130th Church Anniversary Service
[0:00] Well, it is really lovely to be in Bells Hill. I've never been to Bells Hill before. I used to live on the other side of the M8 in Airdrie and never, ever turned left off the A725.
[0:11] However, Bells Hill is the place that my wife was born, so it is remiss of me that this is the first time back. And it is lovely to be here. I'm so encouraged to hear from Carl all that the Lord is doing amongst you.
[0:27] And it is a real privilege to open God's Word with you this morning. If you've got a Bible, please turn with me to Luke chapter 14.
[0:43] Because you're about to have dinner later, I thought it would be good to drop into this dinner party at the end of Luke 14. But before we get stuck into that, Tetrodontetai.
[1:02] You know Tetrodontetai? You know it? It's familiar to you in Bells Hill? Well, I'm sure you know of it.
[1:14] It is, in fact, the Latin genus for a genus of fish called the puffer fish. You know if you've watched Planet Earth by David Attenborough?
[1:27] You know these little scrawny fish that swim along, and the minute they sense they're in danger, or a predator comes, they suck in enormous amounts of water, and are able to inflate themselves to four or five times their size.
[1:42] This little innocent fish that becomes enormous to scare off the predator, and if not make themselves a lot harder to swallow. If we were in Japan today, and we were having a fancy Thanksgiving dinner, we might eat puffer fish.
[2:01] It is a great delicacy to the Japanese. They call it fugu. And to be able to serve puffer fish, you need to serve a four or five year apprenticeship to be able to cut it up properly, because it is also poisonous.
[2:17] You'd really want to trust your chef if that was on the menu this afternoon. But I want to suggest that the puffer fish shares a lot of commonality with us.
[2:31] We may not have very similar DNA, but I think this reflex of puffing ourselves up is inbuilt in the human condition.
[2:42] That each of us, and all of us, at different times in our lives, have a propensity to puff ourselves up, to big ourselves up, to think of ourselves more highly than we should.
[2:56] Pride is a congenital problem with the human fallen condition. We all, at points in our lives, have an ability to puff ourselves up, to blow ourselves up.
[3:15] And friends, let us be clear this morning, as we hear the words of Jesus from Luke chapter 14, that self-importance, self-aggrandisement, self-reliance, self-confidence, self-righteousness, are all incongruous when it comes to feasting with Jesus for all eternity.
[3:39] What is going to be the number one thing that bars us from Jesus' eternal feast? It will be that we've puffed ourselves up. We've become very self-conscious in our own abilities, and have conscientiously uncoupled ourselves in pride from the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
[3:58] So in Luke 14, we're dropping into a dinner party, and it is a dinner party fraught with tension, not like your lunch this afternoon.
[4:10] The tension at this dinner party, you could cut with a knife, because Jesus is dining behind enemy lines amidst hostile people.
[4:20] And Dr. Luke has written us a very orderly account. You can't read his handwriting, he's a doctor, but he does organise his material incredibly well.
[4:35] It is a gospel in two halves, with the pivot being chapter 9, verse 51. So the first nine, nearly ten chapters of Luke's gospel is all about why Jesus has come.
[4:49] It's all about the coming of the Son of Man, all that he's come to fulfil, all that he's come to accomplish, all that he's come to do. And then in chapter 9, verse 51, we get this verse, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
[5:07] So be clear, now this Son of Man has come, he is now going. And where is he going? He's going back to glory via Jerusalem. And so the second half of Luke's gospel is all about what will it take to follow Jesus to glory through his suffering?
[5:25] What will it take to follow Jesus to glory through his suffering? How is it that people inherit eternal life? How are they saved?
[5:38] And then once we get that verse 951, the first 10 chapters of the second half are all about this really long journey that Jesus takes from Galilee in the north, town to Jerusalem in the south.
[5:50] A journey that will end in chapter 19, verse 45. This journey is all about what it means to follow Jesus. What it takes to get to heaven.
[6:02] And what it means to be saved by our Lord. And Luke divides this journey nicely into different chunks. And the marker for the chunks is this phrase, the way.
[6:14] So in chapter 13, verse 22, we get this phrase. He went on his way. Do you see that?
[6:25] That's Luke's designating marker that we've moved on to a new section. Through towns and villages, teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem. And someone said to him, Lord, will those who are saved be few?
[6:40] And Jesus said to them, strive to enter through the narrow door. Luke is clearly headlining that this section is about two big things.
[6:51] Number one, will those who are saved be few? As in, if following you to heaven is so difficult, will it mean that only a few, a trickle of people get into heaven?
[7:03] And secondly, Jesus says that to follow me to heaven is akin to entering through a narrow door. Do you see already that at a propensity to be a puffer fish, to make ourselves big and wide and large and cumbersome, that is intrinsically going to make it impossible to enter through a narrow door.
[7:26] That a narrow door means we need to jettison everything that is superfluous to requirements. We need to stay, stick thin in humility as we follow Jesus along the way.
[7:39] I don't know if you've ever been potholing. Do you know like the extreme caving where nothing is big enough for you to fit through? And you have to like, wear your boiler suit with no clothes underneath.
[7:50] You have to put your battery pack under your chin because it's the only place that it doesn't stick out. And you have to like, wiggle through. I think that is what Jesus is saying by enter the narrow door. Get rid of everything.
[8:01] Get rid of all baggage. Get rid of all things that are superfluous to requirements. Slim yourself down and be stick thin in humility as you follow Jesus.
[8:13] And so what happens at this dinner party is an exposure of what we need Jesus to do with our prize. The markers that it takes to be a humble disciple of the Lord Jesus.
[8:27] So the first thing we see is a visual aid. A visual aid that will be a great warning to us as pufferfish. Let me read verses one to six.
[8:41] One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had drops in.
[8:52] And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent.
[9:03] Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out?
[9:15] And they could not reply to these things. Do you see it is the Sabbath day? And Jesus, for the third time in Luke's gospel, finds himself dining at the house of a Pharisee.
[9:29] And the tension has ramped up because he's not just at a Pharisee's house, he's at the house of the ruler of the Pharisees. He's come to dinner with the grand fromage from the synagogue.
[9:41] This happened in Luke chapter seven and it happened in Luke chapter 11, but the language has changed here in Luke chapter 14. Because they aren't just watching him, they're watching him carefully.
[9:52] There is a malevolence about the way that they're watching him. They're trying to trip him up, to trap him, and to see if they can't get him to exit their religious gatherings.
[10:05] And this tension has been escalating ever since chapter six, verse 11, where amidst similar tension about the Sabbath, they gather together to plot how they can kill the Lord Jesus.
[10:16] I find that astonishing in Luke's gospel, that Jesus doesn't start public ministry until chapter four, and two chapters later, the religious elites of the day were already wrangling and plotting how they can do away with Jesus.
[10:32] That's an incredible diagnosis of the dangers of religion when it comes to the gospel. And you see, right into the middle of this gathering on a Sabbath comes a man with dropsy, or we would call it today, edema, or Luke being a doctor writing in Greek would call it hudropikos.
[10:57] And the symptom of it is is that you have incredible water retention, so you literally puff up, you swell up. And that's why this is a visual aid, because right in the middle there is a man who is physically puffed up.
[11:12] And he comes to Jesus on the Sabbath, and Jesus, breaking all convention of the day, heals him. He literally deflates him and sends him away.
[11:24] And the reason why this is so important is because the physical symptoms of this man with dropsy is nothing like the spiritual symptoms of the Pharisees and their puffed up nature when it comes to their thoughts about themselves and their thoughts about what it means to be faithful to God.
[11:45] Jesus sends them away. He uncovers their hypocrisy. If your son or your ox falls into a well on the Sabbath, you'll lift them out. Therefore, it's good to do good on the Sabbath.
[11:59] It's fine to heal and to relieve suffering on the Sabbath. He tackles their hypocrisy head on. But that's only the very first things he wants to do as he wants to diagnose their puffed upness, their swelled up pride.
[12:17] Jesus says, just as this man is suffering from physical dropsy, you are suffering from physical dropsy. And unless I deflate you, unless I put a pin in your pride, you will find it impossible to enter through the narrow door to get into heaven.
[12:35] And so what follows after that initial tense encounter just ramps up and ramps up and ramps up and we get three stark warnings from Jesus. And so look with me at verses 7 to 11, where Jesus says, don't be puffed up with self-importance.
[12:54] Let me read. Now he told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him.
[13:11] And he who invited you both will come and say to you, give your place to this person and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. And when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes, he might say to you, friend, move up higher.
[13:30] Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
[13:43] Do you see what provokes Jesus to tell this story? He sits there on the side as everyone gathers for dinner and everyone's crawling over each other to get into the place of honor.
[13:55] Everyone thinking so highly of themselves that they think, well, well, I deserve to be at the top table. I should be at the head of the table. I should be the one served first.
[14:07] And so Jesus tells them this parable. Just imagine how unpopular he was. So everyone's sitting there waiting for their starter and he goes, I've just got a little story to tell you before we started.
[14:18] Do you know when I was observing you at the beginning? You puffed up pufferfish, we're all swimming to the front of the queue. And he says, that's not the way it should be. And so he tells this incredible story.
[14:33] What embarrassment there is when you pridefully plonk yourself down on the top table of a wedding because you misread the invite card and it said table 21 but you thought it said table 1.
[14:47] So there you are sitting with the bride and groom and the family you're plunked on at the end. You think, I deserve to be here. And then before you know it as everyone's seated, the ushers have to come and take you in hand and say, oh, you're not supposed to be here.
[15:03] You're supposed to be on table 21 with crazy cousin Gene and awkward Uncle Jeff. And how embarrassing is everyone seated. Everyone's waiting and you have to stand up and gather your things.
[15:18] The things that you can't quite be gathered when you're embarrassed. And there's urgency and before everyone you have to do the walk of shame all the way to the cheap seats at the back behind the pillar where you can neither see nor hear anything that's going on.
[15:32] Where the top table will be finishing their dessert before you've even got your prawn cocktail. How embarrassing to get that sort of demotion. Jesus says instead think lowly of yourself.
[15:46] Think yourself. Stick thin in humility. Go and sit next to crazy Auntie Gene and awkward Uncle Jeff. And then just imagine how good it will feel when the ushers come and say, come on.
[15:58] Come on, friend. You're not on table one. You're not a relative but have table two. At least the food will still be warm by the time you get around to eating it. Completely opposite way of thinking to how Jesus' dinner companions think.
[16:16] Verse 11 is the key principle to the whole section. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. Every puffer fish will be deflated. But everyone who humbles himself in the end they will be exalted.
[16:31] wouldn't it be great with 130 years behind if 130 years ahead what was the one thing that Bales Hill Baptist was known for growing down in humility?
[16:45] That everyone in Bales Hill would go, well I've never met such a humble, kind people who sacrificially put themselves up for others. I come in amongst them and there's absolutely no pretense.
[16:57] I come in amongst them and they're just delighted to see me and do everything they can to serve me and to love me. 130 years of humble service in the past.
[17:10] Wouldn't it be great if looking forward we redoubled our efforts to be stick thin in humility rather than puffed up with pride? 130 years would be a great opportunity to think that we've cracked it or that we are something or that we're going somewhere.
[17:27] We start to get ideas above our station and thoughts above our pay grade and Jesus says absolutely not. At times like this the key is to grow downwards in humility. The Christian race is a race to the bottom and wishing that you would go lower.
[17:43] That when Jesus said to be great in the kingdom in the end the key is to be servant of all now. And what a great opportunity at this moment this juncture this landmark to say of all the things we're going to be going forward is we're not going to be puffer fish.
[17:59] We're going to come to Jesus constantly to put a pin in our pride and deflate us of any pretense. Those who are exalted will be humbled but those who humble themselves they'll be exalted.
[18:15] So know that going low is the ultimate way in the end to be exalted high. To go low in this life will result in being called forward at the banquet of the ages feasting in the presence of King Jesus himself.
[18:35] Just imagine how tense this dinner party is now. I mean it is so awkward. People are starting to think perhaps the babysitter will ring anytime soon and I can get out of here because this is going south quickly.
[18:49] But Jesus is really only getting started. He says don't be puffed up with self-importance but he also says don't be puffed up and lose sight of eternity.
[19:02] Let me read 12 to 14. He's now criticized the guests he's now criticizing the host and particularly not the seating plan but the invite list.
[19:15] He said to them also he said also to the man who had been invited who invited him when you give a dinner or a banquet do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.
[19:33] But when you give a feast invite the poor the crippled the lame the blind and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.
[19:47] Now let's be clear what this is saying and what this is not saying. I don't think this is Jesus outlawing having your friends or family over for dinner. I don't think that's what he's pointing at.
[19:59] I don't think he's saying that if you're eating Balmoral chicken with people that you vaguely like and vaguely know you're doing something intrinsically wrong. I don't think that's what Jesus is saying.
[20:10] In the first century dinner parties like this were as much about commerce as they were about friendship. This was the place of back slapping and back scratching.
[20:21] This was the place of making friends and influencing people. It was at dinner parties like this that you secured the big deals for your little slice of society.
[20:33] And so invitations were given on a quid pro quo kind of way. Well if I invite them I might get an angle into this. Or if I bring them along then maybe I'll get invited to their big dinner party where all the big fish swim.
[20:51] And so the guest list has been carefully procured not in order to share a meal together but in order to forge the leader of the Pharisees way in the world.
[21:04] First century dinner parties were like corporate boardrooms today. The place that the big deals go down. That is what Jesus is putting his finger on about the assembled gathering.
[21:17] He said you've invited these people to forge your way in the world. You think you come over for fugu at my house well I'll get invited to your Christmas party and that's the way that things will go very well for me into the future.
[21:34] You've invited me so I owe you a favour and you're very good at calling in these kind of favours when it suits you. And see what it ultimately see what Jesus ultimately diagnoses.
[21:50] He diagnoses that these Pharisees have lost sight of the fact that this world isn't all that there is. Their entire focus is being repaid and these favours being reciprocated in the here and now.
[22:06] You invite people so that down the line they will repay you. And Jesus says don't do that. Invite to your dinner party all the people that could never repay you, never reciprocate, knowing that if you do that your Father in heaven is pleased and he will repay you at the resurrection of the just.
[22:25] I think this is the problem, principal problem with first century Pharisaical Judaism is that it operates purely on a horizontal level. That it's about me looking good, me being honest, me being seen as a righteous upstanding citizen, me being seen as a law abiding Jew.
[22:45] But what they've lost sight of is eternity. And so why would you only ever throw a dinner party to forge your way in the world well if you thought that this world is all that there was?
[23:00] Inviting the crippled and the lame and the blind and those who have nothing, the only thing that is going to motivate you to do that is knowing that doing that now will pay an eternal dividend in the future.
[23:16] And that's what Jesus is putting his finger on. You've puffed yourself up so much and are seeking to get even bigger through these back channel big deals. And Jesus says in the light of eternity, at the resurrection of the just, all this effort that has been put into these three score years and ten, it will be nothing, it will just run through your fingers and result in nothing.
[23:42] nothing. But having an eternal perspective that changes your behaviour now. And that means you will be the humble person who serves and loves and blesses and graces people who could never pay you back.
[23:59] A few years ago, I did a three-month job for a church in Brussels. And I was going around the streets talking terrible French to homeless people.
[24:13] And lots of the homeless people in Brussels are people from the Congo and people from Cameroon. We had some great times. But just when I was starting that job, I just got through my contract a new iPhone X that I was very proud of.
[24:31] And I thought Brussels is very, very popular for pickpocketing and I thought it would be absolutely devastating if my iPhone X got stolen and pickpocketed as I went around the less glamorous, less touristy bits of Brussels.
[24:45] So me being me, I thought I'd take my Nokia 3320, which I literally don't care about. And so I left my iPhone X nicely locked in my flat, hidden behind the bookcase.
[24:56] No one's getting hold of that. And I took my Nokia 3320 around, which I just didn't care about. I'd leave it on the tube seat next to me. I put it on the tram. It would be out on the table as I conversed with different people.
[25:10] Here's the point. This life is our Nokia life. But so many of us are treating it like it's our iPhone X life.
[25:21] That we're trying to preserve it. That we're trying to show it off. That we're trying to build a portfolio from it. Be clear, friends, this is our Nokia 3320 life and the iPhone X life is to come.
[25:33] And if we understood that, there would be nothing in this life, no depth that we would go to for the sake of the Lord Jesus that we wouldn't say is ultimately worth it because this isn't it, that is it.
[25:47] Don't puff yourself up. You're a Nokia 3320 for these three score years and ten. And in the future, it will be an iPhone X and better than an iPhone X.
[25:59] It will be an iPhone to the nth degree as you banquet with Jesus for all eternity in his very near presence. Friends, don't be puffed up and lose sight of eternity.
[26:12] If this is all that there is, there will be lots of things that we'll choose not to do. But if that being with Jesus is it, then there's no length to which we'll stoop in order that we might make him look great.
[26:27] As we grow downwards in humility, as we remain stick thin in humility rather than puffed up with pride. Then we come into land with verses 15 to 25.
[26:45] 15 to 25. Don't be puffed up and distracted from coming to Jesus' banquet. Verse 15. When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.
[26:59] I think he's just like that guy who's conscious that it's so tense he just needs to say something. So he comes up with this kind of platitude, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Jesus isn't finished.
[27:10] Verse 16. But he said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the same time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything is now ready.
[27:24] But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, I have bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them.
[27:37] Please have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, go up quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.
[27:55] And the servant said, so what you have commanded has been done and there is still room. And the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled.
[28:09] For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. Let's be clear, banquets in the ancient world were very logistically difficult things.
[28:20] Before the days of refrigerators and freezers, it would take a real effort to get all of your produce fresh and at its best at the same time in order that you could throw these lavish banquets.
[28:33] And so what you would do is you would send your servant around to your guest list and you would put in a save the date. My master is having a big banquet. He's making all of the preparations.
[28:44] Sometime in the future he will summon you to come and eat with him. And the guests would agree to come. And their agreement would be binding because of all the amount of money that would be spent in order to put on this lavish banqueting dinner.
[29:01] And when the master was satisfied that everything was ready, he would deploy the servants again to say it's banquet time. We'll see you tonight. It's a white tie function.
[29:13] That's exactly the stage we're at in verse 17. The save the date has been issued and now the servants are going out to say it's banquet time. Put on your glad rags and we'll see you at five o'clock for a 6.30 start.
[29:29] And you see verses 18 to 20, all the people who promise to come start coming up with the lamest excuses imaginable to say that they're not coming.
[29:41] I can't come, I bought a field. That's a pretty lame excuse when you think about it. I mean, the area of South Lanark here, it doesn't change very much, does it?
[29:53] If you buy a field, it's probably going to still be there tomorrow. It's probably going to look largely the same, slightly wet, slightly green. It's not like there's a real urgency if you bought a field that you need to go and man it on a kind of hour by hour basis.
[30:08] It's not a little calf or something. So it's a lame excuse. Then somebody says, I bought five yoke of oxen again. Oxen, pretty hardy.
[30:20] You put them in a field with something to drink and something to eat, they'll probably still be alive tomorrow. And so these are just excuses. And then I think the lamest excuse of all, I've married a wife.
[30:36] Sometime between saying yes to the save the date, to the time the banquet was kick off, somehow there's been this shotgun wedding. I've married a wife, I've got completely distracted with this romantic adventure that I'm going on.
[30:49] I can't come. They're all really lame excuses when you think and see that the pronoun I is really big in each of them. They've become enamoured with things and stuff and themselves.
[31:06] And so as invited guests they failed to prioritise attendance. But what is to happen?
[31:18] This master has been so lavishly kind, spending all of this money, assembling all of this food. The banquet, he says, is going ahead. The banqueting hall will be full.
[31:32] Therefore the master dispatches the servants, they must be quite fit servants, they've been doing circuits around the locale for a long time. Go and speak to people for whom coming to eat with me will be the greatest thing they could ever have imagined and nothing will get in the way of their attendance.
[31:50] Go to the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame. And they flood in. They've not got puffed up and distracted by the things of the world.
[32:01] They've not got distracted by comfort or commerce or courtship. They come flooding in. People who are not encumbered and weighed down by the cares of this world, they get through the narrow door to come to this feast.
[32:21] But do you see there's still a problem? There's still quite a few empty seats. And so the servants are dispatched to go further and wider, to go to the hedges and the highways.
[32:35] And do you see how this answers the question for which this section started? Lord, will those who are saved be few? Not at all. The banqueting hall will be full, but it will be full of all sorts of unexpected people.
[32:50] That's the real message of Luke's gospel, isn't it? That those who look like they're in are out and those who look like they're out are in. I guess eternity in heaven will be spent like this.
[33:01] I didn't expect to see you here. And people look at you and go, I didn't expect to see you here. Heaven will be full. It will be really full.
[33:12] But it will be full of all sorts of unexpected people. And that gives us great hope, doesn't it? Because we look out at Bell's Hill and it seems like lots of people want nothing to do with the Lord Jesus.
[33:24] And yet such is this grace of this master that he invites all kinds of unexpected people to come and eat with him forever. And therefore as we grow down in humility, let us grow out in boldness as we seek to extend his invitation to others.
[33:44] Now certainly to the first readers, this would be a stark rebuke to the Judaism of the day that had wholeheartedly rejected the Lord Jesus, meaning that salvation will go to the Gentiles.
[33:58] But I think it does mean today we should never discount anyone because this banqueting hall will be full and it will be full of all sorts of unexpected people.
[34:09] I mean, you're going to be there and I'm going to be there all by the grace of this king. And the only thing that will buy you from attendance is becoming puffed up with pride and uncoupling yourself from the grace of the Lord Jesus.
[34:25] The kingdom will be full. Therefore, make every effort to enter and the only way in is to keep coming to Jesus to put a pin in your pride so you won't be puffed up and unable to enter.
[34:39] Before we finish, see the incredible power move that Jesus makes at the end of the passage. Verse 24. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.
[34:54] The whole story of the Old Testament is one where the glorious eternal future is eating in God's presence forever. That's what all the minor prophets point towards.
[35:07] A glorious heavenly banquet of fine wine and choice meats. An unending bread and glorious celebration. And do you see the power move Jesus does?
[35:18] He says, you know that banquet? That banquet you've been reading about in your scriptures since you were at Sunday school? Do you see what he does with the possessive first person? That's my banquet.
[35:29] It's me who's throwing this for you. It's me that is the dividing line between who gets in and who gets out. And let me tell you, the way you get in is by growing downwards in humility rather than being puffed up with pride.
[35:45] Friends, see that Jesus is the dividing line between getting in or getting left out. So of all the things that the future holds, it must hold clinging to Jesus and growing down in humility.
[35:58] have you ever noticed, and we come into land with this, that earthly marriage between a man and a woman works in the complete opposite direction of the heavenly marriage between Jesus and his church that it so wonderfully anticipates?
[36:17] Have you ever noticed that an earthly marriage between a man and a woman works in completely the opposite direction to the heavenly marriage between Jesus and his church that it anticipates?
[36:29] Because earthly marriages start with a feast and end with a death. And do you see that the heavenly marriage between Jesus and his church, it starts with a death and it ends with a feast forever?
[36:41] And let's be clear, friends, if you trust in that death, if you stay clinging to Jesus, if you continuously put pin in your pride and grow down in humility, then that death he died will result in your feasting forever.
[36:58] That is our hope. Don't be puffed up. Don't be a puffer fish. Be stick thin and continue to be humbled by the Lord Jesus.
[37:09] Let me pray. Father God, we're so sorry for all the times that we've had ideas above our station. We're so sorry for all the times where you've been pushed out as we've tried to take centre stage.
[37:26] So Father, please help us to fade into the background in humility that you might be the star of the show in the foreground of our lives. And so Lord, help us to continually grow down in humility.
[37:40] Help us to not be puffed up. Help us to never be those that are flirting with the potential of not being able to squeeze through the narrow door. So Father, I pray for me and I pray for all of us.
[37:54] Father, may our lives be shaped by going low, by wishing we could go lower, and by being a servant of all, that we might be exalted in the end, feasting with you and your son.