Humility Wins Self-Exaltation

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Luke 18:9-14

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector."

 

 

1

Now I think you know what I begin with. As usual, I would like to ask you what part of the last Sunday’s Bible story remains in mind. Anyone who can tell what we learned last Sunday? Yes, last Sunday we learned the secret of the Kingdom of Heaven. Surprisingly, Jesus does not think God’s Kingdom as a building or a place. Instead, Jesus likens God’s Kingdom to a mustard seed. A mustard seed is small, does not seem important. However, when we plant and carefully grow it, someday, it is important to remember someday not overnight, the seed grows into a big tree. I told you that a mustard seed is you. You are a miniature of God’s Kingdom. Either you become a nice miniature of God’s Kingdom or a bad miniature totally depends on you. So, I shared with you how to grow well the mustard seed within you. When several options given to you, always choose the seemingly most difficult one. Additionally, I also told you that your parents are normally great at recommending you the most difficult option.

 

2

That being said, today I would like to talk with you about one sentence I made for you. That is, humility wins (self-)exaltation. Do you know what it means? Humility means ‘the quality or state of being humble.’ For example, let us assume that you have one specialty like singing and dancing, and you want to expose it to others because their surprised reactions normally make you feel good and exalted. However, if you can carefully consider that there are people who don’t sing well even though they try really hard to improve it and that there are people who always are better than you when it comes to singing and dancing, you can avoid your instinct to expose your specialty except certain occasions. When you do so, we say that you have a good sense of humility. On the contrary, when you always try to expose your special skill in signing and dancing even in front of a professional singer like Bangtan Sonyeondan, we say that you have a sense of self-exaltation. Today’s Bible story in Luke 18:9-14 tells us a similar story that happened in Jesus’ time. Let us read the story first and we can go from there.

 

3

In the story, there are two main characters. One is one Pharisee. A couple of weeks ago I told you that the word Pharisee is a religious title usually given to a person who is obsessive about keeping all of God’s commands and rules. So, the Pharisees are a group of people full of self-exaltation. They believed that they are the best in living according to the Bible. The other character is one tax collector. Generally speaking, the Israelites in Jesus’ time hated tax collectors. Do you know why? At that time, the Israelites were under the Empire of Rome’s control. What those tax collectors did was to collect money from their people and gave it to the Romans. The Romans decided how much money each tax collector collected and that amount of money must be collected no matter what happened. One day these two enter a God’s temple at the same time. The Pharisee begins his prayer, saying “God, thank you for helping me to stay on the top. I am still the best when it comes to how to keep your commands. I am keeping all of them. There is no one like me. I cannot be compared to detestable sinners like that tax collector because I am so wonderful!” The tax collector also begins his prayer, saying “God, please have mercy on me! Because I have to survive, taking care of my family, I went too hard on my people to collect money. God, I know it is sin in your sight, please have mercy on me!” Jesus says, “The tax collector will go home justified by God, but not the Pharisee. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” I hope all of us keep this in mind and stay humble while trying hard to improve ourselves bit by bit.

 

 

Prayer

God, today we learned how important it is for us to stay humble. Even though we think that we are great at something, God, now we realize that there are always always people who are greater than we. Jesus taught us the importance of humility. We remind ourselves once again what Jesus said: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Yes, God. Humility wins self-exaltation. We pray in your name Jesus Christ. Amen.