Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.
All right, day four. Uh I'm gonna read the passage again so you can hear it in context. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind and have the same love. Being in full accord and of one mind, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also the interest of others. 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 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. 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. All
right. I think I can hear your inner dialogue again. I think you're thinking, yeah, but if I humble myself to the point that Jesus did, then I'll never be able to get ahead. Well, i if you getting ahead is up to you, that may be true, but if you trust God with your life, that is not true. The verse I want to look at today is this Therefore, like since Jesus humbled himself under the authority of his Father and the plan of his father, therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. I want to ask you do you trust your future with the Lord? The Bible says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So what do you want? You want God opposing you, or do you want God to give you grace? You see, you don't have to promote yourself, you have to trust
God for that. One of my favorite places uh that exemplifies this is the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph, he gets this vision that all of his brothers in all the nations are going to bow down to him, and then he's a little arrogant because he's the youngest brother, and so he shares this with his brothers, and so they don't love it, man. And so they beat him and they throw him into a cistern. And then one of the brothers, his name's Reuben, he's like, well, let's just don't let him die. Why don't we sell him into slavery? At least we can make some money off of him. And sure enough, a slave caravan comes riding by, and so they sell Joseph into slavery. And so then Joseph gets auctioned off on the auction block to a guy named Potiphar. So he works for Potiphar and everything seems to be going okay, but he is a slave. And I can imagine this whole time he's like, Where are you, God? I mean, I thought you'd give me this vision that I was going to rule the world, that the stars were going to bow down to me, and my brothers were gonna bow bow down to me. Meanwhile, one day when he's working at Potiphar's house, Potiphar's wife puts the moves on him and he takes off running, and then Potiphar's wife accuses him of rape. And so he gets thrown in jail. And the Bible says, and the God was with Joseph. And I bet Joseph was like, Well, God doesn't feel like you're with me because I'm here in jail. While he's in jail, he's been there for a while and he meets two guys that used to work for the Pharaoh, and they both have dreams. And Joseph has been given the gift of interpreting dreams. And so he tells the one guy his dream, he's like, Hey man, good news. You're gonna go work for the Pharaoh again by the end of the week. And the other guy's like, How about my dream? He goes, Not good news. You're gonna get your head chopped off, and the birds are gonna pluck your eyes out. And he says to the one guy that's gonna be alive, he goes, Bro, will you please remember me because I am I haven't been falsely accused and I'm in jail. Sure enough, the one guy that gets re-promoted back up to Pharaoh's court, uh, Pharaoh begins to have these dreams, these crazy dreams about skinny cows and big cows and all this stuff, and about grain, and and nobody can interpret it. And then the guy that was in jail with Joseph is like, hey Pharaoh, I used to be in Sailbox 6 with this guy that could interpret dreams. And so Pharaoh sends for Joseph, and they give him a haircut, they give him a shower, and then Joseph is now standing before the Pharaoh, and Pharaoh says, I hear that you can interpret dreams.
Now, here's why I bring this up. This would have been the moment for Joseph to make much of himself, for Joseph to roll out his resume, for Joseph to say, I am the man, but that is not what Joseph does. Joseph is standing eyeball to eyeball with the Pharaoh, who, by the way, thought he was God, and Joseph says, It's not me, it's only the one true God that can interpret dreams. Now, Joseph humbled himself, he didn't take any credit. And everybody hearing this thought, Joseph, you're a dead man, because Pharaoh thinks that he is God, and you just insinuated that the God you worship is bigger than Pharaoh. And yet, guess what happens? That God is a promise-keeping God. And God highly exalted Joseph and made him first in command over all of Egypt. He ends up ruling Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. He's used by God to save the nation of Israel, and just like he had seen, his brothers come back, and everyone bows down to him. I share that with you to say this. Do you trust the Lord with your future? To be humble, to do what's right, to follow after him, and trust God to promote you.
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