In Exodus 28 we see one of the privileges of the High Priest was to carry the names of the tribes of Israel before the LORD. The priests were a shadow of our great High Priest who we read about in our reading from Philippians 2.
Our great High Priest left the riches of heaven to take on the form of a servant, he bore our names on his heart. He carried our sin on himself, he became the sin offering and offered the once for all sacrifice for sins. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8)
Whilst the High Priest Aaron led the people into sin, as we’ll see in Exodus 32, Jesus bore our sin and leads us into righteousness. As a result of Jesus’ perfect obedience, He is highly exalted (Philippians 2:9). Many people do not recognise Jesus as highly exalted, to many people He is just a swear word. How tragic, as we consider all that Jesus did for us, He should have the highest honour. One day everyone will see His greatness, one day every knee will bow before Him. But for some it will be too late. The Lord Jesus will welcome into His kingdom all who have bowed the knee to Him in this lifetime. We would be mad not to bow the knee to the one who gave his whole life to serve us.
When you have been served by Him you are ready to serve others. In fact, He calls us to. The beginning of Philippians 2 calls us to think not only of our own interests (which comes so easily) but like Christ, we are to think of the interests of others. What does that look like? It looks like Timothy, someone who has a genuine interest in others (v20) and it looks like the whole-hearted service of someone like Epaphroditus (v25).
As we think about the interests of others and serve Jesus in this way, we will shine like stars among the darkness (v15), and perhaps you will have opportunity to speak of all that Jesus has done to serve us. What an encouragement to follow our great high priest and think about the interests of others today.
Light and Momentary Troubles 
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