Doug McMasters: Well, I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me over to the Gospel of Matthew.
Doug McMasters: The Gospel of Matthew will be in chapter 23.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 23.
Doug McMasters: We're heading back into the Gospel of Matthew, something we've been doing for well, since 2022, January 2022.
Doug McMasters: And we took a week last week with our commissioning service.
Doug McMasters: And now we're back into Matthew 23, right in the middle of what is called the Passion Week, which begins with the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem and moves through his cleansing to the temple, his last supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and the resurrection.
Doug McMasters: So the Gospel of Matthew slows down quite a bit here.
Doug McMasters: The previous chapters that we've looked at over the past few weeks have been filled with confrontations that Jesus has had with some of the religious leaders of Israel.
Doug McMasters: We see it increasingly becoming antagonistic.
Doug McMasters: Several of the groups of them have approached Jesus with taunting questions, not sincerely desiring to know the truth, but rather to catch Christ out and to find a reason to condemn him or to accuse him before the Romans for being a rebel.
Doug McMasters: And anytime Jesus would ask them a question, they would demur and refuse to answer, and also refuse to humble their hearts.
Doug McMasters: Today we're going to look at the first part of what is a longer discourse.
Doug McMasters: And here, in this first part that we're going to look at, Jesus addresses an issue that lays heavily on his heart.
Doug McMasters: Now notice verse 1, he speaks to the crowds and to his disciples.
Doug McMasters: And he begins to talk about the scribes and the Pharisees.
Doug McMasters: Now, if you look down at verse 13, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.
Doug McMasters: So beginning in verse 13, he directly addresses these religious leaders, but in the first 12 verses, he addresses the crowd about the religious leaders.
Doug McMasters: And what he points out to them are warnings about key areas of concern that are prevalient among these religious leaders that Christ once eradicated from his people.
Doug McMasters: Their hypocrisy, the heavy burdens they lay with uncaring hearts upon other people, and their hungering for accolades.
Doug McMasters: He wants his own people to be absent of any of those things and have in place of it true humility.
Doug McMasters: And so he instructs his people, using these religious leaders as sort of the background of what not to do, so that he might lead them to what they should be and do, humble people, just like their humble Savior.
Doug McMasters: So this morning, I want us to go through these first 12 verses and look at how Christ characterizes these religious leaders so that we might understand where not to approach our hearts and our hands, and so we might lead ourselves a different direction altogether, toward our Savior, and toward the transformation of our hearts to true humility and not to the kind of things that were characteristic of these men.
Doug McMasters: The first thing that Christ acknowledges that these men are are hypocrites, that their lives are full of hypocrisy.
Doug McMasters: Let's take a look at verses one and a few verses in.
Doug McMasters: He said, Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples.
Doug McMasters: The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses.
Doug McMasters: Therefore, do whatever they tell you and observe it, but don't do what they do, because they don't practice what they teach.
Doug McMasters: Is that when the word of God is presented, it is not meant simply to rest in our heads, but it is meant to filter through our lives and be characteristic of our behavior.
Doug McMasters: And what was characteristic of these men was that they would speak out but not do.
Doug McMasters: Now there's a couple challenges here for us.
Doug McMasters: One is this Moses seat.
Doug McMasters: What is that?
Doug McMasters: And what about this command to obey what they say?
Doug McMasters: Well, Moses seat, some people say was perhaps a real piece of furniture that was in the synagogue where someone who taught would actually sit as they proclaimed the Bible.
Doug McMasters: Or others took it as a metaphorical reference to this position of authority, where they interpret for the people the demands of the Mosaic law.
Doug McMasters: Either way, they are obviously speaking as though they were speaking the word of God, whether they were actually sitting on a Moses seat or if they were metaphorically speaking from the position of Moses and giving directives to the people.
Doug McMasters: But there's another challenge here for our understanding.
Doug McMasters: Do what they tell you.
Doug McMasters: Well, should we take that at face value right off the top?
Doug McMasters: Because in verse 16, Jesus says that these men are blind guides.
Doug McMasters: Well, do you follow a blind guide?
Doug McMasters: Should you follow a blind guide?
Doug McMasters: Well, one commentator, and I won't weary you with this, but he identified 10 possible approaches to dealing with this passage of scripture.
Doug McMasters: And at the end of this, and I'm going number one, number two, number three, number four, all the way to number 10, and I'm thinking, okay, where's this guy going to land?
Doug McMasters: And he said, none of them are satisfactory.
Doug McMasters: I'm like, oh, great, thanks.
Doug McMasters: I spent an hour for you to tell me I don't know.
Doug McMasters: I started the conversation that way.
Doug McMasters: Well, there's a lot of different ways that this could be taken.
Doug McMasters: It could be taken about their claim to sit and to speak the directives of God.
Doug McMasters: It could be talking about that we should listen to them only to the extent that they accurately portray the Word of God.
Doug McMasters: Or it could be just a statement of sarcasm or irony.
Doug McMasters: And there's a few other ones, or it could be for the purpose of just illuminating the second half.
Doug McMasters: That these men don't do what they teach.
Doug McMasters: And it's simply a sort of a figure speech or rhetorical device to bring that point to the forefront.
Doug McMasters: Whatever.
Doug McMasters: In any case, one thing is certain these men lay a responsibility of obedience upon people that they don't lay on themselves.
Doug McMasters: That is clear.
Doug McMasters: They require from everyone else things that they don't do at all.
Doug McMasters: They preach, but they don't practice.
Doug McMasters: They press, but they don't live out.
Doug McMasters: They will not take it up.
Doug McMasters: The Apostle Paul made a similar charge in the book of Romans, verse chapter two, and verse 21.
Doug McMasters: You who teach others, do you not teach yourself?
Doug McMasters: You who preach against stealing, do you steal?
Doug McMasters: You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?
Doug McMasters: You who abore idols, do you rob temples?
Doug McMasters: You who boast in the law?
Doug McMasters: You dishonor God by breaking the law.
Doug McMasters: Hypocrisy.
Doug McMasters: This hypocrisy is meant to be a word to us, a word of wisdom, that there is in our hearts, all of us, a tendency to tell others what they should do without spending any time telling ourselves what we ought to do.
Doug McMasters: And the Epistle of James picks that up a lot about the incompatibility of what people profess over against how they live or what they command as opposed to what they obey.
Doug McMasters: And he talked about just the incongruence of some of the ways that we might act.
Doug McMasters: With our tongue, we bless our Lord and Father, and with our tongue we curse people who are made in God's likeness.
Doug McMasters: Ouch.
Doug McMasters: So that hypocrisy of honoring God as sovereign creator and then blaspheming his creation.
Doug McMasters: Blessing and cursings come out of the same mouth, James said.
Doug McMasters: And brothers and sisters, things should not be this way, he tells us.
Doug McMasters: So the first indictment against these religious leaders is their hypocrisy.
Doug McMasters: But the second thing that he charges them with are the heavy loads that they place upon people.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse four.
Doug McMasters: They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them.
Doug McMasters: They pile on the precepts and they pile it on and they pile it on and they pile it on.
Doug McMasters: And the persons who are listening to them are feeling the weight of ever-increasing responsibility.
Doug McMasters: But instead of getting help, they just get someone who looks at them and says, Deal with it.
Doug McMasters: It's your responsibility.
Doug McMasters: And as they increasingly bow under the weight of that load, these men don't even want to help.
Doug McMasters: Now, it's not a picture of them necessarily saying, hey, let me take uh 20 pounds off of you and I'll carry it with you.
Doug McMasters: So much as it is, they're not looking at the person who's bearing the responsibilities and saying, let's make this load easier for you to carry.
Doug McMasters: If you're backpacking, for instance, and you put on your backpack, and there's all the straps around on your shoulders, and different ones that you need to pull to bring the backpack closer to you, and there's different ways that you weight what you put into your backpack, and there's the belt that you put on, and there's a certain sequence that you do, also that the backpack might fit you properly and not be an encumbrance to you while you're hiking.
Doug McMasters: Well, these guys would look at some novice backpacker and go, look at that.
Doug McMasters: They haven't even snapped their waistbelt at all.
Doug McMasters: And it's hanging down over their hips.
Doug McMasters: And look at that, they put the heaviest thing on the top of their backpack.
Doug McMasters: Unbelievable.
Doug McMasters: Not willing to adjust and help and assist.
Doug McMasters: So someone might carry a load in a way that would be more helpful.
Doug McMasters: This is talking about the kind of people that just feel like they've got the ministry, the heavy hammer, you know, who just want to say, here's the truth, deal with it, and don't think about how it's presented, and don't think about how it can be carried, but simply just think that their responsibility ended in the proclamation of it.
Doug McMasters: This heavy-hammered approach.
Doug McMasters: What's your problem?
Doug McMasters: Can't you carry that?
Doug McMasters: The scribes and the Pharisees are not willing to even lift a finger to help someone who's bowed under the burden.
Doug McMasters: And this is a negative statement about them in light of what's said about our Savior.
Doug McMasters: Jesus in Matthew 11 said, Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I'll give you rest.
Doug McMasters: These guys won't lift the finger to help the load shift to the proper proportions and places.
Doug McMasters: But Jesus said, If you're burdened, I'll give you rest.
Doug McMasters: He said, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I'm lowly and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.
Doug McMasters: For my yoke is easy, my burden is light.
Doug McMasters: Our Savior calls us to responsibilities of obedience, but he does so in such a way that these things are not hard for us, they're good for us.
Doug McMasters: And he talks about his yoke.
Doug McMasters: And this could either mean that it's a double yoke in which Christ gets in on one side and we in the other, and we plow the field with the power of his strength, or that the yoke, as a master craftsman, Jesus cuts and shapes and molds to fit the contours of our individual persons and personalities and lays them on us in a way that makes that burden carrying fitting and suitable to who we are.
Doug McMasters: In another passage speaking about Jesus in Matthew 12, a prophecy out of Isaiah 42 echoes into Christ's life.
Doug McMasters: He will not argue or shout, and no one will hear his voice in the streets.
Doug McMasters: He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick until he's led justice to victory.
Doug McMasters: The scribes and the Pharisees had no sensitivity of heart toward other people, no willingness to help, not a finger to lift.
Doug McMasters: It could never be said about them a crushed reed they will not break, and a smoldering wick they will not extinguish, because they were all about stomping on it.
Doug McMasters: But Jesus, he's helpful to burden people.
Doug McMasters: A bruised reed he will not break.
Doug McMasters: A smoldering wick he will not quench.
Doug McMasters: There's a reference to the gentle character of our Savior.
Doug McMasters: A reed, that's a relatively fragile plant.
Doug McMasters: And when it's bent over, bruised, if you will, he's not going to snap it and say, Let me get a better one.
Doug McMasters: Or if there's a bit of flax that's either being used to sort of tender and start a fire, or to keep an oil lamp lit, and it's not doing the job well enough, it's just simply smoldering away with smoke rather than bringing any heat and light into things.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't say, let me try again, let me get a different match.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't do that.
Doug McMasters: He gently blows on the smoking flax, he fans it into a flame.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't deal roughly with our weaknesses and our failures.
Doug McMasters: Rather, just the opposite.
Doug McMasters: He deals with us gently and tenderly and helping along the bruised reed to become strong enough, to move the smoldering flax to the point where it catches fire.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't deal harshly with us.
Doug McMasters: And this is what he's calling us to be, these kind of helpful people, sincerely serving the Lord without hypocrisy, but also sincerely helping others bear the burdens of life that they carry to help them along the way.
Doug McMasters: Let's turn over to 1 Thessalonians for a minute and just take a look at a passage of scripture.
Doug McMasters: That a lot of people think responsibilities of which lie simply upon church leadership.
Doug McMasters: But Paul doesn't speak this way at all.
Doug McMasters: He calls these things to all of us.
Doug McMasters: In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, in verse 14, he says this.
Doug McMasters: Warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone, see that no one repays evil for evil.
Doug McMasters: But always pursue what is good for one another and for all.
Doug McMasters: Be helpful.
Doug McMasters: And he lists different categories of people and how best to help those kind of people.
Doug McMasters: There's the idle, which is really just a slim understanding of the fullness of this word.
Doug McMasters: When you look through the whole context of this, is these are people who are idle because they're undisciplined.
Doug McMasters: This is these are people who are idle because they're irresponsible.
Doug McMasters: These are people that are idle because they're disorderly, not simply unable to work, but unwilling to work and therefore disorderly.
Doug McMasters: To these people, he says, warn them.
Doug McMasters: And then there's another group of people, encourage, right?
Doug McMasters: Comfort the discouraged.
Doug McMasters: These people who are worried or fearful or feeling inadequate or lacking confidence or despondent or sad or weak.
Doug McMasters: Comfort them.
Doug McMasters: And then there's the weak ones here.
Doug McMasters: Help the weak.
Doug McMasters: Those who are weak, maybe physically, weak maybe morally, make maybe weak spiritually, maybe weak relationally.
Doug McMasters: Help them out.
Doug McMasters: And then be patient with everyone.
Doug McMasters: Exhibit the fruit of the spirit in all of your social relationships.
Doug McMasters: So what is he saying here?
Doug McMasters: Be a helpful people.
Doug McMasters: Be the kind of people that will lift up a finger, that do help shift the load, that says, okay, let's start here.
Doug McMasters: Let's put this belt on, make sure it sits on the top of your hip bones.
Doug McMasters: There we go.
Doug McMasters: Take this weight, put it in the bottom of your pack, and let's put this one here and that one there.
Doug McMasters: Now let's let's put on these straps.
Doug McMasters: And you see those there?
Doug McMasters: Pull them a little tighter, leave a little bit of room above your shoulder.
Doug McMasters: There you go.
Doug McMasters: That's it.
Doug McMasters: Now pull those a little closer so things move closer to the back of your neck.
Doug McMasters: There you go.
Doug McMasters: That's perfect.
Doug McMasters: Not too much.
Doug McMasters: Now let's take this last one and strap it there.
Doug McMasters: You're ready to walk.
Doug McMasters: Let's go.
Doug McMasters: So, what do we do?
Doug McMasters: We think of people as they are.
Doug McMasters: We spend time analyzing, not making quick judgments.
Doug McMasters: We ask ourselves, who is this in front of me?
Doug McMasters: Is this somebody with a pattern of behavior of disrespectful, disloyal idleness?
Doug McMasters: Is this a person who is, well, discouraged?
Doug McMasters: Is this a person who's weak?
Doug McMasters: Is this a person?
Doug McMasters: How am I supposed to deal with this person?
Doug McMasters: And then what is the suitable help that I can bring into this relationship?
Doug McMasters: Maybe I need to warn.
Doug McMasters: Maybe I need to comfort.
Doug McMasters: Maybe I need to assist.
Doug McMasters: But in everything I need to be patient.
Doug McMasters: In every way I need to be helpful.
Doug McMasters: This is what the Lord is calling us to, and He's making this statement by way of the contrast to these arrogant, hypocritical, unwilling to help religious leaders.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go back to Matthew and see as he continues this, because there's more to dig out of how these men are acting.
Doug McMasters: Not only are they hypocritical and laying heavy burdens on people without a finger to help them, but they also hunger for accolades.
Doug McMasters: Jesus says, They do everything to be seen by others.
Doug McMasters: They enlarge their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
Doug McMasters: They love the place of honor at banquets, the front seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called rabbi by people.
Doug McMasters: The whole focus of their religious activity was horizontal, man centered, well, self centered more, and not God centered.
Doug McMasters: They did all of their religious activities for the purpose of being seen by others.
Doug McMasters: The phlactories they Broaden the tassels they lengthen, the places of honor that they desire.
Doug McMasters: And we hear about marketplaces and synagogues and rabbis and all of these Jewish terms that point to us what's in their hearts.
Doug McMasters: And the Lord says, just don't do what they do, don't make this the direction of your life.
Doug McMasters: They do all of it to be seen because there's something they love.
Doug McMasters: They love the best seats.
Doug McMasters: They love the greetings.
Doug McMasters: And when they come over to dinner, they're not looking forward to a good bite to eat.
Doug McMasters: They're not looking to the warmth of your hospitality.
Doug McMasters: They're not looking for the engagement of your conversation.
Doug McMasters: They're looking for the please sit here honor.
Doug McMasters: So that others might see them brought up to the front or sitting at the highest place.
Doug McMasters: They would come into some churches and they would see the thrones on the platform and go, now that's a seat I want to sit in.
Doug McMasters: Or they would think about going to Colonial Boston and saying, Oh, people bought their pews.
Doug McMasters: I know which pew I would want to buy.
Doug McMasters: Or they would look at the size of a church and say, That's the church I would want to be the leader of.
Doug McMasters: Look how large it is in relationship to all the others.
Doug McMasters: Or they would hear of a conference coming up and saying, Is my name at the top?
Doug McMasters: Am I the one who's the featured speaker?
Doug McMasters: And so they entered into the synagogues with all of their theatrics on full display for everyone to see and for them to admire.
Doug McMasters: They love the first and best seats.
Doug McMasters: They love the greetings that match their self-perceived greatness.
Doug McMasters: And whether they walked through the temple or they walked through the marketplace or they walked into the synagogue, Rabbi, father, teacher, oh that's what they love.
Doug McMasters: Now, what's the application for us in this?
Doug McMasters: Well, it's pretty simple.
Doug McMasters: Don't do it.
Doug McMasters: Don't do that.
Doug McMasters: You know, some things are best understood by what you don't do.
Doug McMasters: You read the Ten Commandments?
Doug McMasters: Don't make a graven image.
Doug McMasters: Don't, don't, don't, don't.
Doug McMasters: Here's one of those.
Doug McMasters: Don't do the works they do.
Doug McMasters: Don't love the things they love.
Doug McMasters: As Jesus is speaking to this crowd, he's calling his disciples to something different than all of this.
Doug McMasters: Different than this hypocrisy.
Doug McMasters: Different than this heavy burden laying without a finger to help.
Doug McMasters: Different than this sort of hungering after all of the accolades that could be given among men.
Doug McMasters: One person put it this way: he said, Great, greatnessism is a major spiritual disease.
Doug McMasters: And if it's not cured, it'll plague the church and will destroy the soul.
Doug McMasters: I agree.
Doug McMasters: It reduces us to the worst of our passions.
Doug McMasters: So what does the Lord call us to?
Doug McMasters: Well, that's what the second part of this passage is about in verse 8, all the way to verse 12.
Doug McMasters: You're not to be called rabbi because you have one teacher.
Doug McMasters: And you're all brothers and sisters.
Doug McMasters: You're not to call anyone on earth your father because you have one father who is in heaven.
Doug McMasters: You're not to be called instructors either, because you have one instructor, the Messiah.
Doug McMasters: The Lord uses these religious leaders' prideful actions as a backdrop of what true discipleship looks like.
Doug McMasters: Because the door to heaven is only small enough for the humble.
Doug McMasters: And the haughty hearts, no matter how loud they might be able to proclaim themselves, and no matter what titles they acquire for themselves, they're not going to be able to get in.
Doug McMasters: And so Jesus here is challenging that self-promotion and this use of titles by saying that we, as his followers, are to be different.
Doug McMasters: Don't seek these titles.
Doug McMasters: Don't seek rabbi, father, instructor.
Doug McMasters: He said our calling is not to be called anything special.
Doug McMasters: That's our calling.
Doug McMasters: And if you want to be pursuing anything, pursue servanthood rather than titles and prominence.
Doug McMasters: And so his disciples, he tells us, are not to insist upon titles or positions of status.
Doug McMasters: But were to recognize and to affirm the acceptable status of no status at all.
Doug McMasters: And he gives us two reasons.
Doug McMasters: First of all, you're all brothers and sisters.
Doug McMasters: And secondly, you've got one father, one instructor, Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Well, let's look at this.
Doug McMasters: We have no need to be chasing after these titles and accolades of being called a teacher because, well, we have one father in heaven and one instructor who is the Messiah, the Christ.
Doug McMasters: Matthew's gospel, Jesus uses the word father a lot, but it's always with reference to God the Father, not to a human.
Doug McMasters: Seventeen times in the Sermon on the Mount, your heavenly father.
Doug McMasters: Now, if we call our earthly dads father, I don't think Jesus is telling us not to do that, right?
Doug McMasters: That's not what this is about.
Doug McMasters: This is about not calling our earthly Bible teachers father, is what this is about.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because if we give this kind of prominence to a person, there's going to be some confusion and some commingling of that human with the authority and power and the soul-reserved place of honor that God Himself deserves.
Doug McMasters: That's why.
Doug McMasters: Because you have one Father in heaven.
Doug McMasters: And you have one instructor.
Doug McMasters: Calvin said this.
Doug McMasters: He said, Christ is alone the schoolmaster of the church.
Doug McMasters: And he said, the sum of this teaching is that all should depend on the lips of Christ alone.
Doug McMasters: He is who we follow.
Doug McMasters: That's the idea here.
Doug McMasters: Jesus in John 13 said, You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, I am.
Doug McMasters: He's our only teacher.
Doug McMasters: God is our only Father.
Doug McMasters: Now, He does call people to teach the Great Commission, go into all the world and what?
Doug McMasters: Teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you, but it's all things that I've commanded you, not all things they think they should be preaching.
Doug McMasters: Preach Christ and what Christ wants.
Doug McMasters: So Christ is telling us this here so that the church might be easily rid of the cult of personality.
Doug McMasters: And boy, do we need to hear that in our age, in all kinds of circles.
Doug McMasters: Went to visit her in her home.
Doug McMasters: Dear lady, she had this like eight and a half by eleven.
Doug McMasters: Well, it's probably bigger than that because it's A4 size, whatever that is.
Doug McMasters: I'm not going to go into the details of John MacArthur sitting on her piano.
Doug McMasters: And I thought, well, that's interesting.
Doug McMasters: I didn't think a whole lot about it.
Doug McMasters: She appreciated John MacArthur's preaching, but having him on your piano is a little weird.
Doug McMasters: And then sometime later, she asked me a question about Genesis chapter six and the daughters of men and the sons of God.
Doug McMasters: And what is all of that?
Doug McMasters: What are the Nephilim and all this?
Doug McMasters: And so I spent several hours just crafting up like there are different views about what this is about.
Doug McMasters: Here's this view, and here's its strengths and weaknesses, and here's this view and its strengths and weaknesses, and here's another view and its strengths and weaknesses.
Doug McMasters: And I gave it to her, and she she talked to me again and she said, Well, what's John MacArthur's position?
Doug McMasters: And I'm like, she said, Well, that's the one I'm gonna believe.
Doug McMasters: Ouch! Wait a second.
Doug McMasters: He is not your divine interpreter.
Doug McMasters: Now I worked with John MacArthur and served him for eight years as a director of all the correspondence that would come into grace to you.
Doug McMasters: And I had the responsibility of replying on his behalf.
Doug McMasters: So whenever he and I agreed, I would say the Bible says, and whenever we disagreed, I'd say John believes.
Doug McMasters: And I was accurate.
Doug McMasters: I'm being a little jokey there, but nobody is meant to take that place.
Doug McMasters: Paul commended the Bereans, did he not?
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because they're like, is that true, Paul?
Doug McMasters: Because I I need to see it.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: I need to see it.
Doug McMasters: They didn't go, I'm a Paul.
Doug McMasters: We need to preach Christ.
Doug McMasters: We need to preach what Christ wants.
Doug McMasters: Christ is the head of the church.
Doug McMasters: God is the Father.
Doug McMasters: Christ is our instructor.
Doug McMasters: Nobody else.
Doug McMasters: There was an account in the 1800s of two Americans who went to London to hear two very famous preachers preach.
Doug McMasters: And in the morning they went to listen to one of them.
Doug McMasters: And they were talking to each other afterwards, and they said, So what do you think of the sermon?
Doug McMasters: And the guy replied, What a great preacher.
Doug McMasters: Fair enough, he was.
Doug McMasters: And again, the question, what'd you think?
Doug McMasters: And the reply was, What a great savior.
Doug McMasters: Do you hear the difference?
Doug McMasters: We have one father, God.
Doug McMasters: We have one instructor, the Messiah.
Doug McMasters: But the other reason, right?
Doug McMasters: There's another reason here why you're not to be called rabbi because you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters.
Doug McMasters: Yes, there may be different roles for people to have in the church.
Doug McMasters: We all have different gifts and different responsibilities for the building up of the whole, but there's no different status.
Doug McMasters: Okay?
Doug McMasters: There's an equality of status.
Doug McMasters: We're all family with one father.
Doug McMasters: And so Jesus' counsel is here is that we press forward with that status of equality.
Doug McMasters: Now we may say, good morning, Pastor Doug, but pastor means shepherd, and shepherd's not a really highly thought role in any culture, and it certainly wasn't highly thought of in this culture.
Doug McMasters: Shepherds were, well, they were kind of rough characters, and so are most pastors.
Doug McMasters: But there's nothing grandiose about being called a pastor.
Doug McMasters: There's nothing we should be doing to exalt others in any way, shape, or form.
Doug McMasters: Because we are given a special and equal status of the family of God.
Doug McMasters: And we treat each other as family, not some special thing.
Doug McMasters: We have a membership matters class, and if you're just attending here and you want to know more about our church and how to become a member, you can listen for and attend our membership matters classes, which we hold periodically and hopefully are going to be having soon.
Doug McMasters: There was a group that came in, and they all came from churches that where there was this sort of status of authority granted to certain preachers.
Doug McMasters: And I was aghast at what I heard them talk about.
Doug McMasters: That there'd be a procession behind the preacher as he made his way to the throne that was up on the podium, and he wouldn't even carry his own Bible.
Doug McMasters: Somebody would carry it for him.
Doug McMasters: You know?
Doug McMasters: And I'm like, what?
Doug McMasters: What do you mean?
Doug McMasters: The guy didn't have any arms?
Doug McMasters: What?
Doug McMasters: And then one time we were having a fellowship meal, and I love to cook.
Doug McMasters: It's fun.
Doug McMasters: I don't like cleaning up, but I like to cook.
Doug McMasters: I came out of the kitchen and I'm like grubby, you know.
Doug McMasters: And one of the guys who was part of that group comes out and goes, I've never seen that before.
Doug McMasters: I'm like, what?
Doug McMasters: What do I got on me?
Doug McMasters: And he said, I've never seen a pastor like in the kitchen.
Doug McMasters: They're always like at the head table, sitting there.
Doug McMasters: We all have to serve him.
Doug McMasters: I'm like, no, it's not how it works.
Doug McMasters: We all serve the Lord Jesus and we all serve one another.
Doug McMasters: We don't scramble for these claims and titles of prominence.
Doug McMasters: We don't want to obscure the unique role and place of God our Father and the Lord Jesus as our teacher.
Doug McMasters: We don't want to get in the way of that.
Doug McMasters: No.
Doug McMasters: There's not to be any distortion of our family relationship as brothers and sisters.
Doug McMasters: So if it means refusing these titles, then let's refuse them if they get in the way.
Doug McMasters: Jesus gives two final points of application here.
Doug McMasters: He says here that we're not to be called these things.
Doug McMasters: And then in verse 11, the greatest among you will be your servant.
Doug McMasters: Application one.
Doug McMasters: Application two: whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Doug McMasters: John Chrysostom said about this.
Doug McMasters: He said, in this passage, Jesus plucks up pride by the roots, yanks it out of the ground.
Doug McMasters: And uprooting it must start here, in the realization that the greatest among us is the servant.
Doug McMasters: Which is why Paul ran when he was looking for a way to help the church at Philippi understand humility and service, he ran to Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And he says, This adopt the same attitude as that as Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.
Doug McMasters: Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant and taking on the likeness of humanity.
Doug McMasters: And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on a cross.
Doug McMasters: You want an example of how to live?
Doug McMasters: Look to your Savior.
Doug McMasters: The second point of application: heed the warning of pride and walk in the promise of God's welcome of the humble.
Doug McMasters: Because he says here, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus intentionally ends with this sort of forward view brought into the present, telling us that the last day is going to be affected by our hearts now.
Doug McMasters: And he tells us to listen because the day will come when you will either be welcomed and exalted in the shared glory of the victory of Christ, or you will stand there thinking you're about to be honored and you're going to be brought low into humility.
Doug McMasters: Depart from me, you accursed, I never knew you, Jesus said in Matthew 7.
Doug McMasters: Jesus is here, is calling us to heed the warning of haughtiness and to welcome humility.
Doug McMasters: Pride is a deadly sin.
Doug McMasters: How do we find a humble heart?
Doug McMasters: C.S.
Doug McMasters: Lewis made a great example of what that looks like in his one of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Doug McMasters: And there's a little boy that gets introduced to us right away, the very first sentence, a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrub.
Doug McMasters: And he said he was called that and he almost deserved it.
Doug McMasters: Why did he deserve that name?
Doug McMasters: Because he was an awful boy with an awful name.
Doug McMasters: I hope nobody's here named Eustace.
Doug McMasters: Or Scrub for that matter.
Doug McMasters: What was his problem?
Doug McMasters: Pride.
Doug McMasters: His pride revealed itself in his complaining.
Doug McMasters: His pride revealed itself in his persistent disbelief, refusing to believe in Narnia, even though he sailed upon its seas, just like people do today.
Doug McMasters: I don't see a God.
Doug McMasters: I don't believe in God.
Doug McMasters: You're breathing his air.
Doug McMasters: You're living on his world.
Doug McMasters: And Eustace makes his way to an unexplored island and finds there a dragon's sort of horde.
Doug McMasters: And in greed and arrogance and pride, he he goes into it and he finds himself turned into a dragon.
Doug McMasters: And all it does is increase his greediness and increase his pride and increase his arrogance.
Doug McMasters: And he turns from being a human into a dragon, not only in physical features, but in heart.
Doug McMasters: And in time, just to shorten the story, he realizes that he doesn't want to be a dragon anymore.
Doug McMasters: He's been selfish and greedy and proud in his actions because he's selfish and greedy and proud in his heart.
Doug McMasters: And he's stricken with this hunger to be human again.
Doug McMasters: And so what does he do?
Doug McMasters: He peels and pulls and drags away the skin of the dragon and looks into the water and the scales of dragon are all over him again.
Doug McMasters: And he peels and pulls and scrapes and scratches away the skin of the dragon and looks into the water and he looks like a dragon again.
Doug McMasters: He said, as soon as I looked at myself in the water, I realized what I was doing was no good.
Doug McMasters: And finally, Aslan, the lion, the representative of Christ in this allegorical story.
Doug McMasters: The lion says, You're going to have to let me undress you.
Doug McMasters: When Eustace was changed into a dragon, and he realized for the first time that his whole life was full of self-love and self-admiration and self-will, and he tried to get rid of this besetting sin of pride that lingered in this dragon skin that he wore, that he could peel it away only to find it still there.
Doug McMasters: Peel it away to find it still there.
Doug McMasters: And every time he removed a layer of scaly, prideful skin, he couldn't turn the dragon back into a boy.
Doug McMasters: So he had a choice to make.
Doug McMasters: Was he going to continue to do the futile effort of self-reformation?
Doug McMasters: Or was he going to surrender himself to Aslan the Lion and let the lion undress him?
Doug McMasters: And he's relating to Edmund.
Doug McMasters: He said, I just lay flat down on my back.
Doug McMasters: Didn't do a thing.
Doug McMasters: And let him do it.
Doug McMasters: To let the lion tear away his dragon skin.
Doug McMasters: And the lion began to claw.
Doug McMasters: And he said, the first tear he made, it was so deep I thought it went right into my heart.
Doug McMasters: Because it did.
Doug McMasters: He recognized the inability to remove the dragon's skin.
Doug McMasters: That he had to and must call upon Aslan, the lion, to perform the surgery.
Doug McMasters: He was the only one that could turn him from a dragon into a human.
Doug McMasters: And we are exactly the same.
Doug McMasters: Left to the devices and desires of our own hearts, we would turn even the worship of God into a place to make ourselves look better than others.
Doug McMasters: But when we understand a humble Savior who is a helpful Savior, who is willing to be made nothing for the sake of the life of others, we can come to Him and lay flat on our back and watch Him perform a surgery that doesn't just take the skin off, it takes the dragon out of the heart.
Doug McMasters: And this is why on the final page of the book, the narrator says about Eustace, you would never know him for the same boy.
Doug McMasters: He was that different.
Doug McMasters: And this is what salvation in Jesus Christ does.
Doug McMasters: He makes you so you would never be known as the same girl.
Doug McMasters: You would never be known as the same boy.
Doug McMasters: You would never be known as the same woman.
Doug McMasters: You would never be known as the same man.
Doug McMasters: Not because of your self-reformation, but because of the surgery that the Savior does.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for these words of Christ to us, to call us away from a behavior that would be detrimental and dangerous and destructive to us all, and to approach Him with the hearts that we have, with the need to be made new as we do.
Doug McMasters: And we pray, Father, that we might continue to look to our Savior, who is our life and is our teacher, and who is our model, to realize that He is meek and lowly of heart, to realize that He means for us to be sincere and helpful and caring and family.
Doug McMasters: Lord, we pray that these things might burn not only into our minds but into our very souls for your glory's sake.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.