Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. These words, of course, by Abraham Lincoln, begin the most famous speech in perhaps all of American history, delivered at the dedication ceremony of the cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in November 1863. What's interesting about this is that actually Abraham Lincoln was not the keynote speaker at this dedication ceremony. In fact, Lincoln wasn't even invited originally to the ceremony. Two weeks before the ceremony, somebody realized the oversight and invited him, and they didn't even expect him to come. And when he agreed to come, they said, oh, okay, well, you can say a few closing words. Originally, the main speaker at the dedication was a gentleman named Edward Everett.
He was a former secretary of state, a former governor of Massachusetts, a former president of Harvard University. He began his speech for three months, and he predicted before he gave it that his speech would go down as one of the greatest orations in all of human history. He began his oration with these words, and I quote, standing beneath this serene sky, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and nature. Without notes and with bombastic gestures, he went on and spoke unbroken for over two solid hours.
Mr. Lincoln sat patiently and listened. And then it was his turn. He walked slowly to the platform with his head down. He'd only had two weeks to prepare, and he'd been so busy that he actually wrote this speech on the back of an envelope while in the carriage riding on the way to Gettysburg. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and began, four score and seven years ago. He spoke slowly.
He used no gestures at all. He never looked up from his notes, and his entire speech lasted two minutes. And yet, how many school children do you know, whoever memorized the words, standing beneath this serene sky, it is with hesitation that I blah, blah, blah. The point is that it wasn't the proud and braggadocious Everett that God honored, was it?
It was the humble and self-effacing Lincoln. Now you know, there's no one I know that would dare say that they would not like to have the blessing of God and the honor of God on their life. But the question is, on what basis does God dispense his blessing? To whom does God dispense honor? Well, Proverbs 15 verse 33 gives us the answer. It says, before honor comes humility.
In other words, in God's universe, the way up is the way down. And that's what we're going to talk about today, because remember we're in a series of messages entitled, People Jesus Met. And today we're going to watch as Jesus meets some arrogant rabbis, and as he talks to them about humility. We're going to go back 2,000 years and see what Jesus said to them, and then we're going to bring all of that forward, and we're going to talk about, well, what difference does that make for you and me today? So here we go, Luke chapter 14, beginning at verse 1. One Sabbath, the Bible says, when Jesus went to eat at the house of a prominent rabbi, the guests were watching him closely. And behold, there was a man there with dropsy. Dropsy is a kidney-related illness where your body retains water and you swell.
It's extremely painful. So Jesus asked the rabbis there, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent, so Jesus took hold of the man and healed him. Then Jesus said to these rabbis, if one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath, will you not immediately pull him out? But again, they said nothing. Now what stands out in this incident about these rabbis is their massive arrogance, arrogance that said, you know, we're so important, we're so much above other people, that if our son or our ox needs help on the Sabbath, it's okay to help them.
But normal people, regular people, even if they're in terrible suffering and pain, they need to wait for a weekday to get helped. But you know, it wasn't just this incident that showed Jesus the arrogance of these men. They went on to do something else that was amazingly arrogant. Watch, verse 7. And when Jesus noticed how the invited guests had been picking out the places of honor at the table, stop there for a second. It's important for us to know that in ancient Israel, a big status symbol was not just being invited to a banquet by a prominent rabbi like this, but also where you were seated for the meal. The rule was the closer you sat to the host, the higher was your standing on the social ladder. And so Jesus had been watching rabbi after rabbi maneuver to try to get the highest seat around the table. And what did this scramble for the best seats around the table? What did that reveal about the hearts of these rabbis?
Well, it revealed exactly what the healing incident from a moment ago revealed. It revealed they were incredibly arrogant. You see, they all wanted the highest seats because they all believed they deserved the highest seats because they all believed that they were the highest person in attendance at the banquet. Now in response to all this arrogance, Jesus tells them a little story. He says, verse eight, when someone invites you to a feast, do not take the place of honor for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. And then the host will come and say to you, give this man your seat. And in disgrace, you will be forced to occupy the lowest seat. This is a story about arrogance.
It's a story about arrogant self-promotion. This guest comes in and weasels his way to seat number one in the banquet. But then a more important guest shows up. So the host comes and says, I'm sorry, but I need you to give up your seat. I need this other guest to sit there. You say, well, okay, why didn't he just move to seat number two? Well, seat number two is already occupied. So is seat number three, number four, number five, number six.
That's why Jesus said the only seat left for you in that case is all the way at the bottom. Hey, how embarrassing is this, huh? To shamelessly promote yourself and then to publicly have to eat crow.
How bad is that? Hey, I don't know if any of you guys are golf fans, if you follow the PGA Tour at all. But if you do, you know that this past weekend, last weekend was the final tournament in the FedEx Cup. The winner of the FedEx Cup, of course, received ten million dollars. Now, Tiger won it. Let me just put you at ease. He won it.
So all's well with the world. But after Saturday's round, after three of the four rounds in this final tournament, Tiger was actually in second place. The lead was held by a forty nine year old gentleman named Kenny Perry, who had shot a brilliant sixty four on Saturday. And when a reporter asked Mr. Perry, was he nervous about having to go head to head with Tiger the next day with ten million dollars on the line?
Kenny Perry said, and I quote, he'd better bring his a game is all I've got to say. I was watching this with Brenda and I turned to her and I said, this is trouble right here. You don't say things like that. I said, this is going to be trouble. Well, if you watched on Sunday the next day, you know, I was right.
The next day, Kenny Perry shot a horrid seventy four was out of the running from the beginning of the day. And every time the camera was on him, he had this horrible look of embarrassment and humiliation all day long. Remember what we said. There's nothing more humiliating than to shamelessly promote yourself and then have to publicly in front of the whole world eat crow. Jesus went on to say to this group of rabbis, but when you were invited to a feast, go and take the lowest seat so that the host may come to you and say, friend, you need to move on up higher. And then you'll have honor in the sight of all your fellow guests. Jesus's words are simply simply echoing the words of the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs twenty five verse six says, Do not claim honor for yourself in the king's presence. Do not exalt yourself as though you were a great man, for it is better that it be said to you, hey, come up higher than for you to be demoted in the presence of all. But you see, friends, the catch here is that this approach to life demands humility. It demands the virtue of humility, which Jesus goes on now to tell these rabbis is the virtue that God promises to honor, that God promises to bless, not arrogance. Verse eleven, Jesus says, For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. God will see to it, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. God will see to that as well. Now, this is as far as we want to go in the actual passage today, because now we want to stop and ask the most important question of the day.
And you know what that is. So all of you at our campuses and around the world, the Internet, we want to hear you now. Are you guys ready? You sure? All right. Here we go. Nice and loud.
One, two, three. Yeah. You say, Lon, so what? Say, all right. I understand what you're saying. And this is all nice.
But you know what? I haven't even been invited to a banquet lately. What difference does any of this make to me? Well, we all know, don't we, friends, that Jesus is not trying to be Amy Vanderbilt here and teach us good banquet etiquette.
That is not the point. What Jesus is trying to teach us here is how to bring the honor and the blessing of God upon our lives. And what he tells us is that God honors, God blesses humble people, people with the virtue of true biblical humility in their life.
Now, this is an unbroken theme throughout the Bible. For example, Proverbs 29, 23 says, A person's pride will bring them low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor. Peter said, 1 Peter 5, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, Peter says, under the mighty hand of God, and he will exalt you in due time. And Jesus himself said, Matthew 18, 4, Whoever shall humble himself as a little child, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
But you know, we have a little problem here. And our problem is that humility is a very poorly defined concept in American culture. If you went out and asked 10 different Americans to give you a definition of humility, you would get 10 radically different answers. So, my friends, as followers of Christ, if we want to pursue true biblical humility, it's important that we define it, that we define it precisely and accurately and biblically so that we know what target it is we're trying to hit. So, let's define true biblical humility. And let's start by talking about, first of all, what it's not.
Number one, true biblical humility is not self-deprecation, self-degradation, dump-on-myself theology. I know you've heard this. Oh, I'm a nobody. Oh, I'm no good. Oh, I'm just a worm.
Somebody step on me and smush me. Folks, this is not humility. This is mental illness. You understand what I'm saying? If you look at the Lord Jesus Christ, the most humble person to ever live, do you ever hear him talking about himself like this? Of course not. This is not humility. Second of all, true biblical humility is not acting humble to camouflage the true condition of our heart.
You know, you've seen these people. Oh, it was nothing. Oh, it was nothing. It was nothing.
It was nothing. No, no, I don't want any prayer. I don't want you. I was just doing my little piece to help the world. No, no, it's okay.
No, please. When secretly this person is thinking, well, it's about time you guys recognize who I am and what I'm doing. Listen, this kind of fake humility, false humility, fleshly driven humility is as offensive to Almighty God as brazen arrogance. You say, all right, well, then what is true biblical humility?
All right. True biblical humility is a Holy Spirit produced outlook, a Holy Spirit produced perspective, a Holy Spirit produced way of seeing ourselves. A truly humble person is a person who recognizes. And why do they recognize it? They recognize it because the Holy Spirit has drilled this into their heart and soul with fire.
They realize, my friends, that all they have and all they are and all they've ever achieved and all they ever will achieve is all because of the undeserved mercy of God to them. Now you say, well, Lon, listen, you know, I'm willing to admit God helped me some, but honestly, I'm the one who turned this company around. I'm the one who bid this project and won it. I'm the one who made those grades and got into that school.
I did it. You know, I was talking to a business leader not long ago who said to me, and I quote, he said, success in life is often suspended on the narrowest of margins. You know, what he was saying was there's all these little details in life that if they hadn't have gone your way, if just a couple of them had gone the other way, things would be very different right now. So let me ask you, my friend, what if some of those small details that fell your way in life, what if they would have fallen the other way, huh? You say, well, I'm smart enough that I could have compensated for that.
Really? Well, what if your heart had stopped beating? Are you smart enough you could have compensated for that? And friend, who kept your heart beating so that you've achieved what you've achieved today? Not you.
And who gave you the talents that you used to get to where you are today? Not you. And who caused all those little small details to fall your way instead of going the other way?
Not you. The point is that every good thing you and I have, every bit of success that you and I have, all of it is the result of God's mercy. It's all a gift to us, an undeserved, gracious gift to us from God himself. And this is what Paul said. First Corinthians chapter four, verse seven, he said, what do you have that you did not receive?
All right. Then he says, and if you received it, then why do you boast as though you did not receive it? You see, a truly humble person gets this. A truly humble person realizes this deeply, and it profoundly affects the way that they live.
It makes that person say, number one, I don't deserve any special treatment for the talents that I have. I didn't give them to me. God did. Second of all, I don't deserve any special treatment or any special credit for the success that I've accomplished.
It wasn't me. It's a gracious gift from God. And finally, what's more, God gave me this success and God gave me these talents, not so I could use them to exalt myself, but so that I could use them to serve and help other people in the name of Jesus Christ. It's this attitude that defines true biblical humility. And so my friend, you can live in Beverly Hills and be humble, and you can live in Appalachia and be arrogant. You can wear a Rolex and be humble.
You can wear a Timex and be arrogant. You can drive a Jaguar and be humble. You can drive a Ford Focus and be arrogant because humility has nothing to do with a person's car or their house or their watch or their clothes or their bank account. Humility, listen, don't miss this, is all about how we see ourselves in relation to God. That is that we are grateful recipients of undeserved mercy and how we see ourselves in regard relationship to other people. That is we see ourselves as being here to serve and help them. That's true biblical humility.
You say, all right, Lon, I got it. But my question is, if God places such a high value on humility and God promises to honor it and to bless it, then how do I get more of it in my life? How do I increase the level of my true biblical humility? Well, I'm so glad you asked because I've got two suggestions to give you and then we're done.
Here we go. Want to increase your level of real biblical humility? All right, suggestion number one is that you and I ask God to make us truly more humble. Remember what we said earlier that you and I, we can't get humility from a book or from a pill or from a seminar or from the energy of the flesh. True biblical humility must be produced in us, burned into us by the direct working of God's Holy Spirit. And so suggestion number one then is that you and I actively appeal to God. That we actively ask God and regularly ask God to do whatever He needs to do in us to produce genuine, unfeigned, authentic humility in our life. And that leads to suggestion number two, which is that once we've asked God to do this, we need second of all to calmly submit to God's humility process. You see, it's one thing to pray for humility. It's an entirely different thing to embrace the process that God must use to get us there. You know, folks, I don't know if this is your experience, but my experience is that nobody ever learned humility from success. Is that your experience?
Nobody I know of. You see, the way we learn humility is in the crucible of suffering. This is what Moses said to the Israelites at the end of their 40 years in the wilderness.
Deuteronomy 8 verse 2, he said, remember how the Lord your God led you in the desert these 40 years to humble you and test you. Next verse, He humbled you and let you be hungry. Uh-oh, He let them be hungry?
Yeah. And He let them be thirsty too, God did. And He let their enemies defeat them.
And He let them wander around in the desert for 40 years and He let a bunch of snakes bite them. Oh yeah, goodbye with the prosperity gospel. Goodbye.
No, no. He humbled you and let you be hungry and then fed you with manna. The Lord your God was disciplining you just like a man disciplines his son, trying to teach you humility. Watch Hebrews 12, 11, now no discipline seems pleasant at the time it's being administered, but painful. However, oh, do I love that word?
What a great word. However, later on it, God's disciplining process, God's humility process produces a harvest of peace and righteousness for those who had been trained by it. You see my friends as followers of Jesus, we ask God to make us truly humble. And so God sends his agents of humility into our life.
Suffering and pain and hardship and failure and heartache and loss and setbacks. And then what do we do? Well, we argue with God, we chafe under this, we question God because he's doing what we ask him to do. I mean, we ask him to make us humble, but this is the only process that gets us there. I mean, if we agree that nobody became humble from success, then when you and I ask for humility, what do we think God's going to send into our life? You know, when I was a young pastor here at McLean Bible Church almost 30 years ago, and I began studying the Bible a little more to find out what I needed to look like to be the right kind of pastor for a church, boy, the value of humility, the virtue of humility just leaped off the page. And so I began praying, God, if I'm going to be effective here at this church, I need to be taught humility.
Humble me, teach me to be a humble man. Well, a large part of that has been over the last 17 years, raising a girl with serious disabilities that the Lord Jesus sent into my life. And I want to tell you, it's been an agonizing process these last 17 years. It has been a bloody, painful process that has taken me to the very edge of what I thought I was capable of enduring.
And I'm telling you, there were some days I was convinced I was gone over that edge. I've kicked a few times, and I've screamed a few times, and I've argued with God a few times, and I've questioned God a few times, like we all do. But friends, look here, one thing we need to remember, I asked for it.
I asked for it. I said, God, teach me humility, teach me to be a humble man. All God was doing all these years, my friends, was answering my prayer. Now, I have to tell you, 17 years later, I can honestly look you in the eye and say that I'm glad God put me through this process. And the only regret that I've got, and it is a sincere regret, is that I didn't have enough spiritual maturity along the way to embrace God's process with more faith and to embrace it with less doubt and to embrace it with greater serenity and confidence that God knew what He was doing the whole time, and I could trust Him.
I regret that. I wish I'd have done a better job in the process. Now, unless I miss my guess, I'll bet there are many of you here today who are smack dab right in the middle of God's humility process for you, because you did what I did. You read the Bible, and you saw there what I saw, that God honors and blesses humble people. And so, as a result, you prayed like I prayed, and you said, Lord, make me a more humble person.
And now that God's answering your prayer, you're in the middle of an awful, bloody, ugly mess. I mean, some of us here lost lots of money in the stock market, and we discovered that we weren't as smart as we thought we were. And some of us are facing health issues in our life, and we've discovered that we're not as indestructible as we thought we were. And some of us are facing problems with our children, and we've discovered that we're not as perfect as we thought we were. And some of us are facing problems at our jobs. And we've discovered that we're not as competent as we thought we were.
we were. And some of us are facing problems in relationships and we've discovered we're not as nice as we thought we were. Listen, look here. Folks, everybody wants the product, nobody wants the process. You understand what I'm saying to you? We all want the product, it's just nobody wants to pay the price of the process to get there and nowhere is that more true than when it comes to the process of producing true humility in our lives.
But let me say this in closing, look here. If you've had the courage to pray and ask God to make you humble and you now are in the middle of God answering that prayer and things are an awful mess in your life, friends, please let me assure you from deep personal experience that the product is worth the process. The product is worth the process.
You know why? Because the product is what qualifies us for the rich, deep and beautiful blessing and honor of God on our life. You look at every great man and woman of God in the scripture that God ever used, Esther and Ruth and Moses, David and Abraham and Paul, look at them all.
And God had to do this process in them before he could ever crown their life with the eventual honor and blessing that he gave them. So friends, hey, we're in great company. Things are a mess right now.
You're in great company, folks. Join Ruth and Esther and Abraham and Moses because they went through the same thing. And don't you dare lose heart in the middle of this. Don't you dare question God in the middle of this. He's been doing this for tens of thousands of years. He knows what he's doing, friends, and he knows exactly how to do it in your life. My encouragement to you is to ask the Holy Spirit to give you endurance and to give you faith and to give you perseverance and submit to the process because God's excited about giving you the product and the blessing that comes with it.
Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, you know, we haven't talked about anything profound today. It's no secret when you read the Bible, the value that you place on humility. But Lord, as we said, we don't often think about the process. We just want the product. Well, Lord Jesus, remind us today there's no such thing as the product without the process and that the process is tough.
It's ugly, it's bloody, it's brutal. But Lord, it yields later on the sweet fruit of humility and blessing from God to those who have been exercised thereby, the Bible says. So Lord, strengthen us today, fortify our hearts today. And Lord Jesus, if we're in the middle of that process, give us the hope that we need to keep going in the confidence that before honor comes humility. And if we will let you produce that humility in our life, we will see honor from you that we never dreamed about and blessing. Speak to our hearts deeply today, Lord. Change our hearts because we were here and we sat under the teaching of the word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
