Father, we come before you now to be taught by you, and so we ask that you, Holy Spirit would take that eternal and an errant word of God and build it deep into our lives. And Father, I come before you personally recognizing that this is a particularly difficult subject, not because the passage is difficult to understand, but because it's so easy to understand, and because I come before you as a prideful man, Father, I pray that you would speak through me as your servant, that you would use me to bring great encouragement, great blessing, and where needed great conviction, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. As best I can tell, the need for wedding etiquette has been around throughout the ages. Now, that may seem surprising to you that I would make that statement in light of the near obsession in our day over doing things right at weddings, and the popularity of wedding coordinators with the popularity of movies like The Wedding Planner with Jennifer Lopez, and that outlandish character, Frank, in Father of the Bride, many of us have grown to enjoy. But if you think about it, wedding etiquette was very much a part of the ancient culture as well. Jesus' first miracle was performed at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, as you may know, and, of course, weddings back then were massive deals. They would take place over about a week period of time, tremendous celebration, and so there had to be all sorts of organizations, and imagine all of the do's and don'ts that went into those celebrations. We know that there were do's and don'ts because Mary, when she approached her son, Jesus, to ask him to kind of bail them out, she was in a panic because the wine had run out. Huge faux pas on the list of don'ts in wedding etiquette in that day. And so a lot of attention throughout the ages has been given to exactly what shouldn't take place for those who are planning weddings. There should be, I think, equal care given, but there really isn't in helping young ministers prepare for weddings. There should be a real wedding book to help ministers in this way, but there isn't. And yet there is clearly, there is a list of do's and don'ts that is implicitly known. Let me give you a couple of examples. A couple of weddings that I performed. One of my earlier weddings was with a new couple in our church that we knew back in Dallas, Mark, and Kerry Pilledbury. When I turned to, first to Mark, and I said, would you have this woman to be your wedding wife? Let me make sure I got it right. I'm getting it backwards and telling the illustration. Yeah, I turned to Mark first, and said, would you have this woman to be your wedding wife? And then I turned next to Kerry, and I said, would you have this man to be your wedding wife? And Kerry was much more composed than I. She immediately blurted out husband. And what I had done was, you know, if those of you that know Microsoft Word, I had copied and pasted, but failed to delete and put in the correct word there, why? And yet I had my last laugh on that several years later. Once I've moved to Houston, I was doing a wedding at another church, and they had one of their ministers assisting in that ceremony as the first time he'd done a wedding. And he was required, because the wedding was in their church, to do the vows, part of the section. He did the exact same thing that I did. And so at the end of the ceremony, I turned to him and said, copy and paste. In another wedding that I did, this one was for another couple in our church at Michael and Tracy Lou. I got to the end of the ceremony, and then you have to be able to appreciate Michael and Tracy, completely appropriate dating relationship, but very affectionate. I like to hug a lot in public and public the state of the section. And so when I got to the point in the wedding in the ceremony where I'm supposed to say, you may now kiss the bride, I completely forgot it, and just went past it, totally forgot it, if you can imagine the irony. And yet Tracy blurted out, what about the kiss? So it would really help if there was an Emily etiquette type of person to help young ministers with all of these problems. It would also help if there was someone who came along as a consultant for those who attend weddings. Now you can run a search on the internet and what is the jobs of information out there if you're giving a wedding. But for those attending a wedding, there's not much out there to tell you what to do and what not to do. And so isn't it surprising of all the people who've ever lived in the history of the world that Jesus Christ would come along and give a lesson on etiquette to those who would attend the wedding. So that's exactly what he did in this parable before it. It's a parable on wedding etiquette to those who attend the wedding. Now the context here was that Jesus was invited to the home of one of the religious leaders. In fact, one of the leaders of the religious leaders of the day on a Sabbath to eat. And while he was there, he began to observe the pattern of those who were invited to the dinner. They were jockeying for position. They wanted to make sure they got the most prominent place in the house. The place of honor, not just so they could see better, but because back in those days, the sense of honor and dignity was displayed in where a person was seated. Closer up, the more honor and dignity was owed that individual. But people were jockeying for position. And Jesus used this as an opportunity to cast a great vision for essentially what a person's pattern in life should be. What their disposition in life should be, but also much more to talk about what the kingdom of God is like. So he changes the context slightly and imposes the context of a dinner on a Sabbath and a religious leader's home, but of a wedding banquet. And how the invited guests should act when they arrive, where they should sit. They shouldn't rush up and take the seat of prominence, but they should instead take the seat in the back and allow for the host to promote you if they saw fit in doing that. You get the feel in reading this story, but sort of being a wisdom story. If you've read much and wisdom literature, it has that feel to it. God is not even mentioned in the story. And Jesus lays out a sort of a black and white approach to life. You have two paths you could take. You take path A or path B, and if you take path A, there is great humiliation waiting for you. This is a path to be avoided at all cost. The path B is a path to be embraced, and though this path may appear to be lowly at first appearance, yet it ends up being a path of great exaltation, a path of great enjoyment. Exactly opposite of this other path. And Jesus says, here are the two ways, avoid the one and embrace the other. Now what does that have to do with us here at Christ the King? We are going through a series of the parables this winter, almost through within one more week after this, where we are basically asking God as we round the corner on five years, what kind of a church do you want us to be? What kind of people do you want us to be? If Christ the King Presbyterian church over the next several generations, this could be a dynamic church, that God uses powerfully to draw in unbelievers and see them come to know Christ and move back out again to draw in others, to bring great praise and glory to God. And what kind of people does God tend to use that in? And this little passage gives us a magnificent and powerful picture for that in. And what I would like to do is to cast that vision at Jesus' cast by first of all looking at the way of the world, the way that we want to avoid at all cost, the embarrassing path. And then secondly look at the way of the kingdom, the way that we should embrace, the path that appears to be very insignificant at first that leads ultimately to great enjoyment and exaltation. And then we want to finally address how do we do that? We want to do that quickly this morning. First of all the world's way. Notice as he paints the picture, he says, when you're invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, less someone more distinguished than you be invited by him. And he invited you both, we'll come and say, give your place to this person and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. So he's saying the natural inclination of your heart is going to be to bust into the doors of that place and to jockey for position. Now granted many of us are sophisticated enough to disguise it and to do it in subtle ways. But if the principle here is really one of trying in life to put yourself in a place of promise, trying to get ahead, trying to exalt yourself, trying to put yourself in a position that is advantageous in contrast to others. There are all sorts of ways that we do this. I have been noted by some to have a suppressed desire to be a New York cab driver by the way that I drive. I get in a car and I like to take the bull by the horns and I like to make things happen. And some of you are that way as well. And so what I'll tend to do is I will tend to, let's say there's a long line of people trying to get off of the loop onto 59. You've been in that line before, haven't you? Now there's two ways to handle that. You can get in line like everyone else or you can stay in the left lane and bust forward. And then pretend oops, I didn't notice that I was there. And then you do one of those kind of aggressive shoving yourself into that lane, even waving out the window at the person until they are forced to look at you and feel guilty and let you in. That's one way that I tend to try and exalt myself. Another way that a lot of you are the kind of people that will sit in a class. You did this growing up, you still do it maybe in a class, a Sunday school class or the like. And you just sit there and when questions are called for, you don't dare ask the question. I'm just the opposite. Throughout life, I was the first person to raise my hands, sometimes received sneering looks by others. Oh, there is the goody good with the answer to the question again. Why? Because I always had the right answer, right? And I wanted to make sure that the right answer from my left was given forth to put myself in that seat in the front, the seat of honor and recognition. Similarly, as a father, I can see the same pattern as developed. When I recognize something that needs to be corrected in my children, I tend to point it out to them. And then oftentimes, I will make a mistake of commenting on how when I was a child, I didn't do what they were doing. My children, as they've grown up, have learned how to draw this to their father's attention to show me that's inconsistent. And it's a gross inconsistency of putting myself in the place of honor to draw a contrast to the child, or whoever it might be, making a mistake. You know what it is that it's root, it's pride. It's the skin of pride. It's the same sin that was there from the very beginning. It's the root sin that the serpent used to lure Eve away, and by consequence, Adam away from fellowship and really submission to the father. Because it's putting yourself in a place of autonomy, independence, where you're in charge, you're in control. It could be something as seemingly harmless as being in control of where you are in the line of traffic. Or it could be something as detrimental as your role as a parent, or leader in your job. Now when you're boss, you don't tend to get that much feedback because people are scared to give you that kind of feedback. But granted, if you are in a position of leadership, wherever it might be, the natural human tendency, because it's been there from the beginning, is to place yourself in a position of honor, of exaltation. And it's pride that's at the root of it. You could follow this and trace it throughout the Bible, see us Lewis in the quote that we included. And if you ever wondered, if you're new to our church and you're wondering, today, quote, see us Lewis every Sunday and Christ the King, almost every Sunday, we actually did. Someone once said he's a patron saint of this church. I don't know about that. I mean, he just puts things so beautifully. Look at the way he's put it this morning. The pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. We just stopped right there. Isn't that fabulous? It's so true. If there is an itch, one does want to scratch, but it's much nicer to have neither the itch nor the scratch. And that's the problem of humanity because from the beginning, that itch has been there since our first parents were lured away by that itch. All of us have had that same itch. And the problem in a very sophisticated culture, as ours, is that we begin to learn to mask it rather than to parade it. And yet nevertheless, it's still theirs. The question, really, is how do you exalt yourself? In what way do you put yourself ahead of others? It's pride. And it's ugly. And Jesus, in this passage, takes an interesting approach at startling the people. Because he said, in essence, the reason that you don't want to do this, take the seat up front, is because back in these days, of course, the honored guests were put up front, and they tended to arrive last. And so it's very presumptuous of you, if you went up and took one of those places of honor, you're taking someone else's seat in essence, and you might have to go through the great humiliation of having that host demote you to the back. And you get the only seat at that point that would be available on the very very back. And so, avoid that fear of scandal, and that fear of embarrassment. What's behind this? Jesus really saying, submit to the fear of man. And I think he's just trying to get at how powerful this fear is, the issue of fear, the fear of rejection. Oftentimes people rate and study the number one fear, I guess what it is, number one fear. It's speaking in public. But really, it's not speaking in public. It's the fear of rejection that you'll get up in public and make a fool of yourself. People will laugh, or worse, they'll yawn, and fall asleep. Which thankfully, none of you are doing this morning, and I'm really grateful for that. It's the fear of rejection, though, that's behind all this. And he's saying, in essence, that is a powerful fear, a very powerful fear that can motivate you in the way of wisdom. But really, isn't Jesus inviting us to look at this in a deeper life? He's inviting us to look at a deeper fear than the fear of being taken from the front seat to the back seat. Indeed, the whole imagery of the wedding invites us into a deeper understanding of the parable. First of all, the principle that he uses at the end of the parable is used elsewhere in deeply spiritual ways that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. But also the wedding imagery is used powerfully throughout the Bible to speak of the enduring and lasting kingdom of God, that we understand through the teaching of Jesus that he has come to inaugurate, and that ultimately our dream, our desire should be to be in that kingdom that will be an everlasting kingdom of great enjoyment. And so the deeper fear, really it's not the fear of man, the demotion of human beings in our eyes, the approval of people, but really the fear of God, the wisdom rider and ecclesiasties ends his book after surveying all of life by saying, fear God and keep his commandments. Why? For God will bring every deed into judgment. The wisdom rider and Proverbs add the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We ought to be motivated. Yes, motivated by the fear of the Lord that God is the one who honors and exalt. It is his duty to recognize individuals rather than the other way around. That's the way of the world that should be avoided. And what about the way of the kingdom that should be pursued and embraced? I've called it the upside down kingdom, which is not my own label, many have called it that before. But it's the idea that this is just the opposite of what the world says. That if you want to get ahead, you need to exalt yourself. But Jesus says, no, the reality of life is that in a grand scheme of things, because God is God, and he will not be replaced. He will not share his glory that those who exalt themselves will what? The humble. And that those who take the initiative voluntarily to humble themselves, when they need not do that, humanly stupid, will be by God exalted. It's an magnificent principle of the upside down kingdom, and it's seen all over the place. It's also in Matthew 18, or excuse me, Luke 18, verse 14, it's in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. We looked at a couple of weeks ago in Matthew 23, or excuse me, and in Matthew 23, Jesus uses it again, immediately proceeding seven woes or statements of judgment against the religious leaders of that day. So Jesus is saying, this is a major principle. He's repeating it over and over and over again. And here he uses it, couching it in the terminology of a wedding. He uses it again in Mark 10, talking to James and John, when they asked to sit at his right and left in glory. The same principle. He said, whoever would be great among you must be what? You're servant. And whoever would be first must be the slave of all. And the apostle James hudders these words in 410 of James, humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. What's Jesus saying? That the way down really is the way up. The beautiful prayer that we said earlier, that it really is true that the paradox of life, that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high. But the broken heart is the heel pie, heart, and the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit. The repenting soul is the victorious soul. Think of a couple of biblical examples. John the Baptist. What was he known for? He said, I'm not even worthy to stoop down and untie the sandals of the one who would come. Jesus. He said, rather I must decrease and he must increase. That was his motto in life. And what did Jesus say about John? Let me tell you something. Jesus said, among those born of women, in other words, everyone who's ever lived, there is none greater than John the Baptist. Do you see that principle working there? The way down is the way up. What about Moses? I mean, is there a greater leader in the Old Testament than Moses? Moses certainly is probably the most well known leader in the Old Testament. And yet was Moses jocking for position to get that leadership role, he begged God not to give him that role. Even question God's wisdom in giving him that role. And so God called him not his leader but his what? A principle work as well in his life. Think in our own day, in my lifetime anyway, the picture of Chuck Colson, many of you are familiar with Chuck Colson. He was Richard Nixon's counsel, came to be known in the process his hatchet man, the ruthless individual. Colson tells in many of his books that in particular in his autobiography called Born Again, how here he was in the most powerful place arguably on the face of the earth. He had the ear of the president. He was in essence crafting the strategy out of the Oval Office in many ways. And yet he said that there was such a proud, arrogant, haughty spirit that filled his own hearts, that clouded his vision from seeing reality and it brought him low. He ended up in prison. He was convicted and sentenced to prison. And yet through that terribly humiliating experience, one of Colson's friends shared the gospel with him. And he came to see that God himself had been humiliated. He voluntarily chose humiliation in Christ and that he was exalted to the right hand of God the Father by placing his faith in him that he could know true life and enjoyment. And what we've seen in the many years since that day, back in I guess 1975, Chuck Colson has started and led a magnificent worldwide ministry of Christmas. He has arguably more influence in terms of the kingdom of God through his humiliation than he ever had through his state of exaltation in the Oval Office. There's so many other examples that we could use, one just personal example from my own life. Many of you know that my experience in coming to the minister in the PCA was not an easy one. I found myself at the end of my seminary days not knowing where to go. There were no job openings. There I was not clear on what I believe. And it was a kind of just frankly great discouragement and humiliation. And so I decided to do what everyone else should do when they're in that position pursue another degree. But in the midst of that experience, I realized that wasn't getting me anywhere. And so my father invited me back to El Paso where I grew up to go back into business with him and the insurance business and just let life settle in figure out what God had for me. I accepted that only through great I kid you not great weeping and many many days of anguish. That was my moment in life turning point so to speak of great humiliation. But through that, taking my family back to El Paso, God kindled in me a true passion for preaching. He gave me opportunities in all places of Southern Baptist church to preach the gospel. And they embraced me and gave me the opportunity to preach every Sunday. And through that, God confirmed to me as well that God had made me shape me and provided me with opportunities to preach the gospel. Through that experience of humiliation, God indeed exalts and lists that. So how do we get to that point in our life very quickly? I want to suggest to you that the real issue here is one of trust. Whether it's maneuvering to get into line on the freeway or figuring out your course in life, God does not want Leo to be in charge, to put trust in my own abilities and my own power to maneuver and place myself where I think I need to be. What God wants and this is the whole picture of the gospel is to strip us of trust in self that we might place our trust in God. Because really what is pride? Pride is unbelief. Pride is a fancy way of saying at this point on this issue, I'm an atheist. We need to recognize those areas of our life by God's grace and take our trust off of ourselves and onto God who controls everything. But not only is it important to recognize that God is in control that he's sovereign, but he wants us to place our trust in him because he's loving. Isn't that true? And of course this is what lies behind so much of the beautiful imagery that Jesus just hints at in this story when he talks about a wedding because the whole story of redemption in the Bible is couched in the context of marriage. Have you ever thought about that? Where did the first sin occur in the context of the first marriage? Where did redemption begin? The first hint of redemption in the context of that first marriage in Genesis 315. And so often God describes our relationship as his people to him when that same beautiful language that he is the great bridegroom and that we are the bride together collectively. Not individually, but together we are the bride of Christ. Paul picks this stuff as well in the New Testament in Ephesians 5. As if to say all the streams of redemptive history are understood so beautifully through this imagery of a wedding that we have tended at the people of God to divorce ourselves from him through our disobedience that he, through his steadfast love, like the prophet Hosea pursuing his unfaithful wife, Domer. We are doggedly pursued by the love and faithfulness of God and it's by placing our trust in that and in God absolute sovereignty and control over life that we come to understand true life and peace. One other aspect of this of course is that it's only through love that proud hearts are melted. With my daughter's permission, I share this little story that a flip side of all the negatives in my parenting experience. If there's one thing I have learned, it's that shaking the finger at the child while they need discipline no doubt that will never break through a proud heart. Instead, when I, just the other night, was talking to our youngest Mary Caroline about something she had done wrong, I could see it in her eyes, you know, and the way we all show it, that proud spirit, that haughty self-righteous, I'm in control. And no matter how many times I said, honey, don't do this, don't do this, that remains. But when I looked into her eyes and held her back and said, Mary Caroline, do you know how much daddy loves you? Do you know how proud I am to be? Do you know how much I treasure being your daddy? Do you know what happened? That haughty spirit in the eyes changed to one of humility just like that. There was immediately a sense of welcoming, receiving all that I am as her daddy because she knew of the great love that I had for her. In so many, more hundreds times way, that's the right way to say it, it is God's love, us, that likewise, enters into our life and melts the sin of pride so that we are free to welcome him in all of his plundering glory. And indeed, that's what you find in Revelation 19, it's a very end of the Bible. Just as the Bible begins with marriage, the Bible ends with a great wedding feast. And it's one indeed that all who are invited, when they come, they are exalted. So what do I mean by that? So true exaltation is not simply the exaltation of self, but it's the exaltation of an individual with Jesus Christ so that they might be able to sit at his feet and vow the need and give praise and glory to God. That's what you see in that wedding celebration at the end of the Bible. What was missing at the beginning of the Bible is there at the end of the Bible. Unity with God, beautiful, harmony and love, but ultimately it's worship. What does God want this church to be? What kind of people does he want us to be in the years to come? He wants us to be broken people, humble people, people who, though we will struggle with pride throughout our days, are regularly re-entering back into God's presence so that the power of his love, that gospel love, pierces through into our hearts and melts them. So that we might be useful to him and vow the need of him and give him and him along the glory. That's great. Thank you, our Lord. Thank you so much that you would use simple and proud people to powerfully extend your kingdom and to bring honor and glory to your name. Thank you that you do that through me. Would you do that Lord increasingly through all of us? And now use this sacrament to strengthen us for that end. Amen.