble. We refuse to be humble. Right? Some of us see that downward path, that relinquishing of self, and we simply won't take it. Humility and surrender, man, that just feels like loss. And honestly, we're afraid of it. We're afraid of letting go. We're afraid of opening our hands. We're afraid of being seen for who we really are. To empty yourself, to set aside your preferences, your rights, your claim to the life you believe that you deserve, it feels too much like a painful death that we would do anything to avoid. Humility? Man, if you follow that all the way down, it costs you something real. It costs you control. Control over how people see you. It costs you the right to your own agenda. It costs you the comfortable, self-determined life that you have been exhaustingly building. And so instead of becoming low, man, we work to climb up. We work to climb up. We fill our life with achievement, an image, comfort, relationships that serve our own desire and self-interest. Anything, anything that will simply produce this feeling of fullness without the vulnerability of surrender. Because we want the resurrection life without the dying that precedes it. And so we chase a life of exaltation on our own terms. But here's what we're missing: Jesus didn't empty himself reluctantly, he did it willingly, freely, for your sake, for my sake. The descent from glory wasn't weakness, it was the most powerful act in all of history. And when we find ourselves running from humility, we are running from the very posture that actually leads us to the fullness of life that our soul is really longing for. You can't get to resurrection, you can't get to exaltation by avoiding the cross. It doesn't work that way. Not for Jesus, not for you. Jesus' call to every single person in this room is take up your cross and follow after me. But maybe we're not running from humility. Maybe we are simply striving to exalt ourselves. You see, some of us we don't run from that lowly road the way others do. No, we're actually quite good at the appearance of being humble. We serve faithfully, we show up consistently, we have built our lives of discipline and devotion. And deep down, man, we are proud of it. But that pride is the problem. Because underneath that faithful exterior of shiny happiness, there's this relentless project of self-exaltation through performance. We don't need a king who emptied himself because we're too busy filling ourselves with our own record of righteousness to present before him. We want God to look at what we've built, what we've strived for to accomplish, and say, Well done. Well done. But we don't want to hear those words as some act of undeserved grace. No, we want a recognition for what we've earned. Ultimately, our life is busy being constructed around our own crowning. And when life doesn't honor that hard work, when life doesn't seem to bless that sacrifice, when our faithfulness goes unrecognized or suffering comes despite how good we've tried to be. Or what about this? What about when it seems as if God is ultimately indifferent about how hard you're trying? We don't grieve in sadness and loss. No, we seethe in anger, a desire for vindication. Because our striving, all of this work, it was never really worship. It was never a response to the grace of God and his love for us poured out in Christ Jesus. No, it wasn't worship, it was a transaction. And within our hearts, we resolved that God never held up his end of the deal, did he? Look how hard I've tried. And God, where were you? What we can't see from inside that posture is that our self-exaltation is just as much a rejection of the gospel as running from humility altogether. The Puritan preacher Thomas Watson said this in his work, The Doctrine of Repentance. A man may be cast into hell with his arms full of duties. You see, when we come to God, it's not just about everything we've done wrong. The late Tim Keller preacher, pastor, he said, it's about coming to God for the very reasons we've ever done anything good at all. You see, for us who are striving to exalt ourselves, we don't need a king who descended because we're already ascending on our own. And a Jesus who emptied himself is actually an offense. It's pathetic to those of us who have spent our whole lives filling ourselves up. Yet the mystery of the gospel is that it doesn't just diagnose us, it doesn't just hold up a mirror that we might see our reflection in. No, the gospel meets us exactly where we are. Because Jesus humbly descended all the way to death so that we could be exalted to eternal life. Jesus sees you fleeing from humility, striving towards self-made glory, and he did what none of us would ever do. He descended for us. Jesus was in the form of God. He possessed the fullness of divine glory. And he let go of his grip on it for you. He took on flesh, born to a teenage girl, laid in an animal's feeding trough, lived as a servant to prostitutes and traitors and thieves. He was mocked, betrayed, beaten, and hung. Hung on a criminal's cross. He went lower than any of us would ever be willing or even dare to ever go. And here's why. Because our rebellion, our striving owed a debt that we could never pay. Our grasping for glory, our refusal to be humble, our relentless project of self-exaltation, it's sin. It's sin because it's cosmic treason against the eternal king of glory. We want what is rightfully his, and so we strive and strain to reach for it. His glory, his majesty, his power. We want it for ourselves. And that treason demands judgment. But Jesus took the judgment. That's what the cross is for. He bore the full weight of our pride, of our rebellion, of our desperation. And he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, in our place for our sake. And then he was lowered even still into the belly of the earth, but he didn't stay there because on the third day the Father raised him. And that resurrection, it's not just a miracle that we build some holiday around, it's a declaration about who he is. It's God the Father saying publicly and permanently that the cross has led to the crown, that the grave has led to the throne. And here's what it means for us that because Jesus took the humiliation you refused, that I run from, that we so painfully deserve, you and I receive the exaltation that you could never earn. Because he went to the grave in your place. You will be raised in his. In church, that is good news. You see, Jesus bore the judgment of your pride, of your striving. And so now you're free. Man, think about the freedom in that when Jesus declared, Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest from what? Rest from the exhaustion of striving to become something. What are we weary and heavy laden from? To be seen and known and recognized, to have prominence and position in this world. And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no. Come to me. Rest. Because my work exalts you to a higher place that you could never reach on your own. We're freed from grasping. We're freed from the project of building our own throne and crowning our own head. Man, I love this gospel truth from the American preacher B.B. Warfield. In his work, the person and work of Christ, he says this. He, being Jesus, became what he was not that we might cease to be what we are. The king we needed. He didn't come to validate your own personal kingdom. He came to give us his. Church, that we would walk in the humble way of our exalted King. You see, because of what Jesus has done, that path of lowly descent, it's not a threat to us anymore. It's an invitation. You don't have to grasp for glory anymore. Because the king has secured it for you. You don't have to strive for exaltation because the one who has exalted has made you his own. This is what the scriptures declare to us that we who are in Christ have been raised with him. And we are seated with him on high at the right hand of the Father. He who is willing to go lower than our state and was raised to glory higher than anything in all of creation. He lifts us up with him and seats us there beside him. That's his goodness to you. You don't have to strive any longer. This means that humility becomes possible in a new way. Not as defeat, not as a pathetic life, but as freedom. You're not jeopardizing, losing yourself. In fact, because of the gospel, you're finding yourself for the first time. And you're finding yourself in the one who gave everything to have you. It means you can look to the interests of others, as Paul was writing to the church in Philippi. It means you can love others around you rightly. It means you don't have to fight for your own protection and preservation. You get to love in reckless abandonment for the good of others. So we get to walk this lowly path without fear. Because we've seen where it leads. It leads to an exalted eternal life with our true and better King. You see, the King, Jesus, he went down into the grave. And the grave couldn't keep its grasp on him. And if you are his today, church, it will not be able to hold you either. Let's pray.