“Titles and Perks”
Matthew 23:8-12
©January 15,
2006 Rev. Bruce Goettsche SERIES: Learning from the Mistakes of Others
In Bill Hybels excellent book, “Descending into
Greatness” he writes,
Take ten chickens. Any ten. Put them in a pen together, and spread a little chicken feed. In short order, you will witness an amazing phenomenon. In a matter of minutes, the chickens, previously strangers, will form a hierarchy based on dominance; or, in everyday language, they will establish a Pecking Order. Instinctively, they will determine, through a series of skirmishes, who the Number One Chicken will be; then the Number Two; the Number Three and all the way down to the unlucky Number Ten Chicken.
Much is at stake in this dance of
domination. Chicken Number One pecks at
and intimidates Chicken Number Two, without experiencing any kind of
retribution from Chicken Number Two.
Chicken Number Two will take it from Chicken Number One but will turn
around and peck away at Chicken Number Three, who will in turn, take out its
frustration on Chicken Number Four. The Pecking Order continues all the way
down to Chicken Number Ten, who needless to say, has a pretty miserable life:
pecked, but no one to peck. (p.
115-116)
Every one of us knows that the
pecking order is not confined to chickens.
Everywhere we turn, people are looking to establish a pecking
order. You are ranked on the basis of
your education, your job title, your income, your ability, and your
possessions. You will be ranked by the
kind of car your drive, the label on the clothes you wear, the status of your
last name.
We see it in schools. Children who have not even matured yet are
labeled good or bad based on the speed of their development in athletics, their
test scores, and their appearance. They
are welcomed or dismissed based on family name, acne, or income level. The child with a learning or physical
disability doesn’t stand a chance!
Any gathering of professionals
will feature a jockeying for position in the Pecking Order. If you sit back and listen you will hear
people talking about the range of their experience, the size of their
responsibility, the degrees they have secured, the people with whom they are
friends and the awards they have won.
It is all geared to the same thing . . . determining the pecking order.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could
say this kind of thing doesn’t happen in the church? It would be nice, but it wouldn’t be true. If you get a group of Pastors together you
will hear questions such as: How big is your church? How many ministers are on
your staff? Do you have a worship team? Do you use multimedia? How big is your
youth program? What is your rate of
growth? There is one purpose to these
questions: to establish a Pecking Order.
In Matthew 23:8-11 Jesus speaks directly to this
desire to rank ourselves in relation to others. In these words He confronts the notion of the pecking order.
PROHIBITION: RESIST THE TITLES
Jesus gives this direction to His disciples,
8 “But
you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all
brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth
‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10
Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. 11 The greatest among
you will be your servant. 12 For whoever exalts
himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
It is important to see that Jesus is contrasting the
disciples with the way of the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law. He said of them,
They love the place of honor at banquets and the most
important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be
greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’
The Pharisees and teachers of the Law wanted to be
seen. They wanted to be known and to stake their place at the top of the
pecking order. Jesus tells His
disciples, “Don’t be like them!”
Jesus is not saying you should never call someone
Rabbi, Father, or Teacher. He was
saying that we shouldn’t be seeking or demanding these titles. We shouldn’t be focused on a person’s title
. . . we should focus on their personhood! He is also saying we shouldn’t exalt
people to positions that should be reserved for God.
There are three reasons I see for avoiding the
mentality of the Pecking Order. First The
pursuit of titles and perks is the wrong goal. Our goal is to pursue faithfulness to the Lord. We should be seeking to amass character
rather than perks.
We see this pursuit manifested in various ways: There
is the drive for position. We
want to be recognized, deferred to, and honored. We want to be on the “A” list of the social crowd. We want people to respect us and honor us.
I heard James MacDonald talking about a time when he
was visiting a church where the Pastor insisted that everyone refer to him as
Pastor. Even the staff called Him
Pastor so-and-so. They were all in a
van and the Pastor exited. His wife (!)
said, “The Pastor will be back in a moment.”
MacDonald said his wife made it a point to call this guy Steve whenever
she could. This frustrated the Pastor
because he wanted “respect”. He wanted
everyone to know who he was. Truth is,
everyone did know who he was, they just didn’t care!
I am all for giving people proper respect but we need
to get over ourselves! We are not as
significant as we’d like to think. I
support advancing your education.
However, if the goal is simply to get a title, you are pursuing the
wrong goal!
People run after power. The goal is simple: get to the top! People want control and they will run over
whoever they need to run over to get it.
I sense there are some people don’t want to serve on Boards and
committees, they want to RUN THINGS.
This is the kind of thing Jesus is trying to curtail.
A dangerous trend in the church is the rise of CEO
pastors. More and more we are seeing
Pastors who insist on running the church!
They want all the control and they demand that the people submit to
“their authority”. When you hear those
kinds of words, I think you are right to be concerned. You may be dealing with a power hungry
individual.
We are supposed to submit to the authority of
Jesus! You can’t demand that someone
respect you . . . you earn that respect.
Jesus wanted his followers to understand that their authority is a derived
authority. The Bible calls us to submit
to leaders who first submit to the Word of God. A leader is only worth following when you know where they are
leading you. A Biblical leader is
urging people to follow the Lord, not them.
People also run after prestige. They want to be known. They want to be considered among the “movers
and shakers”. It’s the wrong goal! Our job is to make Christ known. John
the Baptist had a great ministry before Jesus came along. When Jesus arrived people started to leave
John to follow Christ. John’s disciples
were concerned about the drop in their attendance. They were a little miffed at the competition. When they met with John for a strategy
session, John said, “He must increase and I must decrease”. The same is true of the believer. Christ
must become more prominent and we must become less. This leads me to the next observation.
Notice Second that A Pursuit of titles and
perks puts us in the wrong position.
Our ambition puts us where only the Lord should be. When we are trying to get all the attention,
we are taking that attention away from where it should be, on the Lord! When we should be sharing what He has done,
we are too busy talking about what we have done. When we should be bowing to His will we end up trying to bring
about our will.
Third, A Pursuit of titles and perks divides
what should not be divided. Our Lord tells us we should not let anyone call us rabbi because.
. . we are all brothers. For the church
to function as it was designed, there can’t be a Pecking Order. This is to be a place where people are
valued equally. It is the place where
the pauper is on equal footing with the King.
No matter where we have come from or what we have accomplished we are
all the same in this place, we are “Sinners who depend on God’s gracious act in
Christ, for our salvation.”
Again, let me quote Hybels,
The Pecking Order, at it’s very skeleton, is built on pride and prejudice, on the belief that some of us are better than others. Humility is the wisdom to know that each of us, in the eyes of God, is the same: deeply flawed, yet precious. None of us, regardless of our titles and possessions, is worthy of more than hell. None of us can climb ourselves into a state of grace. God’s redeeming mercy is, by definition, totally undeserved. Yet it is offered freely to all. (p. 123)
PRESCRIPTION: BECOME A SERVANT
Jesus doesn’t leave us simply with a
prohibition. He tells us how to correct
the problem. “The greatest among you
will be your servant. 12 For whoever exalts himself
will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (vv. 11,12) This is familiar counsel in the Bible. Several times He repeated this phrase in the
gospels. This teaching is consistent
with what is taught elsewhere.,
“Before
downfall goes pride; and before stumbling, a haughty spirit” (Prov. 16:18)
23
A man’s pride brings him low, but
a man of lowly spirit gains honor. [Prov. 29:23]
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the
humble.” [Jas. 4:5-6]
There are a couple of key benefits to the servant
heart. First, the servant heart sees
hurting people. Think about it, how
many times have you been walking through a store or a mall and you walked right
by someone you knew and didn’t even see them until they called to you? How did that happen? You were preoccupied. You were thinking about something else and
didn’t see anyone who wasn’t in your focus.
People who are focused on titles and perks don’t see
people who can’t help them to their goal.
This was the case with the Pharisees.
They didn’t want to associate with the “little people”. Internally the question they ask of everyone
is simple: “Can this person help me get to my goal?” If not, they dismiss them.
Sometimes this decision takes a fraction of a second.
We see this in schools all the time. Kids that aren’t attractive, athletic or
intellectually advanced are overlooked because everyone is trying to get close
to the “stars” of the school. But it is
not just in school. It is in every area
of life.
Jesus was the example of what a servant was
like. He set aside the power and
privilege that was rightfully His and instead became a servant. Jesus attracted the people who were scorned
by the Scribes and Pharisees. In the
crowd following Jesus were common people, discarded people, and hurting people.
If Jesus had big meetings today the parking lot
wouldn’t be filled with Lexuses, Cadillacs, and expensive SUV’s. There would be a few of those vehicles, but
mostly it would be Ford’s, Chevy’s, and rusted out vehicles. Jesus drew the common folk to Him. He drew the people the Pharisees didn’t have
time for.
So here’s a question for us: Who are we
overlooking? Where have we become so
intent on rising in the pecking order that we no longer see the person who is
hurting? We are so focused on status that we don’t see the cleaning person, the
new employee, the delivery person, the teen who stands in the corner or the
cashier. We have no time for the
elderly and don’t have time for children!
If you see this in your life you need to develop a servant heart.
Second, The servant is willing to be used as God
sees fit. The person who is focused
on titles and perks always wants to know, “what’s in it for me?” The person with a servant heart is willing
to do whatever needs to be done. They
will take out garbage, sweep floors, change a diaper, hold a door, drive
someone to a meeting, or pick up a scrap of paper. These are people who aren’t afraid of getting dirty or being
inconvenienced. They see a job that
needs to be done and see no reason why they shouldn’t be the one to do that
job.
The servant will sacrifice present pleasure to invest
in what will have eternal consequences.
They aren’t bound by ego; they are set free by grace. They listen to others because they know God
is listening to them. They have a
humility that says, “I don’t have all the information.”
APPLICATION
I hope you see what an important passage of Scripture
this is. This is a very real battle
that we all fight. We are constantly
pushed to pursue titles and perks. This
is how we are measured by the world. This pursuit is sometimes bold and at other
times passive aggressive. The result is the same: we end up trying to build our
Kingdom rather than His.
There are two different applications in this
passage. The first is a rebuke. Jesus speaks plainly; If you are seeking to
push your own preferences and demand your own way, you need to repent. It is sin.
We are to humbly seek His way, not ours. We must decrease and He must increase.
If we are judging others based on externals we must
repent. We must work to eliminate thoughts and actions that say, “I’m better
(or worse) than you are. We must see
the image of God in all around us.
We need to develop a servant heart. But we can’t do this without taking
deliberate steps to do so. First, we
must pray. We must ask the Lord to
purify our hearts and to give us the heart of the servant. We need to ask the Lord to show us where our
pride and self-centeredness is hindering our walk with Him. When God shows us the problems we must not
excuse them, we must repent!
Second, we must practice servanthood. Let someone else talk. Make it a point to reach out to someone on
the fringe of the social group. Ask
someone to tell you about their life.
Resist the urge to talk about the time you had an experience “just like
that” (that was more difficult or significant). Listen.
Let someone else have the bigger piece of pie. Take out the garbage or do the dishes even
if it isn’t “your turn”. Clean up a mess you didn’t make. Do a job that is
“beneath you”. Let someone else have
the closer parking spot. Give a compliment rather than fish for one. And . . . do all of this without expecting
credit for doing so.
The second application is a message of
encouragement. Many of us have been in this position of being at the bottom of
the Pecking Order at one time or another.
You may feel inadequate because you aren’t as attractive,
coordinated, talented or have as big
or nice a house as others. You may feel
like a second-class person because you have a stained past or have made bad
choices.
First, let me say, on behalf of the Lord Jesus
Christ: please forgive us if we cause you to feel like a second-class
person. We may act that way . . . Jesus
does not. Forgive us for
mis-representing our wonderful Savior. You have nothing to prove here. We are all people who are dependent on God’s
forgiveness and grace. Second, let me assure you that the Lord Jesus Christ
sees the real you. He understands you. He loves you. He sees the potential you may not even see in yourself. Please,
look past us and see Him. Don’t dismiss
Him because of your experience in the church.
Come to Him. He cherishes you.
Jesus gave His life for the broken, the bruised and
the rejected. He came for you. Many of the people who look like they have
it “all together” are just as broken as you are. They hide behind their smiles.
God loves you. There is a place
for you in His kingdom. He wants to use
you in significant and eternal ways.
Our goal as people and as a congregation should be:
to stop pecking and to start embracing; to stop building walls and start
building bridges; to stop fighting and
start healing; to stop complaining about what others are doing and roll
up our own sleeves and get to work.
When all is said and done, this passage is less about titles than it is
about the heart. Jesus calls us to see
things differently than the rest of the world.
He calls us to buck the trend of our push and shove world. He calls us to trust Him and to learn to see
not with the blinders of labels, but with the clarity of grace.
©January
15, 2006 Rev. Bruce Goettsche