I’d like to speak today about what it means to have a
station in life. Your station in life consists of the relationships that God
has put you into. If you are married, you have a relationship and
responsibility to your spouse. If you are a father or mother, then you have
responsibilities toward your children. If you are a child, then you have
responsibilities towards your parents. If you are employed, then you have
responsibilities towards your boss. If you are a boss, then you have
responsibilities toward your employees.
Within these different roles there are going to be different
responsibilities. The two people who form the relationship are not the same; they
are not symmetrical. The responsibilities that a husband has toward his wife
are not the same as the responsibilities that a wife has toward her husband. So
it is with almost all the relationships that we have in life. Things don’t work
well if you don’t have both leaders and followers. You need both. Both
positions of being leaders and followers are good and honorable.
It seems to be hard-wired into us human beings, though, that
one of these positions is better than the other. Leaders are considered more
valuable than followers. They are held in higher esteem. They normally get paid
more. Followers, on the other hand, are regarded as having very little worth.
People might think that they shouldn’t get paid anything but the bare minimum.
They might even be thought of as being sub-human. This is what happened with
the enslavement of the blacks in this country. This is also the mentality in
India’s caste system. In India, the people at the top are thought of as almost
being gods. Those at the bottom are not deserving of any more consideration
than that you would give to some nasty animal.
It is evil to regard another human being as being something
less than human. Whenever and wherever people think this way, atrocities are
certain to follow. When you regard someone else as being less than human, then
you feel justified in treating that other person badly. The world is actually on
to something when it says that inequality is bad. It senses that it is wrong
for one group to be super-exalted as though they were gods and to have the
other group regarded as scum. They are right about that.
But the way that the world tries to fix the problem isn’t
good. They propose that instead of there being any difference of leader and
follower in these relationships, there should only be equality. Equality means
that people are the same. If things are the same, it means that they are also
interchangeable. But leaders are not
interchangeable with followers. They are different, and they are supposed to be
different. Men are not interchangeable with women. They are different, and they
are supposed to be different. It is sheer nonsense to say that men and women
are the same and that they are interchangeable. Men and women have been made
different from one another by the Creator, and it is good that they have been
made different. The world’s solution to the problems that almost always crop up
in the relationships of life is to pretend that there are no differences. But
the differences are obvious. This pretending leads to asininity and atrocities
and abominations—only one example of which is the world’s current demand that
we say that a man is a woman or a woman is a man depending on whatever the person
in question says instead of what their body actually is.
Whenever anybody is critical of the world’s solution to the
problems that accompany inequality, it is almost always assumed that they must
be supporters of all the antiquated
ways. If a person will not concede that everybody is interchangeable, then it
is assumed that they must think like the white slave owners of the Confederacy,
or that they support the dehumanization that happens in a caste system. Or it
is assumed that husbands should think of themselves as tyrants and wives should
think of themselves as slaves. Or it is assumed that such persons must be in
favor of pure capitalism—such as it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s where
business owners were able to get away with paying their workers practically
nothing, to have unsafe work environments, and all the other abuses that the
newly formed labor unions tried to address. A caricature is made of those who
refuse to get on the world’s bandwagon. They must all be a bunch of bigots who
have not realized that we are living in the 21st century. This
name-calling makes a lot of people afraid to even think about the issues
involved. They then mindlessly line up behind either the liberals or the
conservatives.
I would like it if you, as Christians, would be different
than the shrieking crowds. I believe that you can be different by learning from
the Scriptures. The New Testament epistles, especially, have a lot to say about
the relationships that we have as human beings and how we should remain and
live within them. The majority of the apostolic letters have exhortations that
address their hearers’ stations in life. Instructions and encouragement are
given to fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, employers and
employees. The apostles do not dismiss these roles like the people of today who
think that they have discovered that there is no such thing as men and women or
leaders and followers. Because the apostles do not dismiss these different
positions as being nonexistent, the so-called smart people of today assume that
the apostles were bigots. But that is a stupid thing to say.
Instead of dismissing these relationships, the apostles urge
that all these relationships should be filled with love. Love is the opposite
of selfishness. Instead of looking out for one’s own interests, each one of us
should look out for the interests of the other person. So this means that a
husband should not look out for whatever might be pleasurable or advantageous
for himself, but, as the head of the household, he should look out for the
interests of his wife and children—considering what will be good for them. An
employee should not just care about his or her paycheck. A Christian employee should
never say stuff like, “I’m getting paid by the hour, not by the job,” or other
selfish things like that. That’s breaking the seventh commandment. The
Christian should understand that his or her work is for the good, and for the betterment
of those that they are serving. In an employee’s relationship with the
employer, he or she should anticipate what will make the boss happy and do it.
The boss, on the other hand, should not just care about profit, but what is
good for the employee’s livelihood and family. That means, obviously, that
wages are not set by whatever the employer can get away with without having the
employee quit. It means that we should be generous, that is to say, loving, in
the way that we deal with one another.
The asymmetrical, unequal nature of the relationships that
we have in this life are not to be undone. They can’t be undone. There will
always be leaders and followers no matter how much we pretend that it isn’t so.
What pleases God is that these relationships should be filled with love on both
sides. And it doesn’t matter if both sides are not filled with love. Whoever
wishes to be Christian is not going to quit loving even if that love is not
returned. The Christian will continue to try to please God by doing good. This
will mean the Christians have to suffer. They inevitably will be taken
advantage of, at least to some extent. They will turn the other cheek and walk
the extra mile and love their enemy—even if that person who has evilly set out
to hurt them is living in the same house. They will bear the cross that God has
given them, and commend themselves to God who judges justly.
The Bible’s teaching is quite remarkable. You won’t hear
this kind of advice from anybody else. The world advises that we all fight for
our rights with sharp elbows. “Nobody gives it to you, you have to take it.
Only the fittest survive. If you don’t make your own mark on the world, then
you are kind of a loser.” This is the opposite of love, because the only thing
that is cared about is one’s own reputation and welfare. What the Bible teaches
is that we should be loving.
Jesus gives us quite a picture of what our love should be
like on the night on which he was betrayed. He rolled up his sleeves, took out
a washbasin and a towel, and proceeded to wash the stinky, dirty feet of his
disciples afterwards. Jesus, in his conversation with the disciples, points out
how he is the leader. And yet, though he is the Son of God and ruler of the
universe, he gladly and willingly washes the feet of those who are under him. That
is the work of a slave. Why does Jesus do this? Because he is loving and wanted
to. Also, as he himself says, he has left us an example that we should do
likewise.
As far as honor is concerned, the Bible tells us that we
should not think highly of ourselves. We should think highly of other people,
but not of ourselves. This is certainly what Jesus is teaching in the parable
that we heard today. We should not take the highest place. We should take the
lowest place and be content to dwell there. Even if we are placed into a
position of leadership, we follow the example of the Lord Jesus. Although he is
lord of all, he made himself to be nothing and took on the form of a slave.
Jesus says in another place that we as Christians are not supposed to exercise
lordship over one another and throw our weight around. He says, “Whoever
desires to be great among you, must be your slave, and whoever wants to be
first, must be the slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.”
True greatness is not when we are like the devil, who is an
exceedingly proud spirit. True greatness is when we have become like God, who
is love. Those who are proud are often able to cut a good figure before men.
People will think that they are high and great and extraordinary. But what is
held in high esteem by men is an abomination to God. God is not impressed by
what we think is powerful or impressive. The foolishness of God is wiser than
the wisdom of men. The weakness of God is stronger than the strength of men.
Jesus, with his sacrificial love by which he has redeemed and saved the whole
world, is who is truly great. Think about what Jesus does. He laid down his
life for nasty, disgusting sinners. There isn’t a single sinner for whom Jesus
did not lay down his life. I certainly hope that you are honest enough to class
yourself among those who are nasty and disgusting. Jesus has loved you in this
way. Beloved, shall we not, then, also love one another?
A necessary element of the love that we are to have as
Christians is that we be humble. The world cannot understand humility as
anything but bad. Being humble is embarrassing, and something that is supposed
to be outgrown by personal achievement. By working your tail off, you can
finally bask in your own glory as an outstanding person. Such people have their
reward. God is not impressed.
God is not a respecter of persons. He does not want us all
to be CEOs and doctors and whatever else is regarded as honorable by the world.
He wants us to be faithful in whatever situation he has put us in. We are to
love and serve within these vocations. The way that we can be truly great is by
becoming the slave of all. The world thinks that this sacrificial love is
terrible or even immoral. You know better though. You know that what Jesus did
for you is not immoral. How can it be immoral, then, to love and sacrifice and
suffer for those whom God has put into your life.
Because God judges things so differently from the way that
the world judges things, there will be a lot of surprises at the final
judgment. There will be housewives and factory workers and slaves and mentally
retarded people and many others whom the world sneers at as being worthless,
who are treasured by God and will be honored by him at the end of the world.
That is when it doesn’t matter if we are a leader or a follower, a Jew or a
Greek, a freeman or a slave. God is not a respecter of persons. What matters to
God is the love that has been at work in our lives according to the station in
life that God has given to us. Have we been faithful in the work that God has
given us to do?
The answer, of course, is that we have not been. The devil,
the world, and our own sinful flesh see to that. But we were never meant to
save ourselves by our own work. This is something that Jesus did for us. But
this also doesn’t mean that we should sin all the more, because we are saved by
grace. God points us to what is good. What is good is not that we erase all
distinctions in the natural relationships that exist on earth. That can’t work.
It is fighting against the very Creator. Instead, all these relationships are
to be filled with love—considering and acting upon what is good for the other
person instead of what is good for ourselves. May God grant us his Holy Spirit
toward that end.
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