John Ortberg, in his book Love Beyond Reason, talks about the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, who pulled into a service station to get gas. He went inside to pay, and when he came out he noticed his wife engaged in a deep discussion with the service station attendant. It turned out that she knew him. In fact, back in high school, before she met her husband, she used to date this man.
The CEO got in the car, and the two drove in silence. He was feeling pretty good about himself when he finally spoke: “I bet I know what you were thinking. I bet you were thinking you're glad you married me, a Fortune 500 CEO, and not him, a service station attendant.”
“No, I was thinking if I'd married him, he'd be a Fortune 500 CEO and you'd be a service station attendant.” (John Ortberg in Love Beyond Reason, Zondervan, 1998, pp. 142-43)
I think that man had an overrated view of himself, which certainly didn’t earn him any respect from his wife.
So how does a man earn respect? How does a woman achieve honor? How do any of us gain the admiration of others? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Philippians 2, Philippians 2, where we find the source of true honor and respect in the example of Jesus Christ Himself.
Philippians 2:5-7 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 [or held onto], but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (ESV)
Jesus, who is God Himself, the King of the Universe, did not hang onto the privilege or prestige of that position. Instead, He let it all go. He emptied Himself, verse 7 says. In other words, the King became a servant!
Now, don’t get me wrong. Jesus did NOT cease to be God when He became a man. No! He simply ceased to enjoy the privileges of that position. He was still omnipotent, all powerful, but He chose to live in dependence upon the Father. He was still omnipresent, everywhere present at the same time, but He chose to dwell in a single body. He was still omniscient, all knowing, but He chose to know only what the Father revealed to Him. Jesus was still Lord, but He chose to become a servant.
Josephus, the 1st Century Jewish Historian, talks about a king who took off his kingly robes and put on the clothes of a beggar to live among his people (Antiquities 10,11). Well, that’s exactly what Jesus did when He became a man. He took off His Kingly robes and put on the rags of a beggar. He made Himself nothing in this world’s eyes.
When concert artists do a concert, they usually present a rider, which spells out what they expect from their hosts. Beyonce, who performed in this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, has such a rider, and just a few years ago (2013), The Daily Star obtained a copy of her rider. It includes the following demands: All crew members must wear 100 percent cotton clothing; alkaline water must be chilled to 21 degrees and served with $900 titanium straws; bathrooms must have new toilet seats and red toilet paper at every venue; hand-carved ice balls should be made after each show to cool her throat; and the host must provide newly refurbished, luxury dressing rooms with enough space that's typically used to accommodate entire sports teams. (“Beyonce’s ‘Diva’ Demand Revealed in Alleged Tour Rider,” Huffington Post, May 2, 2013; www.PreachingToday.com)
Beyonce wants to enjoy the privileges of her superstar status. She is very popular, so she demands and gets what she wants.
In sharp contrast, when Jesus came to earth, He demanded nothing. Philip Yancey says, “God’s visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feeding trough. Indeed, [His appearance] may have had more animal than human witnesses. A mule could have stepped on him.” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Zondervan, 1995)
Jesus did not demand the trappings of His exalted position when He came to this earth. Instead, He emptied Himself. He let it all go, and He made Himself low. He humbled Himself to the lowest position a man could go.
Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (ESV)
Jesus hung naked on a cross, where He died a horrible death. This was a punishment reserved for the worst of criminals, among the lowest of the low, in the scum of humanity.
It reminds me of what Witold Pilecki, a Polish army captain, did in September of 1940. He did the unthinkable and snuck into Auschwitz. Pilecki knew that something was terribly wrong with the concentration camp and as a committed Christian he couldn't sit by and watch. He wanted to get information on the horrors of Auschwitz, but he knew he could only do that from the inside.
So his superiors approved a daring plan. They provided a false identity card with a Jewish name, and then Pilecki allowed the Germans to arrest him during a routine Warsaw street roundup. Pilecki was sent to Auschwitz and assigned inmate number 4859. Pilecki, a husband and father of two, later said, “I bade farewell to everything I had known on this earth.” He became just like any other prisoner – despised, beaten, and threatened with death.
Then beginning in 1941, prisoner number 4859 started working on his dangerous mission. He organized the inmates into resistance units, boosting morale and documenting the war crimes. Pilecki used couriers to smuggle out detailed reports on the atrocities. By 1942, he had also helped organize a secret radio station using scrap parts. The information he supplied from inside the camp provided Western allies with key intelligence information about Auschwitz.
In the spring of 1943, Pilecki joined the camp bakery where he was able to overpower a guard and escape. Once free, he finished his report, estimating that around 2 million people had been killed at Auschwitz. When the reports reached London, officials thought he was exaggerating. Of course today we know he was right. The current Polish Ambassador to the U.S. described Pilecki as a “diamond among Poland's heroes.” (Rob Eshman, "The man who snuck into Auschwitz," JewishJournal.com, 12-5-12; www. PreachingToday.com)
The captain became a criminal in the eyes of the Germans, and that’s exactly what Jesus did for us when he snuck onto our planet. The King became a servant; but more than that, the King became a criminal in the eyes of the world. And so Jesus suffered and died on a cross to rescue us from the prison camp of our sin. He took the shame and humiliation of our sin, so we could be clothed with the glory of His righteousness.
All He asks is that we believe in Him. All He asks is that we trust Him to save us from our sins. How about it? Won’t you call upon the name of the Lord today? Won’t you ask Him to save you right now?
Jesus didn’t come to tyrannize you. He didn’t come to stomp you in the ground and make you feel bad. NO! He came to earth so He could take you to heaven. He made Himself low to lift you up.
Please, trust Him today. Trust the One who did not hang onto His privileged position. Trust the One who let it all go and made Himself low.
Then, if you want true respect, if you want real honor and the admiration of others, follow His example.
HUMBLE YOURSELF LIKE JESUS DID.
Embrace His attitude. Adopt His way of thinking. For true respect comes not by demanding it, but by letting it go like Jesus did.
Ramez Attalah, who is now the general director of The Bible Society of Egypt, recalls the time when he attended the Lausanne Conference for Christian leaders way back in 1974. As a young leader, he was thrilled to be with top-notch leaders from around the world, but the real impact on his life did not come from the conference itself. It came on his flight home.
It was a long flight back to Canada, and Ramez had a lot of papers to go through. He had taken a bunch of business cards from all sorts of [important Christian leaders] that he had met. And as he looked through his cards from Lausanne, he noticed one that was not very well printed. He looked at it carefully, and he says, “I still get emotional when I remember this story. It broke me.”
At Lausanne, they met in groups of ten every night in the dorm rooms to pray and share together. The first night the leaders in Ramez’ group introduced themselves: president of a seminary, pastor of a church with 2,000 people, and so on. Everybody was showing how great they were. Ramez told the group he led the InterVarsity movement in the province of Quebec. It was actually a very small ministry, but it sounded good. One African man in the group simply said, “I'm a pastor in Kenya.”
During the week they all listened to each other. “I didn't pay much attention to the pastor from Kenya,” Ramez recalls. “I wanted to get close to the important people.” But Ramez was moved by the Kenyan pastor's stories of how God had touched him as a school teacher during the African revival and changed his life. Ramez thought he was a deep man and pictured him working in a humble little village in Africa.
But when Ramez picked up his business card on the plane back to Canada, he discovered that it said “Festo Olang, Archbishop of Kenya.” Olang was a man who could pull rank on anybody in the group. He was a bigwig, but no one knew it. He didn't tell them. He did not use his position to secure his identity. Instead, he presented himself as a simple pastor who loved Jesus. Ramez says, “I am still moved to the core when I remember this incident [forty]-two years later. I said to myself on the plane, that's the kind of leader I want to be. That's leadership, Jesus-style.” (Ramez Attalah, "Lausanne: A Personal Narrative", www.PreachingToday.com)
Jesus made it very clear when He said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but serve, and to give his life as a ransom for ‘many’” (Mark 10:43-45).
Don’t demand respect. Instead, let it go and make yourself low. Humble yourself like Jesus did. Then, and only then, you will…
FIND TRUE HONOR.
Then you will earn real respect. Then you will gain the admiration of others. That’s because you find the highest respect only in the lowest places, only in the place of humility and service.
That’s where Jesus found it. When Jesus lowered himself to the lowest place He could go, God exalted Him to the highest place in the universe. God gave Him the highest power.
Philippians 2:9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name… (ESV)
Your name carries with it some authority. When you sign a check, your name authorizes the payment of certain funds. The president’s name carries even more authority. When he signs a bill out of congress, it becomes law! Your name or my name on that bill wouldn’t mean a hill of beans. Well, Jesus has been given a name (or authority) that is above all other names – above your name, above my name, even above the president’s name. Jesus has the highest name. There is no one who has more authority and power than He.
Ephesians 1:20-22 says, “[God] raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he placed all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things…”
God gave Jesus the highest power, and God gave Jesus the highest respect, as well.
Philippians 2:10 …so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth… (ESV)
No creature is exempt. All the heavenly hosts, angels and demons, will bow before Jesus. All those who dwell on the earth will bow before Jesus. Even those who have died and are buried under the earth will one day bow before Jesus. There is coming a day when every created thing will submit to Christ. It’s not a question of IF they will do it. It’s only a question of WHEN.
How about you? Will you bow before Christ today, voluntarily? Or will you wait until you are forced to? Let me tell you: If you will humble yourself in His presence today, He will lift you up. That’s His promise to you. But if you wait until you’re forced to submit, that can only mean pain and great sorrow for you in the future.
Count on it – You, along with every other creature, will bow before Jesus, either now or in the future, because God gave Him the highest power. God gave Him the highest respect, and God gave him the Highest praise.
Philippians 2:11 …and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (ESV)
That word for “confess” means that they will emphatically agree (ex-omologeo). They will confess openly and out loud that Jesus Christ Lord.
Let’s practice, shall we? On the count of three (3), shout, “JESUS IS LORD!” Are you ready? 1, 2, 3: JESUS IS LORD!
Imagine, every created thing, in all the universe, shouting that someday. Won’t that be glorious?!
When Jesus lowered Himself to the lowest place He could go, God exalted Him to the highest place in the universe. God gave Him the highest power. God gave Him the highest respect, and God gave Him the highest praise.
Jesus found the highest honor in the lowest place, and that’s where we find it as well. We find honor in the place of humility. We find respect only in the place of service.
Saul and Pilar Cruz, a married couple who founded Armonia Ministries in Mexico City, launched their ministry by planting a church on the edge of a vast garbage dump. Starting the church had its challenges. In particular, the people had a difficult time trusting Saul's leadership. Although Saul is a gifted strategist and thinker, he often appeared aloof. By his own admission, at that point, Saul was unwilling to plunge into the pain and poverty of his people.
But all of that changed one Sunday morning when someone burst into their worship service with a frantic need: the local sewage system had started leaking and then flooding the street. As the sewage continued to gush, the street was on the verge of collapse. The crisis also threatened to sweep away dozens of nearby homes. To make matters worse, the city wouldn't respond for at least three days.
Saul and a local engineer organized the onlookers and church members to stop traffic and make sandbags. After working frantically for nearly fifteen hours, by three o'clock the next morning they had finally stopped the flow of sewage. It was cold and drizzling, and Saul was shivering. Exhausted, covered with mud and sewage, Saul and his church members emerged from the pit and walked back to the church. Some of the women had heated water so the volunteers could wash off the filth.
As they gathered together, Saul started to cry. “I'm sorry,” he said, “but I need to pray. I need to thank God, because he just saved us. He saved you. He saved me. Can we pray?” Then Saul put out his hands as they all held hands and knelt to pray. By the time they had finished praying, Saul had earned their trust, becoming their leader and their friend. Later on, Saul would comment, “People need to see you're for real—that you really care for them, that you're even ready to put your life on the edge for them.” (Leadership Journal, “Dumping Ground: An Interview with Saul Cruz”, October, 2007; www.PreachingToday.com)
Saul gained respect not on the stage, but in the sewer.
Men, do you want your wives to respect you? Serve them. Leaders, do you want followers to respect you? Serve them. Everyone, do you want people to respect you? Serve them. Find the highest honor in the lowest places.
At St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, 637 steps lead up into its magnificent dome. About 9/10ths of the way up, just at the base of the dome, there is an exit that brings a person outside onto a walkway, with a marvelous view of the city. Then, if you want to go higher, to the top of the dome, you have to go back inside through a small door, over which is this sign: “GO DOWN TO GO UP.”
That’s the way it is in life: Go down to go up. Or as the Bible puts it, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (1 Peter 5:6).
