Take Some Divine Advice!

15th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/1/13
Proverbs 25:6-7


Take Some Divine Advice!
I. Sinful pride blinds us to our sinful nature.
II. Godly humility receives Christ’s approval.


Your day is likely filled with advice. Your financial advisor instructs you to buy low and sell high. Your doctor advises you to change your diet and shed a few pounds. The human resources director at your place of employment advises you how to handle a sticky situation. If you’re a child, your parents advise you to stay out of trouble, do your homework, and eat your vegetables. Many of you have come to me for spiritual advice.

Today’s sermon text is from the Book of Proverbs. Have you ever read through it? It contains 31 chapters of advice, mainly one or two line bits of wisdom. Its writers advise you on subjects ranging from money, to marriage, to food, to work and all sorts of other things in between.

In the two verses before us this morning, King Solomon shares some wisdom about how to conduct yourself in front of a king, even offering practical application if you’re ever invited to a banquet hosted by the king. I don’t know about you, but I don’t run in royal circles. I’ve lived half my life and I don’t think I’ve ever come close to meeting royalty, let alone knowing a royal person well enough to be invited to a royal banquet. So, I suppose I could advise you that these verses of God’s word will likely never apply to you, so “Amen,” end of this sermon.

But that would be terrible spiritual advice from your spiritual advisor. Jesus quoted these words in the event described in today’s gospel. They obviously do have a wider application than just in cases of royal banquets. Jesus was addressing a much larger issue than simply where you decide to be seated at a banquet. He was addressing our opinions about ourselves. How do we perceive ourselves compared to others?

Now that’s a practical question, one which we face repeatedly every day. It happens every time we interact with someone else. And the results can either be very pleasant or very painful. So, wouldn’t it be wise to take some advice in this matter? And who better to give that advice than our God himself who caused Solomon to write these words? Take some divine advice! May the Holy Spirit open our hearts to his advice this morning!

Part I.

The character of a buffoon is a classic in literature, on stage and on screen. One of my favorites was Archie Bunker from the 1970s TV show “All in the Family.” He felt he was always right on every subject, even though his position was clearly wrong. Things were always about him. If his dear wife, Edith, experienced some problem, Archie would complain about how it affected him. He was oblivious to what people around him really needed. And he got his laughs. It was the top-rated sit-com for years. Every week millions of Americans would tune in to see what Archie would do next and to hear what he would say. And they would laugh for most of the 30 minutes of the show.

But in reality, in real life, such a view of self is no laughing matter at all. While our self-centeredness might not be on exaggerated display to humor others, it’s there nonetheless. And it’s one of the most destructive fruits of our sinful nature. You can see it already in little children. One of a parent’s most important tasks is to teach their child to think about others. It’s a lesson that needs to be taught daily, otherwise the child grows up thinking that his or her needs are most important and must be met immediately regardless of everyone else around them. And children don’t grow out of self-centeredness as they enter the teen years. They need to be reminded that the world doesn’t revolve around them. I’m sure you’ve witnessed parents who not only allow such an attitude but, worse yet, even foster it. The results are disastrous. Those are not people we enjoy being around.

Those are some of the worst examples of a sinful view of self. And God be praised if that description doesn’t come close to describing you and me. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you have your sinful pride mastered. Don’t think that you never think more of yourself than you ought to. Seating order at banquets in biblical times was a measure of your outward importance. That isn’t so much the case today, but, have you ever been seated at the head table and felt pretty good about yourself, that finally others are recognizing your gifts, your talents, your superiority? Have you ever been seated in a room full of other people and, after making a quick survey of the crowd, come to the conclusion that you don’t belong here because you’re obviously above the rest? Have you ever served others and then wondered when they were going to serve you? Have you volunteered your time and effort and then despised in your heart those who weren’t serving like you were? Do you see what I mean? We don’t have to wear T-shorts proclaiming that we think we’re greater than we really are in order to be guilty of harboring sinful pride. And when left unchecked, sinful pride causes us to conclude that, of course, God loves us because we’re so wonderful.

And all the while, we’re blind to the fact that we’re sinful by nature and deserve nothing good from our God. In fact, what we deserve is eternal punishment.

Take some divine advice! Sinful pride blinds us to our sinful nature.

Solomon gives this divine advice, “Do not exalt yourself in the king’s presence.” Let’s take that advice to the next level by making the “k” in the word “king’s” upper case. The best way to avoid sinful pride is to stand before your King, your Lord and Savior, and honestly tell him who and what you are. We call that confession. If we fail to recognize our sins, then we have no need for a Savior. If we don’t admit that our sinful hearts are the heart of the problem, then we’ll easily conclude that we’re good enough.

“Father, I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed. I have done it countless times in the past week. I’ve even sinned against the people who love me the most. I’ve allowed my sinful view of self to stain my record as a child of God. In fact, Lord, there have been times—too many times—when I’ve decided that I know better than you and I’ll do as I please.” And when our Lord hears those words, he’s not weeping. Instead, his eyes are filled with love and understanding and he invites us to take to heart his words, “Your sins are forgiven. I know that your sinful nature leads you to think more of yourself than you should. That’s why I came to this earth to serve you all the way to my death on Calvary’s cross.” And once again, our sinful nature has been drowned. Take some divine advice. Don’t let sinful pride blind you to your sinful nature.

Part II.

People who are too proud of themselves are fairly easy to detect. Just listen to them and watch them. The opposite situation isn’t so easy to see—it’s low self-esteem and it has all sorts of causes. Such a person might be the victim of terrible parenting. The parent feels terrible about himself and, tragically, projects that onto his child. It might be caused by an authority figure such as a teacher or coach who belittles the person entrusted to them. It could be caused by some form of abuse. Whatever the cause, it leaves the person desperately in need of acceptance.

Jesus once dealt figuratively with both extremes of a person’s view of himself. Do you recall the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector? The self-righteous Pharisee who had convinced himself he never did anything wrong and was better than everyone else, stood at the front of the Temple, looked up to heaven and declared, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people are,” and then he proceeded to recite some of his good deeds and went home, still in denial about his spiritual condition. The tax collector stood in the same Temple but in the back of the room. He wouldn’t look anywhere but at the ground. He struck his chest with his hand and begged God for mercy. And, do you know what Jesus said? This man—the tax collector who was an obvious sinner—went home justified. He went home declare not guilty. He was forgiven, righteous, holy before God. He might not have been accepted by his peers, but he was accepted where it counted most—before his God in heaven.

Jesus exalts the humble. He reminds them that he thought so much of each one of them that he left the glory of his throne in heaven and came to this sinful earth. He came to live a holy life for us. And then he pressed on to a cross punched into the side of a hill called Calvary. He suffered and died there. And when he did, he had you in mind by name. He did that so that you could be certain of your forgiveness and eternal life with him. Jesus thinks so much of you that he wants you to live forever with him in bliss and glory. At your baptism he made you a child of God and stamped you “God-approved!” And every time we come to him in private or here in public and confess to him that we have not lived like his child, he announces our forgiveness, washes our sins away, and empowers us to think and say and do what a child of God should do. To each one of us our King says, “Come up here. Let me show everyone what I have made you by faith in me.” You are one of his holy people whom he has placed here to do the things he has planned for you until that day when he calls you permanently to himself.

Take some divine advice. Godly humility receives Christ’s approval, now and forever. Amen.