More Than a Moral Lesson
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
One of my favorite books to read when I was a little kid was a collection of Aesop’s Fables. There were three in particular that I read over and over again. The first one was about a fox. He came across a vine of big juicy grapes hanging high in a tree. They looked so sweet and tantalizing, but try as may, he couldn’t reach the grapes. So he walks away, saying, “I bet they were sour grapes.” And the moral of the story was that some people will disparage what they can’t achieve for themselves.
Another one, that Tamra brought up just the other night, was about a mouse who was caught by a lion who was about to eat it. But the mouse pleaded for mercy and to be let go. He promised that if he’d grant him this favor, the mouse would one day return it. The lion laughed. What would he need from such a little mouse, but he was feeling merciful and the let mouse go. A while later, the lion got a thorn in his paw and was in such pain, but his paws were too big to pull it out. Along came the mouse and suddenly the lion found himself asking a favor that little mouse. The moral of the story was that love and kindness are never wasted, or what I think is a better moral: don’t discount the little people; you need them more than you realize.
But my all time favorite was the story of the dog and the bone. A dog happily gets a bone and he proudly carries it around. It’s a good bone. It’s a big bone. He’s happy to have it until he passes a bridge over a stream. When he looks down at the stream, he sees his reflection, but he thinks there in the stream is a dog staring back at him. That dog has a bone just like he does! Suddenly his bone isn’t good enough. So he lunges for the bone in the other dogs mouth, dropping his own bone into the water. Now neither dog has a bone. The moral of the story? Be content with what you have; greed is costly.
Aesop was a wise man with some amazing story-telling abilities. He always wanted to teach a moral lesson. While Jesus is wise and could tell some amazing stories. Jesus was not about simply teaching moral lessons. He wasn’t about teaching moral lessons to little children so that they could live in a peaceful family and grow up in a polite society like Aesop. Jesus was about teaching eternal truth to people so they could live in a united people and be part of the kingdom of God.
Jesus isn’t Aesop. And most of us probably know that. Yet, when it comes to Jesus’s lessons on eternal truths, we tend to treat them on the same level as Aesop’s moral lessons. This is more than a moral lesson. It’s an eternal truth for kingdom living. If someone ignores Aesop’s lessons, we can bet that things are not going to go well for them in this life. But if someone ignores Jesus’s eternal truth for kingdom living, we need to understand that they are close to missing out (and may even miss out) on being part of the kingdom of God.
So what is this eternal truth for kingdom living? Putting yourself first will make you be last. Or we could say it like this: humble yourself before God humbles you.
And in this passage that we see this morning, we see the three reasons for this truth. The first is this:
We are not as important as we think we are.
We will suffer from our own ego.
We are not as unimportant as we seem to be.
Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them,
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him,
and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.
But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
We Are Not as Important as We Think We Are
We Are Not as Important as We Think We Are
The first reason that we need to learn this eternal truth is that we are not as important as we think we are. This narrative takes place most likely at the same dinner that the ruler of the Pharisees is giving. Jesus is one of the invited guests. Now look how Luke begins his narrative.
Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them,
Technically, Luke states, “Now he began telling a parable to those invited as he notices how they were choosing for themselves the places of honor.” It’s not that the ESV is a bad translation. It’s good, but it doesn’t get to the essence in my opinion. The idea is that Jesus has been people watching. Ever people-watch? I remember my sister and her husband telling a story of them watching people disembark from a plane one day and a couple got off laughing. John said to Sheila that he bet they didn’t know each other and that he was annoying her and she was too nice to say anything. Sheila staunchly disagreed. Within a minute the two had separated and they saw the woman roll her eyes and be glad the conversation was over.
People-watching can be fun. But it can also be telling. In this case, it was telling Jesus the hearts of those at the party. The people choosing their places at the dinner prompts Jesus to tell this parable and he actually is telling it while the people are still choosing their seats. In other words, he doesn’t wait until they’re finished choosing their seats. And he warns them that they aren’t as important as they think they are.
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him,
There is a good chance that someone more important than any one of these people has been invited. These people may not know it, because they are too busy seeking the best chairs for themselves that they haven’t even considered who was the most important. And the reality was in that moment that there was only one invited guest who was of utmost importance and they all missed it.
Here was Jesus having already sat down, and the implication was that he was not hunting for the most honored seat. Yet, he was the most honorable person at the party. We know how the parable goes. No spoiler alert necessary. Here is Jesus sitting at a lowly seat knowing he was the Son of God, the Son of Man, the most honored and distinguished person who has ever lived, watching the people clamor for the most honored and distinguished seats.
And while he was warning them about this mentality, he also understood that this wasn’t about earthly parties alone; most importantly, this was about kingdom living. Earthly parties were only opportunities to see the fruit of the heart. And their hearts were bearing fruit of self-inflated egos.
Self-inflated egos are nothing new. We see this going back to Satan himself, to Adam and Eve, to Cain. One of the most telling stories in all of Scripture of a puffed up ego is that of Haman in the book of Esther. But today, with social media, we have opened the flood-gates of self-congratulating, self-aggrandizing, self-magnifying men, women, and children. We’ve created a culture of celebrity as if being famous is what life is about.
But most of us here aren’t about that. We’re not trying to be Tik-Tok famous. But what about being first at our job? You may say, “Aren’t we supposed to do our best and want to do our best? Shouldn’t we seek to be first at our jobs?” And I would answer yes, but not for being first, but for the glory of Christ.
Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,
knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
So this eternal truth is not for parties only, but for work. It’s for relationships.
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 to the interests of others.
It is easy for us to get tunnel vision and see our needs, our desires, our ambitions, our aspirations, our dreams, our health, our very lives as the most important things in our lives. So we clamor over everyone else to get top spot in those areas. And the King of the Universe just people-watches, and by his Spirit and his Word reminds you and me of this eternal truth because living in the kingdom is at stake.
We Will Suffer from Our Own Egos
We Will Suffer from Our Own Egos
But that’s only one reason that we should keep this eternal truth in mind. It’s not just that we aren’t as important as we think we are, but that if we live in such a way, we will suffer from our own egos.
and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.
Maybe you’ve had this experience before. You’ve bought tickets to a show or a sporting event and they’re way in the back. The place is pretty empty and there are seats a lot closer, so who cares if you sneak up to the front. And so you go and pick a better seat only to have the ticket holders of those exact seats and everyone knows what you tried to get away with. Or maybe, you’re more like me and you’ve thought about doing that, but are too afraid that scenario will play itself out.
This is what’s happening here. People are clamoring for the first and the best only to get a reality check. There was someone more honored and distinguished to the host than those who chose them. And because those people had inflated themselves, the host now has to humble them and put them in their place. And the walk down to the end of the table is a long, shame-filled walk. It’s humiliating.
And the temptation is for the guest to get angry with the host for humiliating him or her, but in reality the blame belongs with the guest and not the host. The guest is the one who put himself in the undeserved spot. It is the host who rights the wrong. This very thing happens with John.
In his third letter, John writes about a man named Diotrephes. In 3 John 9, John wrote that Diotrephes liked to put himself first. Which meant that he refused to recognize apostolic authority. The very ones that Jesus had put at the head of the table were the ones Diotrephes ignored. And he said that he wasn’t content at ignoring the apostles, but he refused to welcome missionaries who labored for the Kingdom. And he put out of the church those who wanted to welcome them. And John’s promise was this:
So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
In other words, John will put him in his place.
Again, Haman who wanted to be first among Ahasuerus’s men, sought to live in the limelight, and when asked by the king himself what should be done to honor a man loyal to the crown, he gave an answer that involved clothing the man with the king’s robes, riding the man around the city on the king’s horse, and having the people see what the king does for those who are loyal. He thought it would happen to him, but instead he was the one leading Mordecai his archenemy around the town on the king’s horse, in the king’s robes, as he sang the king’s praises.
But again, this isn’t just a moral lesson about humility. It’s an eternal truth about kingdom living. This is what is expected for those entering the kingdom. The party, a show, a sporting event, a church, a palace on earth is only a place to display the heart. The Kingdom of God is a glorious place filled with a glorious God and a glorious people—not a self-glorified people, but a God-glorified people. But for that to happen, we must not only have humbled actions, but a humbled heart.
We Are Not as Unimportant as We Seem to Be
We Are Not as Unimportant as We Seem to Be
And that leads to the third reason we need to take this eternal truth to heart. While we are not as important as we think we are and if we continue down that road we will suffer for our own ego, we also need to understand that we are not as unimportant as we seem to be.
When people hear moral lessons on humility and pride, what often happens is that the pendulum swings to the far-side of not being important at all. Suddenly humility is equated with purposelessness. Humility is the same thing as inconsequential. But that’s not the case.
The eternal truth shows us that it is not for us to elevate our position, but the host to do that. You and I do not have the capacity to know exactly where we fit in at the party. And again, this party is just the thin veneer for the kingdom living. The host in this case is God, not just some ruler of Pharisees. And we’ve already seen time and again through the teachings of Christ that God sees us as important. We’ve also seen that the people regarded John the Baptist as one of the most important in the kingdom, Jesus said however that whoever is least in the kingdom is greater than he.
So we cannot go around and pretend as if we mean nothing to the host.
But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.
The problem is that we, for the most part, have no capacity to know exactly where we fit in in the kingdom. We are important. We are an invited and honored guest, but we don’t know exactly where we ought to sit. So let’s take the lower seats and let the host decide where we should be.
This is a massive problem for pastors. We see the John Pipers and John MacArthurs and the Matt Chandlers or David Platts of our day and we can easily say to ourselves, “I can do what they’re doing. In fact, I could probably do it better. I should be up there. I should be at the conferences and on circuit.” And we can be discouraged and think that they are the ones doing the important work because they are the ones front and center. And yet, when those become our thoughts, it reveals our hearts. It’s easy enough for those men to fall in the place God has put them in, but our hearts reveal that we most likely would fall all the easier and harder. God knows our place better than we ever could.
The host has said to those preachers, “Friend, move up higher.” For this party, for them moment, that’s how it is. It is not that he has not said the same for someone like me. When I came here, I had no place to preach, no place to pastor. And the host said to me, “Friend, move up higher.” And he has seated me here at Highland View in a more honorable place than I had.
The host does not desiring to humiliate anyone. His desire is to elevate to the right place. But he will humble, if we will not humble ourselves and it will be humiliating. But his desire is for us to humble ourselves so he can call us friends in the presence of others. So that he can move us higher in the Kingdom.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we finish this passage and have seen these reasons for adopting this eternal truth for kingdom living. The promise we are given is that we will be exalted for our humility. But the opposite is just as much a promise. He will humble all who self-exalt.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
If you go back through God’s Word, you will find that every person that was used positively for God’s kingdom was a person of humility before God used him/her. Seth, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Saul, David, Solomon, Mordecai, Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the list goes on and on. And we see that God used men like Jacob who was not humble at all, but had to be humbled and then used. We also see men who started humble and then became prideful like Saul, and God had no choice but to then humble them.
This is an eternal truth for all. Those who humble themselves will be exalted. This is true for the poorest of the poor as well as the greatest of the great. That includes God the Son.
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.
Remember Jesus was sitting around people-watching. He was watching the people clamor for the best position, content that in this life, in man’s kingdom, he would live in humility. But in the end, the promise was glory!
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
Pride, the sin that so often the cause of our other sins in life, must be set aside. Humility must be embraced knowing that there is greater joy, greater glory, greater exaltation to come. It is the promise of God that Jesus embraced and it is our promise too.
And it may be that some are saying, “Yeah, but Chris, someone has to sit at the last chair.” Yes, they do. Remember the guy who put himself first? There’s only one chair left and it’s the last one. In God’s Kingdom, there is room for one person in the first chair and that is Christ himself, seated at the right hand of God. Jesus alone has first place in God’s kingdom.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
He is the God visibly seen and known. He is the founder and source of all creation. He is before all things and everything that still exists only does so because he sustains it. He leads this church and the Church Invisible. He was the first to be resurrected in his glorified body. The conclusion: there is only one number one and that is Jesus. Let’s let the one who exalted him to his rightful place do the same for us so he doesn’t have to humble us to it instead. That’s how the kingdom works.
Put to death the need to be seen and known as best. Don’t just act humble; be humble. Pray for God to cultivate a spirit of humility and when that desire for seeking the best seat (metaphorically speaking) wells up inside, put it do death by the power of the Holy Spirit. Trust God to elevate you; he is the one who has invited you to the party; he is the one who calls you friend. He is the one you can trust.
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
We don’t want to be self-exalting, self-glorifying, self-congratulating fools waiting for you to publically humble us.
We desire to be a humble people who walk humbly with you.
We want to be a people who trust you to lovingly place us where we belong
and to be content with the chair in which you have seated us.
Help us to think of ourselves soberly and not too highly, but also not too lowly.
May we live your eternal truth of kingdom living now and forever.
In Jesus’s name. Amen.