Amen. Well, if you turn to your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23, we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 12 this morning, Matthew chapter 23 verses 1 through 12. Last time we saw our Lord in His final dialogue with the public at large, and the last thing He brought before them to consider was who He was, as He demonstrated powerfully from the scriptures that they teach that the Bible in fact demands that Jesus is both the Son of David, and so the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, and that He must be the scriptures demanded. He must be the Son of God, the divine, the eternal, the perfect image and exact form of God being of one substance with the Father. This is who Jesus is, and this is what He showed His disciples and the crowds from the scriptures, that He has come down, that He has taken upon Himself a human nature and revealed Himself in human flesh in order to save us from our sins. In order to purchase for us eternal life, that was the last public dialogue in Christ earthly ministry, and this morning's text as I pointed out last time, He shifts from a dialogue mode from questions and answers, there's no more questions and answers. He's now in the office of a prophet proclaiming officially, formally, a prophetic, what's called a prophetic oracle of woe on the people, but before He does that in our 12 verses He's going to instruct His, those in the crowd who wore His disciples, He's going to instruct them how they must put off these vile sins and shun them, these vile sins that have brought their nation, the Jewish people to the brink of destruction, and how they must put on, and therefore how we must put on the contrary virtues in order that we might be saved and might live in a way that is pleasing to our God. So let's pray as we turn to God's Word this morning. Father, we thank You again for this Word. We pray that You would open it to our hearts and minds, that You would open our hearts and minds to it, that it would find by Your mercy and grace good ground in us, and that it would be like a seed and sprout up growing in some 30 and 60 and a hundredfold. Bless Your people, make us hearers, believers, lovers, and doers of Your Word, for we ask Him in Jesus' name, amen. Here now the word of the Lord again from Matthew chapter 23 beginning in verse 1, this is God's Holy Word. Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples saying, the scribes in the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do, according to their works, for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their factories broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places it feasts, the best seats in the synagogue, greetings in the comarqued places and to be called by men, rabbi, rabbi. But you do not be called rabbi. For one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are old brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your Father. For one is your Father. He was in heaven. And do not be called teachers. For one is your teacher, the Christ, but he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. May the Lord establish this word in our hearts this morning. I want you to notice, first of all, this morning the constancy of Scripture. I want you to notice the constancy of Scripture. We have to look at the scribes and Pharisees. One final time we see them in verses one and two of our texts, where Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Well, we've talked about them before. This is the final time, really, this chapter that Jesus is going to deal with the scribes and the Pharisees. And they are the one group that he interacts with more than any other group in the Scriptures. I want to point that out to you one final time. Remember the scribes and the Pharisees are the conservatives in Israel. They're the separatists, the purists, the ones who are resisting, secularization, Hellenization, the Greek abiding, the paganizing of the culture of the Jews because they're part of the Roman empire. The Pharisees have sworn to not be absorbed into that to continue to keep the Scriptures. And of course they begin to add traditions that even Trump's the Scriptures will look at that in the moment. But they were at least this party on paper who wanted to do this to stay true to the word. They were that group that we would say were wanting to live by the Bible. Contrast with this, with the Sadduceys who rejected almost all of the Scriptures except the first five books didn't believe in a lot of other things. The Herodians who were the pure political party that just wanted power from Roman would make any compromise and the zealous who would kill just to get Israel back regardless of what the Bible said. So the Pharisees were the one party that you really would if you were a believer, be a part of. And there were believers who were among the Pharisees, Nicodemus, most famously. And it's important to notice just how much Jesus interacts with this group. By the way, the scribes and the Pharisees enjoyed a light lumping them together. One commentary said that while not all the Pharisees were scribes, nearly all the scribes were Pharisees. Remember the scribes are experts in the law. And they are brought into interpret the law to settle court disputes and so forth. And so if you were, it would be like a Pharisee who had his doctorate would be a scribe basically. An expert's Pharisee, if you could say it that way. And if we look at the Gospels as a whole, just to emphasize this fact, one final time. Nine times the Sadducees are mentioned in four Gospels, seven times in Matthew. The other Gospels almost don't mention them at all. Matthew writing to the Jews, the Jews knew and were interested in the Sadducees. Lawyers seven times, Herodians three times, priests twelve times. Even the elders that only mention twenty-six times, Jesus really only interacts with them when they're upset about Him and approaching on their power. Just like with the Sadducees, He's only interacting with them when they come and confront Him and try to trap Him in the same thing with Herodians. But with the scribes and the Pharisees, sixty two times the word scribe, as mentioned, in just the four Gospels, ninety one times Pharisees. He doesn't interact with anyone more than the scribes and the Pharisees. In three different occasions, Luke records that Jesus was the guest of honor at a Pharisee's house for dinner. He never eats in the Sadducees houses. They wouldn't have wanted Him. But the Pharisees would have almost counted Him as one of their own. He taught and believed what they taught and believed that they all testament as all the word of God, that it's an error infallible. They believed in the resurrection that Jesus taught. They believed in souls. They believed in eternal life. All the things that Jesus was teaching. That's why there's this constant interaction because they're interested in what Jesus is saying. Basically, he believed the same things on paper. We know that the Pharisees have rejected Scripture, though they give lip service to it. They end up rejecting it with their traditions. But it's interesting, the schools of Halal and Sramai that we saw in chapter 19, that they tried to trip Jesus up on when it came to marriage and divorce. Both of those schools are Pharisees, schools. Chameleon, the great rabbi, the first of the seven rabbi of the Jews, the greatest of all their teachers, a Pharisee. Paul, a Pharisee, this group that should have own Christ, that should have received Him. They still believed in the Messiah. The Sadducees did not believe in the Messiah and the Herodians would have wanted to kill Him. This group interacts with Jesus most of all. And again, that's because they're interested in one another. The Pharisees are constantly around Him because they would have considered Him to teach a true teacher and a rabbi, but they wanted at one point Him to come into their crowd and He rejects them and He begins to point out their errors and their falsehoods. And this is why because they're so doctrinally close to Jesus, this is why they are the most dangerous of all of the groups in Israel. That's why they alone get these eight woes in chapter 23. Eight woes to the scribes and Pharisees, the word scribe and the word Pharisee nine times each in this chapter, woe to use scribes and Pharisees, woe to use scribes and Pharisees. It's going to be over and over again, not a single woe to the other groups because beloved this group is in the camp. I mean, the Sadducees are basically another religion, the Herodians are basically secularists. What if Jesus had to say to them, nothing, except when they try to trap Him, but the Pharisees inscribes. They're still teaching the scriptures. They still profess to believe the scriptures and yet they're corrupting them, so they're like sin in the camp. I mean, what was more devastating to Israel throughout its histories? Their enemies, outside foreign powers, or when a false prophet would come up from within? That's what brought devastation to them and that's what the Pharisees inscribes represent. They're a false teaching body within the people of Israel, and so they get these woes more than anything else. I think this is, we can compare this to today in the church. What do you think matters more to God? The latest madness that the mainline churches are doing, or when an evangelical or a reformed teacher brings false doctrine into the church, among the true people of God, who still believe the scriptures, who still want to keep what God says as morally right and wrong, and not just buying whatever the world says, like the secular liberal church has been doing for decades. I mean, which one is more devastating to the people of God, obviously, when it's an evangelical or a reformed leader? Well, that's kind of what we're seeing here. And Jesus here says, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses's seat. He is giving them and ascribing to them a legitimate position here. Something that the people have to heed. They sit in Moses's seat. What does that mean? Well, we understand that. There are chairs in universities. They're endowed professorships where someone gives so much money so that someone will teach according to this way of thinking, whether it's like the the chair of philosophy of Cambridge, or the chair of astronomy here, the chair of mathematics. Recently, Harvard just filled the rumored chair of physics at their school. The oldest chair in the universities, by the way, if you're interested, is at Harvard. It's the Hollis chair of divinity. It was actually meant to buy a Christian man for Christian leaders, who were supposed to teach rightly. That's not what the Hollis chair of divinity has been doing for a long time at Harvard. But it's the oldest endowed professorship in the North America. And some of these chairs come with rights or privileges, the Hollis chair of divinity. I don't know if you're interested in this or not, but it comes with the right. It was founded back in 1741 or something. It comes with the right to graze one of your cows on Harvard yard. I'm not kidding. This is a right that's actually in the endowed professorship of the Hollis chair of divinity. And that right had gone unexercised for about 150 years until 2009, when the outgoing chair actually purchased a cow, brought at the Harvard, had it crazed on the yard while he gave his farewell speech just to exercise his rights. But you notice what Jesus is saying that about these guys. They're legitimate teachers. They sit in the seat of Moses, and Jesus doesn't say but throw them out, but ignore them. Or its teachers that are the problem, get rid of the teachers, get rid of the seminaries. He doesn't say that. On the contrary, Jesus says, verse three, therefore whatever they tell you to observe, you observe and you do. Do you see what he says? You observe and you do. Now let's just put the breaks on maybe a possible misunderstanding here. Jesus is not saying that all of the false doctrine and teaching that I have been resisting and rejecting by the scribes and the Pharisees, whatever they say do. He's not saying that. He already told them in chapter 16, beware the leaven of the Pharisees, and they thought he meant bread and then he said the doctrine, beware the doctrine of the Pharisees. So at that point he's telling them not to deal with the doctrine, said. In fact, in the sermon on the Mount, remember he is actually referring to several of the traditions of the Pharisees in that sermon where he says, you have heard that it was said but I say to you, you have heard that it was said but I say to you and he was teaching something different from what the Pharisees were. In fact, in chapter 15, you remember where Jesus said about the scribes and the Pharisees teaching that they make the word of God of no effect for the sake of their tradition. And on that occasion, he pointed out that his disciples do not wash like they do because you don't need to. You're adding that to the scriptures and they don't worry about harvesting a little bit of crops in their hands and think that's a breaking of the Sabbath because you again added that with all of your rules. And this is what they did. They added all these little rules to the law of God, to the point where the law of God was trumped where the law of God was not even in effect. As he said, you have made the law of God of no effect for the sake of your tradition. So Christ is not telling the people, obey all these traditions that I haven't been, that I've been correcting. What he's saying is whenever they do teach Moses, you have to listen to them. Whenever they do expound the law, you have to obey it. This is a really important principle for us. If a minister is corrupt, that doesn't mean that simply because he says something, it's wrong. We still have to listen to what scripture says. Whether a false teacher says it, whether a donkey says it, we are called to obey the scriptures. Even when there is a corrupt ministry, and so Jesus here affirms that this corrupt ministry because they were the only ones. When they taught the word, God's people still needed to listen to them. This is the constancy of scripture. It doesn't depend upon the character of men. Secondly, I want you to notice the burden of false teachers. I want you to notice the burden of false teachers, verse three. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe that, observe and do, but do not do according to their works, for they say and do not do. Now, if they say and do not do, they're not doing what they say. They're not keeping their words, and that's really the essence of the sin of hypocrisy, which Jesus is going to call them over and over again in this text, hypocrites. Hypocrits are those who act one way, but really believe or feel a different way inside. A hypocritical thing to do would be for me to say, oh yes, come over here and sit in this chair. Here, let me make dinner for you and inside. I'm like, I wish this person wasn't here. I wish I didn't have to be doing this right now. I'd be playing the hypocrite because it'd be acting like I'm all friendly, but I'm actually not wanting to do anything. And that's exactly the burden that the Pharisees were laying upon people. I want you to notice this in verse 4. 4, they bind heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on men's shoulders. Now, Jesus is not saying that the scriptures are this heavy burden that the Pharisees are laying on men's shoulders. He's not referring to the scriptures. He's referring to what they're doing wrong. He's referring to their traditions, their traditions, which were heavy burdens placed upon the people of God. John Calvin says, quote, they had perverted by their false opinions, the pure and natural meaning of the law. Notice the way Christ says it, they bind heavy burdens hard to bear and they lay them on men's shoulders. This is their doing. This is their tradition. And they had all of these minute little traditions around washings, around tithings, around offerings, around prayers, around vials, around Sabbath keeping. And you had to keep all of them. These tiny little minutia rules that were against and outside of or beside the scriptures. And in some cases, trumped the scriptures as is in the case with the Korban that he rebuked them for earlier when they said that you didn't have to give to your parents because you were giving it to God. And you can even do that with your property. If you owed all kind of money, you could say, oh, it's given to God and then no one could touch it. And it was a way of extorting or even stealing. And they legitimized this kind of thing with their traditions. But it burdened people. It burdened people. And it allowed for sin. It allowed for people to abuse the law and not again support their parents, but do something that was only for them. And I want you to contrast this burden kind of ministry with the ministry that God commands in his church. We're called to be shepherds as leaders in the church. The word pastor is the Latin word for shepherd. And in the middle east, the shepherd is different from the shepherds in the west. We all watched the westerns and we see the cattle ranchers right there driving the cows forward with the whips and they're shooting the pistols on their horses. You know, the cows are scared and they're running and that's the way we move. You know, I heard in America and in Australia, you've ever watched those sheep dogs that they have and they go like running on the top of the sheep and the sheep are like terrified and they nip them in the hills and they get the sheep to move in the middle east. The shepherd and from what I understand this is still the case in many regions. They live out in the field with the sheep. They sleep with the sheep. They eat with the sheep and they lead them so that wherever the sheep go, they've already been there. Do you see that? They don't require the sheep to go anywhere that they haven't gone first. This is the kind of leadership that's over and over again modeled in the scriptures for the church that we are to be shepherds. Peter exhorts the elders and first Peter 5 shepherds the flock of God which is among you serving as overseers not by compulsion but willingly not for dishonest gain but eagerly and here it is, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you but by being examples to the flock, examples, not lords. I think in past rapids and I were talking about this recently, I think one of the biggest mistakes that churches make is to make the successful business man the elder. We should make people that love the word the elder. Loving the word is what we should be wanting servants who want to shepherd people who aren't worried about the business, they're worried about the word of God and they just want to obey the word of God. Shepherds who love the Lord who are not afraid to take the lowest place who aren't looking to be lords but actually want to help people, want to be examples. I never understood this when people were saying about becoming a minister and people said oh you're going to be a pastor someday my wife will tell you some of those stories and I preached this sermon at New Life the first sermon I preached in the church and I knew it wasn't any good it was a bad sermon. I tried to do too much I tried to bring in this and that and you know typical rookie mistakes seminarians make but I was an interest in being a preacher anyway I was just doing that because people said you need to take a preaching class because you need to see you know if God would call you it's fine you know I'll take this preaching class I'm not going to be a minister and I did preach a good sermon at seminary the first sermon but in the church now it was bad and I would you know you put that off and you don't think about that and in one time in that same church when Robin and I were up front I think for Calvin's baptism and I had been inseminary and I'm learning and I hadn't thought about wanting to be a shepherd or anything like that but as we're standing up front and getting ready the ministers anyway to baptize Calvin the scripture just came into my head as I'm looking at all the faces you know and I could just I just kept playing it in my head they're like sheep without a shepherd they're like sheep without a shepherd I don't know why this verse came into my head but I think I do know they're like sheep without a shepherd and I had this great desire to give God to people his word I've been learning all this stuff in seminary and it dawned on me this is what it's about that I would bring the word of God that I'm learning that I that for whatever reason God is giving me this desire to learn and know and I want to give it to his people because that's what they need they don't need lords they don't need people who're going to make them successful they don't need people who are going to protect them legally you know what they need they need shepherds that will feed them the word of God and that's what Jesus said he was preparing them to be shepherds not corrupt not hard not burdened givers but burdened bearers as leaders in the church we should never require anything of anyone that we are not willing to do first that we don't already require of ourselves how dare we do anything different to do anything different would be to think that we're somehow the Lord that we're somehow higher up this hierarchy this business model that's not it it's the model of the church it's the model of the shepherd God's word refreshes the spirit while it afflicts the flesh false doctrine does the opposite burdens the spirit while it caders to the flesh and that's what we see with these guys do you notice that verse five all their works they do to be seen by men that's what the Pharisees were bought they wanted other people to look at them and to think better of them it's a sin we all commit we all commit this sin all the time when we want and we think about and we're pressured by the world i'll tell you a funny story when i was in seventh grade in saltburg seven to twelve was the high school you know and you're all in one building seven to twelfth grade and i remember going into seventh grade you know and going into gym class in gym class for whatever reason they would have a couple of seniors with us i don't know how that worked and we would play killer dodgeball i mean the ball would hit you and drive you in the air into the wall you know from one of these seniors and i had on these socks that i don't know i didn't think about my socks as a sixth grader but in seventh grade suddenly you know it matters exactly what you look like you know and i had these like big strikes two strikes on the top of my socks and i got made fun of so bad at gym class because i had striped socks no one told me that you're not supposed to wear striped socks and i went home to mom and said i can't ever wear striped socks again everybody thinks i'm at weirdo and so my mom had to go and buy me all these white straws socks now that's that's silly and funny but you know that's what we do right we want people to like us and we become a prisoner we we become a slave to pleasing man when pleasing manager go then we become a slave and it's a burden and it's a burden where there's no way out you know when we listen to the world we trust the world there's no hope there's no way out that's the difference between god's word and the word of man when god's word is your hope when god's word is what you are trusting in or what you are seeking for your salvation in whether it be the eternal salvation or even just deliverances in this world when we are seeking peace of mind when we're seeking peace of heart when we're seeking joy in even in suffering when god's word is your source there's always hope there's always repentance there's always faith no matter what comes at me in this world i can believe in god i can have hope i can know that my victory is secure i can even rejoice in times of sorrow and i can even be glad and be thankful in times of pain but when it's the word of man there's no hope there's only bondage there's only conform outwardly and try to get people to accept you and well that's just who you are and you're a victim and you can't change and with the word of god i can always change i'm promised change if i believe if i repent this is the word of god this is the burden of false teachers and how god's word is constant in the face of it third day what you didn't notice the bondage of hypocrisy the bondage of hypocrisy well we've been talking about it already but i want you to really see it here in verse five all their works they do to be seen by man that's all they had they make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments what's that well their phylacteries were these leather boxes that had four passages of scripture two from Exodus and two from Deuteronomy and each one of them had the verse as part of the passage let me go back and read it you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes and so the Jews took this literally the Pharisees and they took these leather boxes and they tied one on their arm and had all four of those passages on it and then they tied one around their forehead you have this leather box on your forehead and this leather box on your arm and what they did then was they made those straps and boxes big so people could say oh wow that guy really loves the word or that must be a really righteous and holy person look how big the phylacterie is on his arm and the other one the tassels on the robe were the fringes on the robe now this was a command of god you see they took that one literally and obviously god did not mean for them to carry around pieces of scripture that meant the verse that means you shall bind them as a sign on your hand as frontlets between your eyes it just meant that you should it should be like that that god's words should always be in your heart and mind not physically just do it and then you don't think about it anymore because it's hanging there it was the opposite number 1538 says speak to the children of Israel tell them listen tell them to make tassels or fringes on the quarters of their garments throughout their generations to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners and you shall listen to this you shall have the tassel the fringes that you may look upon it here's the reason that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the lord and do them and so two twofold purpose why do I have these fringes so that I might always be reminded of the law and do the law and the second purpose and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your eyes are inclined wow so those fringes should remind me number one that god's law is what I should keep and I don't want to be deceived by the world or by my own flesh and number two that I'm inclined to spiritual hoard them that's what that was supposed to remind me of and what did they do they made those fringes those tassels broad and said look how righteous I am because my fringes are so broad it's the exact opposite of the humbling and of the looking to god it's look at me look at me and they kept the letter of the law as they destroyed the spirit of the law by the way he says had fringes on his garment remember when the woman who had that flow of blood she reached out and it says she touched the fringe the tassel he had because it was commanded this one was commanded but it was commanded to do it as a reminder of your own sinful inclinations and of god's law that you need to keep it before your mind and your eyes or you're going to turn to the world and so it was all about the letter it was all about perverting and looking good in the eyes of men versus six and seven they love the best seats in the feast they love the best seats in the synagogue to be called rabbi rabbi oh they love to hear that this honor that they got from men that's what their lives were about think about it beloved for just a second god sees us every moment of the day lignare has this phrase called core mdeo just means in the presence of god that we are to we are to think that we're to live core mdeo calvin goes into this no we don't have fringes calvin says but we should constantly be putting god's word before our mind and constantly be reminding ourselves of our own inclinations the sin the spiritual reality behind this calvin says we should be doing because we have the same weakness and we have the same need of god's word and so this idea of of keeping god's word before us so that we do not give in to our sinful inclinations and remembering that he does see us we actually are before his eyes right now not only does he see us outwardly he sees our minds right god sees my thoughts no hiding anything from him i can stand up here and maybe say the right things but in my mind i could be thinking something else and none of you know but god knows and this is why if we would just think about it for five seconds we would never act to please man we would recognize that we are going to stand before god and we should be living for him core mdeo in his presence because we actually are we actually are in his presence though he does not make himself sensibly known by us we know by faith that he is Jesus said in Matthew chapter six it's sermon on the mount again take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds to be seen before men otherwise you have no reward from your father in heaven and he gives him over and over again do do things just for god don't do them for people don't do it for people to praise you this is really a practical atheism when we live to please man we might say we believe in god but we're living for man we're living as if there is no god we're living as if this is god it's a practical atheism it's living by the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life which is what John says in first John 215 that's the world the world is about the lust of the eyes the lust of the and the pride of life and beloved it puts us in bondage to please men puts us in bondage now I have to meet the expectation now I have to conform to what people were saying and that becomes all consuming and this was Paul's life as a Pharisee I want you to notice this before Paul became a Christian he was a man pleaser he says this in Galatians 110 listen if I were still trying to please man if I were still trying to please men like I was I would not be a servant of Christ it was when he became a servant of Christ that he was set free that he was no longer a slave to please men now he could live for god now it didn't matter what people thought about him and this is what we need beloved we need to walk in that grace and so fourthly in last day I want to notice the freedom of humility the freedom of humility we get this beginning in verse 8 but you do not be called teacher or rabbi for one as your teacher the Christ and you are all brother do not call anyone on earth your father for one as your father he was in heaven do not be called teachers for one as your teacher the Christ now we don't want to hyperlateralize this this doesn't mean you can't call anyone on earth your father including your father okay Jesus understands that he's not saying that there can't be any teachers in the church in fact he himself ordains the office of teacher in the church Ephesians 4.11 he himself Jesus gave some to be apostles some prophets some evangelists and some pastors and teachers so he's not saying no teachers no fathers not to have the title rabbi by the way he took the title rabbi he's called rabbi many times including after his resurrection on that memorable occasion when Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize him and he says Mary and she turns and says what Raboni which is a very affectionate way to say rabbi and he doesn't rebuke her for that that's not the point we don't want to remember that remember this same kind of thing in the sermon on the mount you know don't swear at all in the anabact to say well we can't take oaths anymore that's not what Christ meant when you pray go under your closet oh that must mean no more public prayers when you give don't let you right hand know what your left hand is doing judge not lest you be judged the favorite one of the world you can't judge anything that's not what he meant he meant not to do things selfishly hypocritically wickedly for yourself not to do it in a sinful way not to do it for your own self a grand disment which is what they had done with these things they were pursuing these things for themselves and Jesus saying don't do that Paul calls himself the father of the Corinthian church a father of the Timothy I have begotten you again he says to the Galatians he called himself the spirit of father again that's not what Christ is saying no one can have the title father no one can have the title teacher no one can be a rabbi no he's saying don't live for these things don't pursue these things and if you are in this position be humble remember the reason for which I have given you the your gifts to serve that's verse 11 this this cat capsid for us he who is greatest among you shall be your servant don't seek to be greater seek to serve don't seek to be greater seek to serve that includes when you're an officer and I think God in his wisdom has given the church an office of servants and you know that and that's the decons the decons are the servants of the church you want to see how to serve look at our decons and how they serve in this church you know what it's interesting about this verse verse 11 in the Greek it says he who is greatest among you shall be your deaconos it's the word for servant but it's the decon he was greatest among you shall be your decon shall serve self-take the lowest place shall not want the highest place so want to serve and at God gives me position and gifts and and and other things it's not that I pretend like I don't have them that's not humility but that I use them to serve and then I'm not afraid to to lower myself to any level if it means serving I'm not puffed up I'm not here to get other people to look at me and to serve me I'm here to serve you my gifts are to serve you that's that should be around it and that's verse 12 whoever exalts himself will be humbled but whoever humbles himself will be exalted it's a promise and it's a warning God will do this he will humble those who exalt themselves here and those who humble themselves here he will exalt in fact if we want to see the best model of humility in all of the Bible we would look at Jesus himself we see this in John 13 about this time a couple days later but John records it when Jesus washes their feet remember he is their highest he's their teacher and he says to them you call me teacher and you say rightly because I am your master your teacher but he he washed their feet and he said to them do you know what I have done to you you call me teacher and Lord you say well for so I am if I then your Lord and teacher not about having the title or not if I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet you also ought to wash one another's feet washing the feet was a very lowly task that needed done in that day because you walked around barefoot with sandals so when you went in the house your feet were filthy wherever you went so you needed them wash what have we done with this well we have ceremonial footwashings in the church now that nobody needs because their feet are dirty and I know you can do that and have your heart in the right place I'm not saying but that's not the point the point isn't to set up an actual footwashing it's to take the lowest service if that's going to bless people and do not think that you're too high Christ is the highest there ever was and here he is washing their feet in fact I mentioned to you all the shepherds were to be the model for the for the church leadership guess what Jesus says about himself I mean you know where I'm going John chapter 10 I am the good shepherd the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep right I know my sheep and my sheep know me and I call them by name and they hear me and they follow me and he lays down his life for the sheep Jesus is the model of what we see in Psalm 23 the Lord is my shepherd so I shall not want he leads me beside the steel waters he makes me lie down in green pastures he leads me in the pass of righteousness for his name's sake he restores my soul all the things that the sheep need the steel waters the quiet pastures all the things that we need in ourselves Christ has done and he did it by serving he came down and took the lowest place he became a man and then he went and died as an animal on the altar taking the wrath of God no one has ever taken a lower place than that there's not one possible and therefore beloved in order to avoid the sins of the scribes and Pharisees in order to avoid the judgment of God let us seek to practice humility Hendrickson says quote apart from humility there is no salvation and no life to the glory of God and humility doesn't mean again I deny my gifts I say how bad everything is even though I you know just made a masterpiece or something no humility is that I put others first that I put God first most of all and that I do not shy away from doing anything God would call me to do because I'm not puffing myself up I'm looking to serve Christ by serving his people he said if we serve the least of these so we do it under him let's pray father we thank you for this word we thank you Lord God that you sent Jesus and that Jesus you did not shrink from becoming the lowest from taking on a human flesh and not just becoming a man but a man who would become a cursed and you did this for us though you were perfect father help us to be moved to serve in such lowly ways that we are called to that don't even compare to what you did for us but let that be our incentive that when we do it we do it for you and that you're glorified and that your people are blessed you've created your church to be a house of servants not a house of Lord help us to seek to serve you by humbly serving one another we pray this in Jesus name