Matthew 23:1-12 - The Haughty and the Humble

Well, I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me over to the Gospel of Matthew.

The Gospel of Matthew will be in chapter 23.

Chapter 23.

We're heading back into the Gospel of Matthew, something we've been doing for well, since 2022, January 2022.

And we took a week last week with our commissioning service.

And now we're back into Matthew 23, right in the middle of what is called the Passion Week, which begins with the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem and moves through his cleansing to the temple, his last supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and the resurrection.

So the Gospel of Matthew slows down quite a bit here.

The previous chapters that we've looked at over the past few weeks have been filled with confrontations that Jesus has had with some of the religious leaders of Israel.

We see it increasingly becoming antagonistic.

Several of the groups of them have approached Jesus with taunting questions, not sincerely desiring to know the truth, but rather to catch Christ out and to find a reason to condemn him or to accuse him before the Romans for being a rebel.

And anytime Jesus would ask them a question, they would demur and refuse to answer, and also refuse to humble their hearts.

Today we're going to look at the first part of what is a longer discourse.

And here, in this first part that we're going to look at, Jesus addresses an issue that lays heavily on his heart.

Now notice verse 1, he speaks to the crowds and to his disciples.

And he begins to talk about the scribes and the Pharisees.

Now, if you look down at verse 13, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.

So beginning in verse 13, he directly addresses these religious leaders, but in the first 12 verses, he addresses the crowd about the religious leaders.

And what he points out to them are warnings about key areas of concern that are prevalient among these religious leaders that Christ once eradicated from his people.

Their hypocrisy, the heavy burdens they lay with uncaring hearts upon other people, and their hungering for accolades.

He wants his own people to be absent of any of those things and have in place of it true humility.

And so he instructs his people, using these religious leaders as sort of the background of what not to do, so that he might lead them to what they should be and do, humble people, just like their humble Savior.

So this morning, I want us to go through these first 12 verses and look at how Christ characterizes these religious leaders so that we might understand where not to approach our hearts and our hands, and so we might lead ourselves a different direction altogether, toward our Savior, and toward the transformation of our hearts to true humility and not to the kind of things that were characteristic of these men.

The first thing that Christ acknowledges that these men are are hypocrites, that their lives are full of hypocrisy.

Let's take a look at verses one and a few verses in.

He said, Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples.

The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses.

Therefore, do whatever they tell you and observe it, but don't do what they do, because they don't practice what they teach.

Is that when the word of God is presented, it is not meant simply to rest in our heads, but it is meant to filter through our lives and be characteristic of our behavior.

And what was characteristic of these men was that they would speak out but not do.

Now there's a couple challenges here for us.

One is this Moses seat.

What is that?

And what about this command to obey what they say?

Well, Moses seat, some people say was perhaps a real piece of furniture that was in the synagogue where someone who taught would actually sit as they proclaimed the Bible.

Or others took it as a metaphorical reference to this position of authority, where they interpret for the people the demands of the Mosaic law.

Either way, they are obviously speaking as though they were speaking the word of God, whether they were actually sitting on a Moses seat or if they were metaphorically speaking from the position of Moses and giving directives to the people.

But there's another challenge here for our understanding.

Do what they tell you.

Well, should we take that at face value right off the top?

Because in verse 16, Jesus says that these men are blind guides.

Well, do you follow a blind guide?

Should you follow a blind guide?

Well, one commentator, and I won't weary you with this, but he identified 10 possible approaches to dealing with this passage of scripture.

And at the end of this, and I'm going number one, number two, number three, number four, all the way to number 10, and I'm thinking, okay, where's this guy going to land?

And he said, none of them are satisfactory.

I'm like, oh, great, thanks.

I spent an hour for you to tell me I don't know.

I started the conversation that way.

Well, there's a lot of different ways that this could be taken.

It could be taken about their claim to sit and to speak the directives of God.

It could be talking about that we should listen to them only to the extent that they accurately portray the Word of God.

Or it could be just a statement of sarcasm or irony.

And there's a few other ones, or it could be for the purpose of just illuminating the second half.

That these men don't do what they teach.

And it's simply a sort of a figure speech or rhetorical device to bring that point to the forefront.

Whatever.

In any case, one thing is certain these men lay a responsibility of obedience upon people that they don't lay on themselves.

That is clear.

They require from everyone else things that they don't do at all.

They preach, but they don't practice.

They press, but they don't live out.

They will not take it up.

The Apostle Paul made a similar charge in the book of Romans, verse chapter two, and verse 21.

You who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

You who preach against stealing, do you steal?

You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who abore idols, do you rob temples?

You who boast in the law?

You dishonor God by breaking the law.

Hypocrisy.

This hypocrisy is meant to be a word to us, a word of wisdom, that there is in our hearts, all of us, a tendency to tell others what they should do without spending any time telling ourselves what we ought to do.

And the Epistle of James picks that up a lot about the incompatibility of what people profess over against how they live or what they command as opposed to what they obey.

And he talked about just the incongruence of some of the ways that we might act.

With our tongue, we bless our Lord and Father, and with our tongue we curse people who are made in God's likeness.

Ouch.

So that hypocrisy of honoring God as sovereign creator and then blaspheming his creation.

Blessing and cursings come out of the same mouth, James said.

And brothers and sisters, things should not be this way, he tells us.

So the first indictment against these religious leaders is their hypocrisy.

But the second thing that he charges them with are the heavy loads that they place upon people.

Take a look at verse four.

They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them.

They pile on the precepts and they pile it on and they pile it on and they pile it on.

And the persons who are listening to them are feeling the weight of ever-increasing responsibility.

But instead of getting help, they just get someone who looks at them and says, Deal with it.

It's your responsibility.

And as they increasingly bow under the weight of that load, these men don't even want to help.

Now, it's not a picture of them necessarily saying, hey, let me take uh 20 pounds off of you and I'll carry it with you.

So much as it is, they're not looking at the person who's bearing the responsibilities and saying, let's make this load easier for you to carry.

If you're backpacking, for instance, and you put on your backpack, and there's all the straps around on your shoulders, and different ones that you need to pull to bring the backpack closer to you, and there's different ways that you weight what you put into your backpack, and there's the belt that you put on, and there's a certain sequence that you do, also that the backpack might fit you properly and not be an encumbrance to you while you're hiking.

Well, these guys would look at some novice backpacker and go, look at that.

They haven't even snapped their waistbelt at all.

And it's hanging down over their hips.

And look at that, they put the heaviest thing on the top of their backpack.

Unbelievable.

Not willing to adjust and help and assist.

So someone might carry a load in a way that would be more helpful.

This is talking about the kind of people that just feel like they've got the ministry, the heavy hammer, you know, who just want to say, here's the truth, deal with it, and don't think about how it's presented, and don't think about how it can be carried, but simply just think that their responsibility ended in the proclamation of it.

This heavy-hammered approach.

What's your problem?

Can't you carry that?

The scribes and the Pharisees are not willing to even lift a finger to help someone who's bowed under the burden.

And this is a negative statement about them in light of what's said about our Savior.

Jesus in Matthew 11 said, Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I'll give you rest.

These guys won't lift the finger to help the load shift to the proper proportions and places.

But Jesus said, If you're burdened, I'll give you rest.

He said, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I'm lowly and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

Our Savior calls us to responsibilities of obedience, but he does so in such a way that these things are not hard for us, they're good for us.

And he talks about his yoke.

And this could either mean that it's a double yoke in which Christ gets in on one side and we in the other, and we plow the field with the power of his strength, or that the yoke, as a master craftsman, Jesus cuts and shapes and molds to fit the contours of our individual persons and personalities and lays them on us in a way that makes that burden carrying fitting and suitable to who we are.

In another passage speaking about Jesus in Matthew 12, a prophecy out of Isaiah 42 echoes into Christ's life.

He will not argue or shout, and no one will hear his voice in the streets.

He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick until he's led justice to victory.

The scribes and the Pharisees had no sensitivity of heart toward other people, no willingness to help, not a finger to lift.

It could never be said about them a crushed reed they will not break, and a smoldering wick they will not extinguish, because they were all about stomping on it.

But Jesus, he's helpful to burden people.

A bruised reed he will not break.

A smoldering wick he will not quench.

There's a reference to the gentle character of our Savior.

A reed, that's a relatively fragile plant.

And when it's bent over, bruised, if you will, he's not going to snap it and say, Let me get a better one.

Or if there's a bit of flax that's either being used to sort of tender and start a fire, or to keep an oil lamp lit, and it's not doing the job well enough, it's just simply smoldering away with smoke rather than bringing any heat and light into things.

He doesn't say, let me try again, let me get a different match.

He doesn't do that.

He gently blows on the smoking flax, he fans it into a flame.

He doesn't deal roughly with our weaknesses and our failures.

Rather, just the opposite.

He deals with us gently and tenderly and helping along the bruised reed to become strong enough, to move the smoldering flax to the point where it catches fire.

He doesn't deal harshly with us.

And this is what he's calling us to be, these kind of helpful people, sincerely serving the Lord without hypocrisy, but also sincerely helping others bear the burdens of life that they carry to help them along the way.

Let's turn over to 1 Thessalonians for a minute and just take a look at a passage of scripture.

That a lot of people think responsibilities of which lie simply upon church leadership.

But Paul doesn't speak this way at all.

He calls these things to all of us.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, in verse 14, he says this.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

Warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone, see that no one repays evil for evil.

But always pursue what is good for one another and for all.

Be helpful.

Be helpful.

And he lists different categories of people and how best to help those kind of people.

There's the idle, which is really just a slim understanding of the fullness of this word.

When you look through the whole context of this, is these are people who are idle because they're undisciplined.

This is these are people who are idle because they're irresponsible.

These are people that are idle because they're disorderly, not simply unable to work, but unwilling to work and therefore disorderly.

To these people, he says, warn them.

And then there's another group of people, encourage, right?

Comfort the discouraged.

These people who are worried or fearful or feeling inadequate or lacking confidence or despondent or sad or weak.

Comfort them.

And then there's the weak ones here.

Help the weak.

Those who are weak, maybe physically, weak maybe morally, make maybe weak spiritually, maybe weak relationally.

Help them out.

And then be patient with everyone.

Exhibit the fruit of the spirit in all of your social relationships.

So what is he saying here?

Be a helpful people.

Be the kind of people that will lift up a finger, that do help shift the load, that says, okay, let's start here.

Let's put this belt on, make sure it sits on the top of your hip bones.

There we go.

Take this weight, put it in the bottom of your pack, and let's put this one here and that one there.

Now let's let's put on these straps.

And you see those there?

Pull them a little tighter, leave a little bit of room above your shoulder.

There you go.

That's it.

Now pull those a little closer so things move closer to the back of your neck.

There you go.

That's perfect.

Not too much.

Now let's take this last one and strap it there.

You're ready to walk.

Let's go.

So, what do we do?

We think of people as they are.

We spend time analyzing, not making quick judgments.

We ask ourselves, who is this in front of me?

Is this somebody with a pattern of behavior of disrespectful, disloyal idleness?

Is this a person who is, well, discouraged?

Is this a person who's weak?

Is this a person?

How am I supposed to deal with this person?

And then what is the suitable help that I can bring into this relationship?

Maybe I need to warn.

Maybe I need to comfort.

Maybe I need to assist.

But in everything I need to be patient.

In every way I need to be helpful.

This is what the Lord is calling us to, and He's making this statement by way of the contrast to these arrogant, hypocritical, unwilling to help religious leaders.

Now let's go back to Matthew and see as he continues this, because there's more to dig out of how these men are acting.

Not only are they hypocritical and laying heavy burdens on people without a finger to help them, but they also hunger for accolades.

Jesus says, They do everything to be seen by others.

They enlarge their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.

They love the place of honor at banquets, the front seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called rabbi by people.

The whole focus of their religious activity was horizontal, man centered, well, self centered more, and not God centered.

They did all of their religious activities for the purpose of being seen by others.

The phlactories they Broaden the tassels they lengthen, the places of honor that they desire.

And we hear about marketplaces and synagogues and rabbis and all of these Jewish terms that point to us what's in their hearts.

And the Lord says, just don't do what they do, don't make this the direction of your life.

They do all of it to be seen because there's something they love.

They love the best seats.

They love the greetings.

And when they come over to dinner, they're not looking forward to a good bite to eat.

They're not looking to the warmth of your hospitality.

They're not looking for the engagement of your conversation.

They're looking for the please sit here honor.

So that others might see them brought up to the front or sitting at the highest place.

They would come into some churches and they would see the thrones on the platform and go, now that's a seat I want to sit in.

Or they would think about going to Colonial Boston and saying, Oh, people bought their pews.

I know which pew I would want to buy.

Or they would look at the size of a church and say, That's the church I would want to be the leader of.

Look how large it is in relationship to all the others.

Or they would hear of a conference coming up and saying, Is my name at the top?

Am I the one who's the featured speaker?

And so they entered into the synagogues with all of their theatrics on full display for everyone to see and for them to admire.

They love the first and best seats.

They love the greetings that match their self-perceived greatness.

And whether they walked through the temple or they walked through the marketplace or they walked into the synagogue, Rabbi, father, teacher, oh that's what they love.

Now, what's the application for us in this?

Well, it's pretty simple.

Don't do it.

Don't do that.

You know, some things are best understood by what you don't do.

You read the Ten Commandments?

Don't make a graven image.

Don't, don't, don't, don't.

Here's one of those.

Don't do the works they do.

Don't love the things they love.

As Jesus is speaking to this crowd, he's calling his disciples to something different than all of this.

Different than this hypocrisy.

Different than this heavy burden laying without a finger to help.

Different than this sort of hungering after all of the accolades that could be given among men.

One person put it this way: he said, Great, greatnessism is a major spiritual disease.

And if it's not cured, it'll plague the church and will destroy the soul.

I agree.

It reduces us to the worst of our passions.

So what does the Lord call us to?

Well, that's what the second part of this passage is about in verse 8, all the way to verse 12.

You're not to be called rabbi because you have one teacher.

And you're all brothers and sisters.

You're not to call anyone on earth your father because you have one father who is in heaven.

You're not to be called instructors either, because you have one instructor, the Messiah.

The Lord uses these religious leaders' prideful actions as a backdrop of what true discipleship looks like.

Because the door to heaven is only small enough for the humble.

And the haughty hearts, no matter how loud they might be able to proclaim themselves, and no matter what titles they acquire for themselves, they're not going to be able to get in.

And so Jesus here is challenging that self-promotion and this use of titles by saying that we, as his followers, are to be different.

Don't seek these titles.

Don't seek rabbi, father, instructor.

He said our calling is not to be called anything special.

That's our calling.

And if you want to be pursuing anything, pursue servanthood rather than titles and prominence.

And so his disciples, he tells us, are not to insist upon titles or positions of status.

But were to recognize and to affirm the acceptable status of no status at all.

And he gives us two reasons.

First of all, you're all brothers and sisters.

And secondly, you've got one father, one instructor, Jesus.

Well, let's look at this.

We have no need to be chasing after these titles and accolades of being called a teacher because, well, we have one father in heaven and one instructor who is the Messiah, the Christ.

Matthew's gospel, Jesus uses the word father a lot, but it's always with reference to God the Father, not to a human.

Seventeen times in the Sermon on the Mount, your heavenly father.

Now, if we call our earthly dads father, I don't think Jesus is telling us not to do that, right?

That's not what this is about.

This is about not calling our earthly Bible teachers father, is what this is about.

Why?

Because if we give this kind of prominence to a person, there's going to be some confusion and some commingling of that human with the authority and power and the soul-reserved place of honor that God Himself deserves.

That's why.

Because you have one Father in heaven.

And you have one instructor.

Calvin said this.

He said, Christ is alone the schoolmaster of the church.

And he said, the sum of this teaching is that all should depend on the lips of Christ alone.

He is who we follow.

That's the idea here.

Jesus in John 13 said, You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, I am.

He's our only teacher.

God is our only Father.

Now, He does call people to teach the Great Commission, go into all the world and what?

Teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you, but it's all things that I've commanded you, not all things they think they should be preaching.

Preach Christ and what Christ wants.

So Christ is telling us this here so that the church might be easily rid of the cult of personality.

And boy, do we need to hear that in our age, in all kinds of circles.

Went to visit her in her home.

Dear lady, she had this like eight and a half by eleven.

Well, it's probably bigger than that because it's A4 size, whatever that is.

I'm not going to go into the details of John MacArthur sitting on her piano.

And I thought, well, that's interesting.

I didn't think a whole lot about it.

She appreciated John MacArthur's preaching, but having him on your piano is a little weird.

And then sometime later, she asked me a question about Genesis chapter six and the daughters of men and the sons of God.

And what is all of that?

What are the Nephilim and all this?

And so I spent several hours just crafting up like there are different views about what this is about.

Here's this view, and here's its strengths and weaknesses, and here's this view and its strengths and weaknesses, and here's another view and its strengths and weaknesses.

And I gave it to her, and she she talked to me again and she said, Well, what's John MacArthur's position?

And I'm like, she said, Well, that's the one I'm gonna believe.

Ouch! Wait a second.

He is not your divine interpreter.

Now I worked with John MacArthur and served him for eight years as a director of all the correspondence that would come into grace to you.

And I had the responsibility of replying on his behalf.

So whenever he and I agreed, I would say the Bible says, and whenever we disagreed, I'd say John believes.

And I was accurate.

I'm being a little jokey there, but nobody is meant to take that place.

Paul commended the Bereans, did he not?

Why?

Because they're like, is that true, Paul?

Because I I need to see it.

Right?

I need to see it.

They didn't go, I'm a Paul.

We need to preach Christ.

We need to preach what Christ wants.

Christ is the head of the church.

God is the Father.

Christ is our instructor.

Nobody else.

Nobody else.

There was an account in the 1800s of two Americans who went to London to hear two very famous preachers preach.

And in the morning they went to listen to one of them.

And they were talking to each other afterwards, and they said, So what do you think of the sermon?

And the guy replied, What a great preacher.

Fair enough, he was.

And again, the question, what'd you think?

And the reply was, What a great savior.

Do you hear the difference?

We have one father, God.

We have one instructor, the Messiah.

But the other reason, right?

There's another reason here why you're not to be called rabbi because you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters.

Yes, there may be different roles for people to have in the church.

We all have different gifts and different responsibilities for the building up of the whole, but there's no different status.

Okay?

There's an equality of status.

We're all family with one father.

And so Jesus' counsel is here is that we press forward with that status of equality.

Now we may say, good morning, Pastor Doug, but pastor means shepherd, and shepherd's not a really highly thought role in any culture, and it certainly wasn't highly thought of in this culture.

Shepherds were, well, they were kind of rough characters, and so are most pastors.

But there's nothing grandiose about being called a pastor.

There's nothing we should be doing to exalt others in any way, shape, or form.

Because we are given a special and equal status of the family of God.

And we treat each other as family, not some special thing.

We have a membership matters class, and if you're just attending here and you want to know more about our church and how to become a member, you can listen for and attend our membership matters classes, which we hold periodically and hopefully are going to be having soon.

There was a group that came in, and they all came from churches that where there was this sort of status of authority granted to certain preachers.

And I was aghast at what I heard them talk about.

That there'd be a procession behind the preacher as he made his way to the throne that was up on the podium, and he wouldn't even carry his own Bible.

Somebody would carry it for him.

You know?

And I'm like, what?

What do you mean?

The guy didn't have any arms?

What?

And then one time we were having a fellowship meal, and I love to cook.

It's fun.

I don't like cleaning up, but I like to cook.

I came out of the kitchen and I'm like grubby, you know.

And one of the guys who was part of that group comes out and goes, I've never seen that before.

I'm like, what?

What do I got on me?

And he said, I've never seen a pastor like in the kitchen.

They're always like at the head table, sitting there.

We all have to serve him.

I'm like, no, it's not how it works.

We all serve the Lord Jesus and we all serve one another.

We don't scramble for these claims and titles of prominence.

We don't want to obscure the unique role and place of God our Father and the Lord Jesus as our teacher.

We don't want to get in the way of that.

No.

There's not to be any distortion of our family relationship as brothers and sisters.

So if it means refusing these titles, then let's refuse them if they get in the way.

Jesus gives two final points of application here.

He says here that we're not to be called these things.

And then in verse 11, the greatest among you will be your servant.

Application one.

Application two: whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

John Chrysostom said about this.

He said, in this passage, Jesus plucks up pride by the roots, yanks it out of the ground.

And uprooting it must start here, in the realization that the greatest among us is the servant.

Which is why Paul ran when he was looking for a way to help the church at Philippi understand humility and service, he ran to Jesus.

And he says, This adopt the same attitude as that as Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant and taking on the likeness of humanity.

And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on a cross.

You want an example of how to live?

Look to your Savior.

The second point of application: heed the warning of pride and walk in the promise of God's welcome of the humble.

Because he says here, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And Jesus intentionally ends with this sort of forward view brought into the present, telling us that the last day is going to be affected by our hearts now.

And he tells us to listen because the day will come when you will either be welcomed and exalted in the shared glory of the victory of Christ, or you will stand there thinking you're about to be honored and you're going to be brought low into humility.

Depart from me, you accursed, I never knew you, Jesus said in Matthew 7.

Jesus is here, is calling us to heed the warning of haughtiness and to welcome humility.

Pride is a deadly sin.

How do we find a humble heart?

C.S.

Lewis made a great example of what that looks like in his one of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

And there's a little boy that gets introduced to us right away, the very first sentence, a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrub.

And he said he was called that and he almost deserved it.

Why did he deserve that name?

Because he was an awful boy with an awful name.

I hope nobody's here named Eustace.

Or Scrub for that matter.

What was his problem?

Pride.

His pride revealed itself in his complaining.

His pride revealed itself in his persistent disbelief, refusing to believe in Narnia, even though he sailed upon its seas, just like people do today.

I don't see a God.

I don't believe in God.

You're breathing his air.

You're living on his world.

And Eustace makes his way to an unexplored island and finds there a dragon's sort of horde.

And in greed and arrogance and pride, he he goes into it and he finds himself turned into a dragon.

And all it does is increase his greediness and increase his pride and increase his arrogance.

And he turns from being a human into a dragon, not only in physical features, but in heart.

And in time, just to shorten the story, he realizes that he doesn't want to be a dragon anymore.

He's been selfish and greedy and proud in his actions because he's selfish and greedy and proud in his heart.

And he's stricken with this hunger to be human again.

And so what does he do?

He peels and pulls and drags away the skin of the dragon and looks into the water and the scales of dragon are all over him again.

And he peels and pulls and scrapes and scratches away the skin of the dragon and looks into the water and he looks like a dragon again.

He said, as soon as I looked at myself in the water, I realized what I was doing was no good.

And finally, Aslan, the lion, the representative of Christ in this allegorical story.

The lion says, You're going to have to let me undress you.

When Eustace was changed into a dragon, and he realized for the first time that his whole life was full of self-love and self-admiration and self-will, and he tried to get rid of this besetting sin of pride that lingered in this dragon skin that he wore, that he could peel it away only to find it still there.

Peel it away to find it still there.

And every time he removed a layer of scaly, prideful skin, he couldn't turn the dragon back into a boy.

So he had a choice to make.

Was he going to continue to do the futile effort of self-reformation?

Or was he going to surrender himself to Aslan the Lion and let the lion undress him?

And he's relating to Edmund.

He said, I just lay flat down on my back.

Didn't do a thing.

And let him do it.

To let the lion tear away his dragon skin.

And the lion began to claw.

And he said, the first tear he made, it was so deep I thought it went right into my heart.

Because it did.

He recognized the inability to remove the dragon's skin.

That he had to and must call upon Aslan, the lion, to perform the surgery.

He was the only one that could turn him from a dragon into a human.

And we are exactly the same.

Left to the devices and desires of our own hearts, we would turn even the worship of God into a place to make ourselves look better than others.

But when we understand a humble Savior who is a helpful Savior, who is willing to be made nothing for the sake of the life of others, we can come to Him and lay flat on our back and watch Him perform a surgery that doesn't just take the skin off, it takes the dragon out of the heart.

And this is why on the final page of the book, the narrator says about Eustace, you would never know him for the same boy.

He was that different.

And this is what salvation in Jesus Christ does.

He makes you so you would never be known as the same girl.

You would never be known as the same boy.

You would never be known as the same woman.

You would never be known as the same man.

Not because of your self-reformation, but because of the surgery that the Savior does.

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for these words of Christ to us, to call us away from a behavior that would be detrimental and dangerous and destructive to us all, and to approach Him with the hearts that we have, with the need to be made new as we do.

And we pray, Father, that we might continue to look to our Savior, who is our life and is our teacher, and who is our model, to realize that He is meek and lowly of heart, to realize that He means for us to be sincere and helpful and caring and family.

Lord, we pray that these things might burn not only into our minds but into our very souls for your glory's sake.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.