How to be Humbled and Exalted
Stand and lift up your bible and repeat after me.
This is my Bible.
I am what it says I am.
I can do what it says I can do.
I am going to learn how to be what it says I can be.
Today I will learn more of the word of God.
The indestructible, never ending, living word Of God.
I will never be the same.
I will never be the same.
In Jesus Name.
Luke Chapter 18
Jesus comes on the scene as a rabbi, as a teacher, and He starts to turn everything upside-down and inside-out. And He takes what people have been told and what’s been reinforced to them, and He says, “Let me give you a new way to look at it.”
So much of the religious establishment…they didn’t know what to do with Jesus. He starts preaching His first sermon, and He says to the people, “You’ve heard it said.” In other words, “I know your spiritual leaders have told you this, but I tell you…”
And He turns things around, or He raises the bar. And He gives us a way of looking at life that is not just countercultural, but it’s counterintuitive. It goes against how we feel sometimes. It just doesn’t seem right.
He’s going to do that for us again today as we study this passage of Scripture together. What I want you to catch in this message is that, specifically, many of the people of His day put the focus of faith on the outside. No different than today. They thought that following Jesus or having a faith in God was about outward appearance, about looking the right way, dressing the right way, following the right rules, keeping the right rituals, having your stuff together. They had turned it into that. And Jesus comes on and He says, “No, look, it’s the inside that I’m looking at.” It’s the inside. Faith is an inside-out job. It begins with the work God does in us, and then what He does in us comes through us.
Matthew 23:27, is where He of brings His indictment against the religious leaders of His day, and He says (paraphrased), “Look, you are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside.”
It’s like going to a cemetery when my wonderful wife and I have traveled, and we see lots of beautiful tombs that are clean, have been painted. Everything looks good, but on the inside it’s full of dead men’s bones and everything is unclean.” He says to the religious leaders, “In the same way, on the outside you appear…Just looking at you from the outside it looks like you are people who are righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and you’re full of wickedness.”
If you have your Bibles go ahead and open to Luke chapter 18 and say, “Amen” when you are there.
Years ago, the news reported the tragic story about the grandson of the founder of the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado. The man’s grandson died in an avalanche. I read about it on the Weather Channel’s website. I was surprised to read that this is not as uncommon as you would think (and) that some thirty people a year in the United States die from an avalanche.
Part of this article that I read had a little section on “How to survive.” Should you ever find yourself in such a horrific situation, what do you do? How do you survive something like that? And apparently one of the common mistakes people make when they get caught in an avalanche is they get turned around and they start digging the wrong way. They think they’re digging up to survive, but they are really making the situation worse and they’re digging down.
Popular Science Magazine gave an example of a guy who was found dead from an avalanche, and it was determined that he had actually dug thirty feet deeper into the snow. The whole time he thinks he’s going up, but he’s actually going down. And there were some tips (on) what to do. It’s just not that uncommon. You get turned around. You can’t trust your instinct. You can’t trust what feels right. Here’s what they said you should do. You should get your hand free, and you should scoop out some snow right in front of your mouth; and then you spit. If the spit comes back down and hits you, then you’re facing the right way. You can start digging up. If it doesn’t come back down, you need to get yourself turned around, right? Because you need a reality check. You think you’re facing one way, but you may be facing a different way completely. You think you’re going up, but you may be going down.
Here is what Jesus does: He’s going to give some directions to people who are directionally challenged, people who think they’re going up in life but they are really going down. He’s going to tell us, “Look, you think the way to get to the top is by digging to the top, but it turns out that the way to the top is actually down.” This is going to be a reality check.
In Luke chapter 18 He’s going to address those of us who find ourselves, consumed with getting to the top of the ladder, with reaching a certain status, with being successful. He’s going to redefine what that means, because it turns out that the way up is down. Here’s how He puts it in Luke 18:14: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Do you see what He does here? He just challenges everything that we’re told culturally. He says, “No, actually here’s the truth. If you want to be exalted, you don’t make much of yourself.” You don’t relentlessly climb to the top of the ladder. You don’t try to show that you’re better than other people by the awards, by the way you dress, the car you drive, the house you live in. If you want to be exalted, what do you do? You humble yourself. And He redefines greatness. He says, “Look, the way to greatness is not up; it’s down. Greatness is not something that you ascend to; it’s something that you descend to.”
In Luke chapter 18 He’s going to reinforce that by teaching us this parable. Now in this parable there are two characters. You’ve got two people on the very opposite ends of the spiritual spectrum. One is the Pharisee, who is a religious leader, who is certified holy, who is well-respected. Then you have got the tax collector who is certified unclean and is despised by the people.
And watch what Jesus does here. Luke 18, starting in verse 9—here’s how the parable begins: by telling us about the audience. Here’s what it says: “To some…” Here is who Jesus is talking to. “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else…”
Who are the people, that you know, who are confident in their own righteousness and look down on everyone else? Well, if you read this and think it’s not talking about you, then it’s talking about you. That’s who this is. It’s the people who read this, and they’re not sure who it is; but they know it’s not them. You just self-identified. This parable is for you.
Jesus says, “To the people who think they’re better than other people…” And then He goes on to this parable (verse 10): “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” Verse 11 says, “The Pharisee stood (up).” He made sure the spotlight was on him, and he prayed about himself and he said, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector (over here). I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
The Pharisee begins his prayer, but what’s he praying about? What’s he saying? He prayed about what? Himself. The focus was all about himself.
And then he gives thanks to God, which is good, right? I mean, it’s good. You start your prayer off by saying, “God, let me thank you for something.” Here’s what he does: He says, “God, thank you that I’m not like other people.”
Can you imagine? I mean, seriously…I can’t imagine praying that—where you say, “God, I just…I just want to spend a few moments thanking you for some things.
I could not pray, “First I’d like to thank you that I’m better than everyone else.”
I read that and I think, “I would never pray that.” I would never pray that. You see what happens, right? I mean, “I’m so glad I’m not like the guy who says, ‘I’m glad I’m not like the guy.”
That’s the spirit that we have within us. And the religious leader says, “God, I thank you that I’m not like other people.” He thinks he’s better than others.
Now we may…seriously though…we may not say those words, but a lot of what we say reveals that heart. I wrote down a few things that we might say…maybe out loud, maybe in our hearts…that reveal the same spirit that is captured here.
One thing that we might say is something like this: “I’m not going to be the one to apologize. If they want to apologize to me, that’s fine. I’m not going to be the one to apologize.” The Bible says that pride only breeds quarrels. Pride thrives on conflicts and makes it hard to say certain things. If I think I’m better than someone, I’m not going to say to them, “I was wrong.” I’m better than them. Why would I say, “I was wrong”?
See, we might not say, “I am better than this person,” but when we refuse to acknowledge that we’re wrong, when we refuse to say, “I’m sorry,” when we refuse to say, “That was my fault,” what we’re saying is, “I’m better. I’m better than they are.”
Another thing we might say…maybe not out loud…but we might say something like, “It’s not me; it’s you. It’s not my problem; it’s their problem.”
That’s what pride does: It lets us put other people under a microscope and let ourselves off the hook. Jesus said, “Here’s what pride will do: It will make you point out the speck in your neighbor’s eye and ignore the plank in your own eye.” Pride is blinding. It blinds you to your own weaknesses, and it magnifies where other people are weak.
So quite a few years ago, I was driving my kids to school in the morning. My son, as we’re driving to school, said, “Dad, why do you always talk to the other drivers out loud? You know they can’t hear you, right?”
And I…I do that. I sometimes talk to the other drivers out loud. And when I speak to the other drivers, I don’t speak words of life. Like, it’s not words of encouragement. I don’t commend them for their driving skills. I don’t thank them. I’m not confessional. I don’t acknowledge my part in it. It’s always the other guy…
But that’s what we do, right? We can see the other person, and we know what they should do differently; but we have a hard time recognizing it in ourselves.
That’s pride, too, where we feel like we’re dependent on ourselves. We don’t need God’s help.
Look at the Pharisee’s prayer. He doesn’t ask God for help. He’s doing quite well on his own. He’s got things covered. He wants to talk to God and tell God everything well that he is doing. Pride keeps us from realizing how dependent we really are on God and how much we need Him. Will we ever say, “God, thank you that I’m not like other people.”
Jesus said in Matthew 23:5 to the Pharisees...here’s what He had against them: He said, “Everything they do is for other people to see.” Everything they do is for other people to see. They were doing some good things and some right things, but they were doing it as a show. Their faith was just kind of lived out on the stage in the spotlight, and they began to think of themselves the way they portrayed themselves to be, even though it wasn’t real.
Now here’s what I would say. I think for us, as Christians living at this time, that social media makes this especially easy for us to slip into. You know, I’m not a fan of social media. I’m seeing that it is all about presenting the best version of yourself. It’s all about controlling appearances. It’s all about the outside. I mean, we just instinctively approach it that way.
But what you don’t take…you don’t take the picture that’s of what it is like on Monday morning when you’re just grumpy and you don’t want to go back into the world. And you are hiding in the corner. You don’t take a true picture of yourself for social media and say, “Here’s a selfie of me in the corner because I can’t be around other people.”
You don’t put that picture on Facebook or Twitter.
But we all have…we all have those times. But we control the image. We make sure that what people see is what we want them to see, and it reinforces in our minds and in our hearts that it’s really what’s on the outside. We start to judge ourselves by what other people are thinking of us, by the comments that we read.
All you know about me is what I want you to know about me.” It’s just… But we think we know each other when really all we know is this carefully controlled outward appearance that we put forward.
Another thing that happens when we make the focus of our faith the outside is that we start comparing ourselves with other people—just like this Pharisee does. And like the Pharisee we typically kind of compare down. We look at other people that we would perceive to be less important than we are, more messed up than we are. We compare ourselves to them; it leads to pride. Or we compare up sometimes, and it can lead to insecurity—which is in some ways a form of pride, because it’s really about being self-conscious, being more aware of ourselves than we should be.
The last thing is that when we put the focus of our faith on the outside. We always end up putting confidence in our accomplishments instead of in Jesus Christ. When we are trying to talk to people about faith or when we’re thinking about how good of a Christian we are, how spiritual we are, we point to what we do and what we’ve done. We point to what people see. The focus is on our accomplishments.
Five times this Pharisee managed to use the pronoun “I.” And he says, “I fast twice a week, and I give a tenth of all I get.” Leviticus 16 talks about fasting one day a year, as required by God’s Law. This guy fasts twice a week! Well, that’s all fine and good except for that it’s not inside-out. I mean, he’s not doing it out of his heart; he’s doing it to kind of beef up his religious resume, to let people know how spiritual he really is.
After introducing the Pharisee, Jesus continues with this parable. He gives us the second character. Verse 13…it’s the tax collector. It says, “The tax collector stood…” Look where he stands: “at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’”
The tax collector stands at a distance. What is that telling you? Well, that contrary to the Pharisee, this isn’t a show. Like, he’s not standing up for everybody to see him pray. He’s not doing damage control. He’s not, you know, trying to win approval. He stands at a distance.
“When is the last time you prayed at a distance?” meaning you are on your own. Not that other people could see it. Not because it was before a meal. Not because it was church time. But you prayed at a distance.
The Pharisee thinks God should be quite impressed with him because he follows all the rules and even adds to them. He creates his own rules and follows those. And he wants to impress God…but God is not impressed with those who want to impress Him. And instead we see this tax collector. He has no illusions of his righteousness, and he just says, “God have mercy on me.” I mean, what else can he say? What else can he do?
Jesus then tells this story. And then He kind of drops the bomb, and He turns everything upside-down and inside-out. And He rebukes the prayer of the Pharisee; He commends the prayer of the tax collector. Verse 14: “I tell you,” Jesus says, “that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.” And then He says in verse 15, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Not just his income as required by the law, but, like, if he goes and buys ten strawberries, he gives one of the strawberries. He tithes everything that he gets. So he’s…what You meant to say was he’s the one who went home justified, because just look at him, Jesus. I mean, just look at Him. Look at what he’s done. Look at how he’s dressed. Look at how he talks.
And then you start to realize that maybe what Jesus is looking at and what you and I are looking at…you know, two different things. Jesus says, “No, this tax collector is the one who went home right with God.”
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that people sometimes come to church…often times come to church…, looking for answers to some problems, looking for a supernatural solution to just a life challenge that they’re going through. Maybe they’re digging out of debt or trying to overcome an addiction, or they’re trying to rebuild a broken life, or making a marriage work—whatever it is. We’re all there to a degree. We go to church and we want some action steps. “Tell me what I need to do. Tell me the outside things. What do I need to change about my behavior? What are the…? What are my action steps? Just tell me that. What do I need to do?” And we just put the focus on the outside. And there’s a place for that, but what sharing today is: There is no substitute for humbling yourself before God.
Scripture: That when we are humble in heart, that’s what draws the attention of God. And Jesus says, “If you exalt yourself, you’re going to be humbled. If you humble yourself, you’ll be exalted.”
I was reading a story a while about Nik Wallenda. You might remember him.
In 2012 he walked the tightrope across Niagara Falls. In 2013 he became the first person to high-wire walk the Grand Canyon. He’s a committed follower of Jesus. I was reading that after these events where thousands of people gathered, the spotlight is on him. He’d be tempted towards pride. He goes around, and he just cleans up trash from the crowd for hours after the event is over. Here’s how he explains it. He says, “Three hours of cleaning up debris is good for my soul. Humility does not come naturally to me, so if I have to force myself into situations that are humbling, so be it. I do it because it’s a way to keep from tripping. As a follower of Jesus, I see Him washing the feet of others. I do it because if I don’t intentionally serve others, I’ll be serving nothing but my own ego.” He says, “Look, it doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve got to force myself into situations that are humbling.” He says, “If I don’t, it’s going to trip me up.”
The Bible uses the same example as this tightrope walker. It says, “Pride comes before a fall.” And he understands if he doesn’t put himself in a humbling mode…if he doesn’t humble himself, it could be dangerous quickly.
I’m not asking you to be humbled; I’m asking you to humble yourself.
Voluntary confession is a way of humbling yourself, and God exalts those who humble themselves. Now you can cover it up. You can put on a show. You can pretend like everything is good on the outside. You can continue to exalt yourself and act like everything is okay. And you’ll be humbled, but you won’t have humbled yourself.
Another way to humble myself is to give help selflessly to others. When I give it keeps me from being exalted by others, which leads to pride. It keeps my heart humble. When I give it reminds me of what God has given to me in my life. Without Him giving to me I would not be standing here today and loving life.
A third thing that I need to be doing is I need—and this is true for all of us—to treat others better than myself, very simply. Paul says in Philippians That God exalts those who humble themselves.
The most important thing for me that I have to pay attention to in my life is I need to be willing to ask for help. It’s a humbling thing. It can be humbling for me as a pastor to go to somebody else and say, “I need help,” because, “Hey, don’t you have the answers? I thought you were the one who…” No. No, I need help. It’s humbling to say, “I’ve made a mess of this. I don’t know how, but I got myself into this. I don’t really know what to do from here. I need help.” And I’ve learned the hard way. My tendency is to put it off, put it off, put it off, put it off, put it off, because I think I can fix it. I can’t fix it. The sooner I ask for help, the sooner I make room for God’s blessing. And you humble yourself; you say, “Okay, I need some help here.”
What are ways that you and I can humble ourselves?
He humbled Himself; God exalted Him. And this is the example that we follow.
Now is an opportunity to humble yourself, to receive the promise. On that day, when Jesus returns, everybody is going to be humbled. But now we need to humble ourselves. Let’s pray.
