Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More
Humility before honor
Text: Matthew 18:1-6
I’m calling this lesson Honor is the Son of Humility because honor, in Christ’s kingdom, is the result of humility – humbleness begets honor. Those that will be honored in Christ’s kingdom are those who gave up on their reputation in order to honor the coming king, Jesus Christ. Proverbs 15:33 …before honour is humility. Proverbs 18:12 Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.
The question is who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? The answer to that question is very simple. It’s Jesus Christ who is the greatest in the coming kingdom. Philippians 2:6-11 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Jesus Christ, King of kings, preeminent above all, personified exactly what He told the disciples.
As for us, we are like the disciples. Titles in this world mean things to us. God is no respecter of persons but you and I are. Community status, vocational status, political status, educational status are forms of currency. They have real financial value because people are willing to pay for status.
Rick Singer was the latest facilitator publicized in a “pay to play” type college admissions deal with executives and celebrities. These executives’ and celebrities’ kids may not cut it academically so they’d pay Singer to grease the wheels of admissions through some discrete athletics team like water polo. The athletic director or the head coach would be paid to “encourage” acceptance of some executive’s kid so they could be on the water polo team. After acceptance the kid would never attend any practices or even be on the team, it was just a ruse to get the kid admitted to a school with a reputation. In the end, it’s not even about education. It’s just about standing in the culture so mom and dad can say my kid went to Harvard. They don’t say it cost them $10M or they had to buy a building on the campus. It’s just about status. It’s just clout. And status is business.
We ask, like the disciples, how do I gain recognition? But we aren’t that spiritual because we ask it about our community, our vocation, our kids’ education, or as policy makers. The LORD Jesus Christ answers the disciples like He seems to always do. If you’re looking for reputation in my kingdom you’re asking the wrong question. Those who’ll have standing in my kingdom are unaware of their greatness. They’re like children. Little children have a lot of faults, but one thing they are not aware of is their own greatness or reputation.
Conversion is the first necessary thing
- You can’t even enter this kingdom without being converted
What got you here is also what will make you great here
- As you get older you find more and more reason to reject the LORD.
- You gain experience that seems to contradict the Spirit of God.
- You gain knowledge that seems to contradict the word of God.
- You don’t see the judgment of God, so you think things are OK that aren’t OK.
- Your body tells you God is lying to you.
- This is why people who taught sunday school classes may not even be in church today. People who thought church was good for their family get older, get grumpier, get less motivated, don’t see the need for God after their kids grow up.
- Point is that life and getting older has a way of moving you away from the LORD. Time and age will put distance between you and the LORD in the normal course of life. Unless you forget your own experiences, your own understanding, your own information, unless you get back to a time when you will LISTEN to the LORD,
- 1 Peter 5:6-7 – as you get older your cares become more and more. You need to get over all this “adulting” stuff and start thinking like a child in relation to the LORD. If you outgrew God, quit deceiving yourself. You never did outgrow God.
Receive children in my name receives me
- The LORD puts himself in the place of the child and the child of God.
- Proverbs 22:4 By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.
Offends my children offends me
- Offence means being the cause of unbelief.
- Jump ahead to verse 11. This is what the LORD is doing, reconciling the world to himself, and if you are the wicked soul making it difficult for lost souls to find Jesus Christ, He says it’s better if you died. If someone’s made themselves a teacher leading lost souls away from the LORD, He says it would be an improvement if they were drowned.
- A couple years ago I went down to Tuloso Midway High School to judge the interview part of the Academic Decathlon. We saw several students that day. But I remember one in particular. HIS name was Monica. He walked in our judges room wearing a dress, makeup, and he had a little bit of stubble on his cheeks and chin. And I felt so bad for this young man. I thought, who are the adults in your life that told you this was OK? Where are they? He was clearly uneasy, felt out of place, dealing with some inner turmoil. But my real question was where are your mom and dad, and the educators, and the adults in your life that said this perversion is an acceptable way of living? Those people are the WHO in verse 6 – whoso shall offend. You’ve brought this young man to a place of hatred for God and the things of God and all kinds of unnatural behavior before he had any idea what the LORD wanted to do with his life.
- Child grows up believing in God because that’s normal but is told by Hollywood, by school teachers, by family members that sodomy is normal. And if a boy looks at Barbie dolls he must be a girl. So the adults in his life lead him down a road to think he’s a girl. He grows up hating what God said he is. And hating anyone who would tell him what God said.
- If you’re one of these adults who outgrew God’s instructions, now you’re an offence to God making it harder for His work to get done. Here’s the seriousness of this crime against a soul and against God. The LORD says it were better if these adults, if the family members, if the educators, if the friends who taught souls to despise the things of God, it wouldn’t be justice, it would be an IMPROVEMENT if those adults had millstones hung on their necks and were tossed into the sea. That would be BETTER.
- James 4:6-10
