Welcome to the Daily Disciple Podcast. As daily disciples, we seek to adore and follow Jesus our teacher into the abundant life that he offers. Because we find Jesus to be irresistible and fascinating and incredibly practical, we want to be students of his teaching found in scripture. Today's episode is found in Luke 14 "Go Low".
Together on Mission
Go Low | Luke 14
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Daily Disciple Podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. (upbeat music) - Welcome to the Daily Disciple Podcast. My name is Travis, and I will be your host for the next couple minutes as we seek to adore Jesus and discover yet again today how practical and brilliant and smart and irresistible. He actually is and seek to be like him, 'cause that's what disciples do on the daily. We seek to live our lives the way that he would live our lives. If he were, as I stole that line from Dallas Willard, great line. The title of the podcast this morning is Go Low, Go Low. And that might seem like an odd title, but I'm hoping in just a moment it will make much more sense. Now, I need to give a shout out to a friend and a mentor of mine, Mary and Alan. I got the privilege of working with her for almost a decade, maybe a little bit over a decade. And she was older than me and much, much wiser than I. And although she reported to me on the organizational chart, I found myself actually often reporting to her because she had this incredible ability to lead up. And she operated in a kingdom wisdom about how life should work in the kingdom of God. And often, and particularly when I was maybe upset or frustrated as a leader or frustrated with someone, or maybe when I was in danger of using the position that I had to leverage that position to get what I want, she would look at me and she would say, Travis, go low. Go low, especially if you have the ability to do otherwise. Because of your power or position or whatever, go low. And I remember the first time she said that to me, I looked at her inquisitively, like, what in the world does that even mean, go low? I mean, I'm not sure exactly what that means, but right now the last thing I want to do is go low. I want to go high, I want to go big, I want to, I don't want to go low. And she would just say, Travis, go low, be vulnerable. And we'll go into more about what it means in just a moment. And she would say, you know, there really are two different ways to live, right? There's either walking around being big, in whatever way you feel like you can be big, or walking around being humble and being willing to go low. So there's two different ways to parent, two different ways to lead, two different ways to handle conflict, two different ways to do marriage and vocation and everything. And that, for Marianne, encapsulated this kingdom principle that Jesus lived and taught. And I want to go there today, and we find this in the book of Luke, the gospel according to St. Luke, chapter 14, beginning in verse seven. So when Jesus noticed how the guests picked places of honor at the table, he told this parable. And Jesus often spoke in parables to portray practical, life-changing truth in a completely different story than most people were living in. So he says, when someone invites you to a wedding feast, don't take the place of honor, because a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. And if so, the host who has invited both of you will come and say to you, give this person your seat, right? Your good seat. And then humiliated, you will then have to take the least important seat. But rather, Jesus says, when you're invited, take the lowest place, go low. Take the lowest place so that when your host comes, he'll say to you, friend, move up to this better place than you're gonna be honored in the presence of all the other guests. And then Jesus gives a typical Jesus line for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves, those who go low will actually be exalted. So there's a couple of incredible ideas in this parable. First of all, at the beginning, Jesus is saying it's very, very normal. It's how it works. For people to go high, or to be big, or to pick the best, or to have the last word. And Jesus says, yeah, but if you do that, you're gonna find that you will end up humiliated. You'll end up alone. But Jesus says, if you choose to go low, to prefer others, you're gonna find yourself honored in life. You're gonna find yourself in deep relationship. You're gonna find yourself experiencing the fruit of putting other people first. And then of course, he gives this incredible statement about if you do exalt yourself, that's your strategy, you're gonna need to be humbled in life, and people are gonna do that to you. And if you are willing to humble yourself and go low, then you're going to be lifted up, and you're going to be blessed. And that's the essence of the teaching of Jesus. That's what he taught his disciples, lose your life, and you're gonna find it. Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit. And I think that we have understood those teachings of Jesus as like spiritual platitudes with kind of an arbitrary esoteric nature, instead of seeing these statements as an extraordinarily practical approach to life that leads to abundant life and the only strategy of life that leads to abundant life. And what Marianne would say is, go low. Give up that seat. Don't exploit your power. Think the best. Be vulnerable. Go low, especially when you have the ability or the privilege or the money or whatever to go big or go high, go low. The way up is the way down. The way down is the way up. And there were so many times in my journey and in my life where Marianne's wisdom that really encapsulated one of the essential bits of the teaching of Jesus just saved me from the result of trying to be big because there really is a danger in trying to be big or going high. We risk so much relationally. And it doesn't always seem so in the moment when we're parenting or in marriage or in a staff meeting or at a dinner party or whatever. It doesn't seem so in the moment, but there's so much risk relationally when we try to be big and try to take the best seat. Because as Jesus so eloquently puts it in his parable, when we do try to be big, we will end up humiliated. And when we're willing to be humble and go low, we end up exalted. And honestly, that's really how it works. You know, this is a whole other podcast, but the teaching of Jesus is not a whole bunch of commands. The teaching of Jesus is just an explanation to his disciples of how life actually works and how life can work in the kingdom with an implicit empowerment to them to live a kingdom kind of life. So as daily disciples, right, the question is, how do I go low today as a parent? And perhaps that means I listen instead of talk next time there's tension between me and my 13 year old. Maybe in marriage, it means to persist and vulnerability and honesty when all that we want to do is wall up and accuse to be willing to stay exposed in our marriage that's going low. Maybe in a friendship, it's thinking the best and forgiving instead of persisting and being right or having to win that argument, right? Winning the argument is big and going high, but going low is giving someone else the last word 'cause you want to, right? Perhaps going low is strategizing about giving a compliment as opposed to strategizing about seeking a compliment, giving someone else the best seat, thinking the best, making room for other people, being honest, being vulnerable, forgiving, apologizing quickly. You know, often going low is gonna be a willingness to refuse to use the power that you have or that you think you have in order to love and prefer and sacrifice for someone that you really, really do love. And then we get to discover that those who exalt themselves will actually be humbled and that will happen in all different kinds of ways, but those that choose to go low and humble themselves will find that they will be exalted and that will happen in all kinds of ways, maybe especially relationally. I'm very grateful that Marianne understood this essential nugget of the teaching in the life of Jesus and passed it on to me. And so I want to pass it on to you. And as daily disciples, let's figure out what it looks like to go low, to experience the abundant life, the life that is life, that results from this kind of strategy of life that Jesus, our rabbi taught us is best. So here's the question for the daily disciple. What does it look like today to go low? In what relationship, in what setting are you being called to go low? I'll talk soon. - Thanks for listening to the daily disciple podcast. We truly hope that you were encouraged by it today. 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