Let's turn now in the scriptures to the passage from which we were reading. That's Matthew chapter 20 and we'll read again at verse 26. Matthew chapter 20 and reading again at verse 26. Let's hear the word of the Lord. We could take our reading from verse 25 just to set the words in context. But Jesus called them, that's the disciples, unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. but it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. And especially these words, but it shall not be so among you, But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And minister, of course, in this context refers not to office in the church, but to a servant, someone who ministers to others. The word in the original is diakonos. It means a waiter or an errand boy. Let him be your runner boy, the one who will be great among you. There is no sin so deceitful as pride. Pride can go alongside even our most faithful actions. It can actually be fed by discipline and by advance in other areas of the Christian life. can even manifest itself in acts of apparent humility. Look at me, amn't I humble? Pride is deceitful. It is a constant pitfall. in Christian service. It's a constant pitfall in this world. It is hard to repent from. You know children, I heard a story once which illustrates it well. There was once a godly man living in a village in the highlands and he was very troubled with this particular sin, the sin of pride. And he thought, one day I have to get on top of my pride, I have to conquer this sin. So he went out early in the morning, he went up into the hills to be alone, and he spent a day without food, up on the hills with the Lord, with his Bible, seeking the presence of God, seeking to repent of the pride of his heart. he wrestled with the adversity and he had the victory and he laid his pride in the dust and he triumphed over it and he came back to the village praising and thanking God for the wonder of the blessing and the privilege that he had received by grace alone. And as he came near to the village he saw his neighbours who'd been busy that day cutting their peats coming back to the village carrying their peats. And the thought came across his mind, will I have been better employed this day than they have? And the foe that he thought he had left, dead upon the mountainside, was there alive once more within his heart. Pride is a deceitful sin and a hard sin to battle. It's a difficult sin to repent of. I think Mr. McSween, who was Minister in Point, said something like this, that pride feeds even upon the repentance from pride. And if we know something of our own hearts, can't we see truth in these words? And yet the thing about pride is it's degrading. Pride lifts us up in our own opinion, but of course it disgraces us. It exposes us before our God who actually sees the heart. And so as we are lifted up, so we are actually debased. So we are actually contaminated by that pride. It disgraces us before God. And what's worse, it very often disgraces us before this world as well. So that pride cometh indeed before a fallen. Pride earns humiliation and very often receives it. The sin of spiritual pride. Let that be our topic for a few minutes this morning as the Lord will spare us. The sin of spiritual pride. And I want to challenge you to honest self-examination. Those who are here who are the Lord's people who are well advanced along the Christian life. I want to challenge you to examine your hearts. and to find the pride that is there to seek it out and to bring it before the Lord confessing and repenting of that pride that is still there. You children who are here, you're especially prone to the sin of spiritual pride. Because in your day, so few people go to church. And so you're prone to look upon yourselves as something special because you're here, and because you've put on a suit on a Sunday, and because you've come to attend in the house of God. And you may well think, because I keep the Sabbath, because I go to church, well, God must be very pleased with me. The same sin, the sin of spiritual pride. There in the little child, there in the old seasoned believer. Oh, it's a deceitful foe, is it not? How we need to repent of pride. Two points this morning as the Lord will spare us. We'll consider firstly pride condemned, we'll consider secondly humility commended. Because of course this passage brings us to the answer for pride and that is to come to the feet of Christ. To see his glorious example which we find recorded for us in verse 28, even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. So pride condemned, humility commended. Firstly then, pride condemned. Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. The text comes as a command to the Church of Christ on earth, and of course it must be weighed seriously as a result. The Church must be aware of the big man, the one individual exercising an inappropriate level of authority within the Church of Christ. It's one of the beauties of our Presbyterian system of church government that it actually acts against this tendency. It explicitly rejects the authority of one individual. The ruling elder and the teaching elder, they sit side by side in the courts of the church. They have the same voice and they have the same vote. The old and the experienced the young yet still qualified sit side by side and again have the same voice and have the same vote. Of course, we listen more to an old teaching elder than we would perhaps to a young ruling elder, but both will have their say, both will be heard. And the old teaching elder will not be a bishop and will not exercise undue authority. He will have his voice. Equal opportunity to be heard, and if a division is necessary, equal weight to each vote. So there's a warning to the church in terms of government, but it's more than that, and we have to cut to the individual experience. It is a warning to the Christian believer. You must guard your heart against unsanctified ambition. You and I should be lowly, shouldn't we? Those who know that we're sinners. Those who recognize it, who acknowledge it, who see ourselves guilty and unworthy, who see Christ as pure and holy, who see ourselves as having nothing, as possessing no worthiness apart. from Christ. He is the wondrous Savior and what are we but unprofitable servants, undeserving recipients of the blessing of grace, for grace, which we have received in Christ. What have you that you have not received? Your gifts and capacities as a person, they're from God and they can be taken like that. Your opportunities, your circumstances, your situation, gifts from God. and can be taken as soon as they are given. Look at Job. Humility is necessary. We're commanded follow holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And is it not part of holiness to be humble, to have a right assessment of ourselves in the sight of God? You must be brought low in this world. Or it is an awful thought that you shall be brought low in eternity to come, and that your humbling will not be a humbling in this life, but a humbling in the eternity that lies ahead." At root, you see, it is a gospel challenge, isn't it? Mark 10 verse 31, many that are first shall be last, and the last first. Never rest upon outward acceptance. Never measure your progress and sanctification in the opinions of other people, even in the opinion of the visible church. The church often gets it wrong. The church often respects and esteems those who have but cleaned the outside of the platter. What's going on inside? What's there in the heart? Measure yourself by the sin you actually find. Weigh what is going on in your own thoughts, in your own inward desires. The question is not, have you sinned? Of course you have sinned. Do you desire sin? Are you choosing it? Are you loving it? Are you pursuing it? Or is your desire holiness? And are you striving more and more to subjugate pride? To teach yourself humility? To pursue holiness in the fear of the Lord and especially humility. As you find the sin, so repent of the sin, and so let it bring you more and more to the feet of Christ. Let's come then to the scene which we have described here, and let's try and picture it. Christ has been teaching, given this beautiful parable we have in the first part of the chapter, and now I think we can take it, he is having a rest He is resting his voice, he is taking some time. And the disciples notice a little group heading very purposefully towards the Savior. There are their fellow disciples, James and John, and there is their mother. And these three are on a mission, they are going to Christ. Now there are some of the commentators are inclined to be very hard upon James and John's mother. They're inclined to blame her as though she were some pushy, ambitious woman and here are her two mortified sons dragged along with her as she brings her request to Christ. But the whole context of the passage suggests that the exact opposite is true. James and John were grown men. They were not teenage boys to be embarrassed by their mother. They were grown men. The passage suggests that this was their request, not his. Jesus addressed James and John with his rebuke, not their mother. And the disciples were angry with James and John, not with their mother. The implication is that it was their intention and purpose to seek this honor, and that they'd brought their mother along in the hope that Christ's affection for their mother would incline him to grant their request. This woman was a godly woman. She was one of the Lord's dearest and most faithful disciples at the cross. When most of these disciples were nowhere to be found, there was the mother of James and John, standing with Mary, the mother of Jesus, standing with Mary Magdalene, Matthew 27, at the cross. Our Lord's companion to the very end. She was a godly woman. She's probably the same person as Salome, recorded in Mark chapter 16 verses 1 and 2, because again we have a group of three women, the two Marys and a third. They're identified as Salome in Matthew 27, the mother of James and John. So probably She is Salome and therefore of course a witness to the resurrection as well. A godly woman, but it's a reminder. This sin of pride, it's a sin of the believer. It's a sin of the eminent believer. It's a sin that might be worse in the believer than in unconverted days. What had you of spiritual pride when you thought yourself nothing in the kingdom of heaven? What have you now of spiritual pride? It's a strange thing. Other sins may decrease, may be increasingly subjugated, and yet pride can grow even as others are weakened. Sin mutates. The pride develops in vile and ugly ways, even as we might grow in the Christian life. And so this request comes. We find it in verse 21. He said unto her, what wilt thou? She said unto him, grant that these, my two sons, may sit, the one on thy right hand and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. Oh, it's foolish, isn't it? It's almost embarrassing to read, isn't it? To think about what she was asking for when Christ is sitting in his kingdom. kingdom, when he is glorified as King of kings and Lord of lords, when the angels are abased before him, when all humanity is at his feet. Let James and John be sitting, one on the right hand and one on the left, in the kingdom of Christ." It's embarrassing to read. But it's most embarrassing because the thing is it strikes an answering chord within our own hearts, doesn't it? We see our own sin reflected in the ugliness of James and John's sin. You too want to be somebody. You too want to matter. You too desire to be respected and to be admired and to have compliments. You and I have proud hearts. We've maybe not quite brought this request to Christ, but oh, haven't you seen yourself at times alongside Christ? Here am I, one of his trusted servants, one of his faithful, one of his diligent ones. And not seeing yourself as you truly are and as I truly am. Useless, unprofitable, unworthy servants, not fit to be at the very feet of Christ. James and John had already been honored and privileged highly. They'd been summoned to be amongst the 12 disciples. They'd been sent forth to preach the gospel of Christ. They'd been given power to do miracles. They'd been used in the advance of the kingdom of God, but they wanted more, not just to be one of the 12. Oh no, while they were in the way, they debated which of us shall be the greatest. They wanted to be preeminent in the kingdom of Christ. And so here we see an extraordinary sin, don't we? A sin that combines eminent spirituality in the one respect with awful, ugly sin in the other respect. Look at just what's involved in this prayer. Here's spiritual insight. James, John, and their mother see Christ on his throne. They foresee it. Christ will reign. They believe that absolutely. They see it. And alongside that spiritual insight is utter blindness. Let us be there alongside him sitting on right hand and on left hand as though we're more or less the same category as Christ and he is but the first among equals, blindness alongside insight. Faith, because they brought a prayer for this honor. They brought a prayer recognizing and acknowledging Christ as the heir of this kingdom. Faith alongside stupidity. These seats, says Christ, are for those for whom they are prepared. Who can sit equal with Christ? Well, only those who are equal with Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit, God above all, blessed and forever. And who are these men to put themselves alongside God? The stupidity that is here, in all things he shall have the preeminence. Here's a longing for the kingdom of Christ to come. They're looking forward to it. They're expecting it. They're desiring it. Alongside a desire that we shall be preeminent in that kingdom. What do you find yourself in that sin? Do you recognize it? Yes, child of God, you long for the coming of the kingdom of Christ. Your daily prayer is, thy kingdom come. Oh, is there not a desire to be preeminent? Don't you, as it were, long that Christ will be glorified, but in some secret part of your heart? Desire to be exalted and honored alongside Christ? Desire the praise, the admiration of others? Oh, isn't pride an awful sin? It grows and mutates alongside spiritual maturity. Pride is there in the five-year-old child, and it's there in the 70-year-old believer. Oh, it's grown, it's mutated, it's changed its face, it's become subtle and deceitful and deceptive, but it's there, isn't it? The pride is there, the ugliness, the vileness is there. It's poisonous to think ourselves special apart from Christ. Deceptive to think ourselves wise before Christ. Degrading to think ourselves worthy of exaltation in the presence of Christ. Here is the point. James and John sought the highest place. And the result of that was that for a little time in this chapter, they had the lowest place. The other disciples, verse 24, regarded them with indignation and as worthy of rebuke. When pride cometh, then cometh shame. Proverbs 11, verse two. But with the lowly is wisdom. Well, do you find the pride in your own heart? You men, how easily after you've led in prayer, when you sit down, when your words are finished, and though your words have been heartfelt and sincere, quickly the voice comes into your mind, didn't I get on well? When you speak to the question and you go and you speak and you are helped, and you are enabled to see something useful and profitable. And though you speak in fear and trembling, yet after you've taken your seat, how easily the voice says, well, that was the best contribution we've heard thus far. Oh, there's pride within. You women, how easily you can take pride in your hospitality. And hospitality is good, of course it is. I had more people back to my home, what a spread they had in my house, what a fellowship we had, how easily even good things breed pride. Me children, I attend church. I go to all these services. I'm so busy about the things of the church. God must be so pleased with me. And you don't realize there've been many who've attended church all their days and have gone to a lost eternity. The same temptation. At every level, the folly of pride. Pride in the believer is condemned. Why? because ultimately it's an assault upon the uniqueness of Christ. James and John saw themselves alongside Christ, as it were, in the same category as Christ. They did not see Christ as deserving of all preeminence and themselves as worthy of utter abasement at his feet. That's the difference. Pride in the believer is an assault upon the uniqueness of Christ. It assails the very prerogatives of Christ and that's why it's so ugly. And if you see it in your own heart then repent of it, hate it, despise it, turn from it and seek the help of God to enable you to turn from it and to come low before Christ that he might have the glory. Our first point then, pride condemned, but secondly, humility commended. Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. Let's come more positively to the force of this command. Whosoever will actually be great, really spiritually great, the one who will actually serve Christ well, let him be your minister. your errand boy, your servant. He who would be great, let him be the helper of others, not the filler of high office, the receiver of much praise, the one honored, but him that is useful. in that which is least. He who would be great in the kingdom of heaven, let him be the one who's ready and available when men are needed, when women are called for. Let him be the one who's there when the hoovering has to be done or when grass needs to be cut. Let him be the one who's offering when phone calls need to be made, when arrangements are required. Let him be the one who does the paperwork or fills in the account books. Let him be the one who's available When work is required, boring work, unglamorous work, necessary work for the advance of the kingdom of heaven, let him be your minister. There's an honor that is reserved for those who do the thankless tasks in Christ's church. Man doesn't see that. Man doesn't honor that. But God loves the cheerful giver of time and of energy and of money and of everything that we prize in this life for the service of Christ. God loves the cheerful giver. And he honors that. And that is precious of such are the kingdom of heaven, and how great you are indeed if Christ himself declares you great, declares you one who has been a diakonos, an errand boy, a waiter in the kingdom of God on earth. In the basic sense, our eternal inheritance is something absolute. It is to be Christ's. It is to live with Christ. It is to reign with Christ. eternally. And that's the truth that was taught in the parable which we read at the beginning of this chapter. The parable of the laborers in the vineyard, some who labored all day, some who labored but one hour, and each received a penny. The teaching there is that the category of reward is the same for all. It is admittance to heaven, Redemption in Christ Jesus and adoption into the royal family of God. That penny, that precious penny, is the same category for every one of God's people, from the thief on the cross to the Apostle Paul. The same category of our inheritance, for old and young, for Jew and Gentile, for man and woman, the same reward. But equally there is distinction recognized as well within that one category of reward. Distinction within that experience of heaven which is the inheritance of every child of God. Revelation 14 verse 13, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth and so on, their works do follow them. Their works do follow them. The things they've done here in this world do follow them into eternity to come. They do still matter in eternity. They are still significant. They are still remembered. They are still important in eternity. there is a reward that is given openly by our Father which seeth in secret in this world a reward that is given openly in eternity to come Matthew chapter 6 a recognition of our works of Like 1 Corinthians 3, a house of gold and of silver and of precious stones. A house of beauty and of value and of worth. The works that we have done here for the kingdom of God. These works are recognized as precious and as worthwhile. They don't earn us or purchase us our inheritance. The one who builds with wood, hay, and stubble, the one whose works are worthless and do not pass the test, he will still be saved, yet so as by fire. Yet, as we would say, by the skin of his teeth, he shall still be saved. But oh, how much better to come into heaven as one who has served him here. as one who has not served self, as one who's not been all about the advance of your own importance, but rather as one who has served Christ and has given him the glory. Today you work, Colossians 3.24, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. What then is the reward? Well, spiritual joy. spiritual joy and honor, nearness to the Lord Jesus Christ, more of felt blessing, more of the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. There can be no sense of discontentment in heaven. He shall wipe away every tear from our eyes. There can be no felt sense of lack. So the distinction must be in a greater capacity for blessing granted, that there are some who can only bear to draw so near to Christ and others who can approach so much closer. that there are some who can only have so much of glory and cannot take any more but others have greater privileges and joys and honors. There are some as it were who come with a teacup and others who come with a pint pot and each is filled and receives blessing but how much better to have the capacity for that blessing. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you Is that not the story of your Christian life here? To humble yourself that Christ may lift you up. Consider Christ himself. He's given here as the perfect example of this spiritual humility. Verse 28, even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. Here's the example, the Lord Jesus Christ, he who had. whereby he might glory. He who had works of perfect holiness. He who had no spot of sin at all. He who was altogether worthy in this life of the presence of God and in eternity to come of heaven itself. He came not to be ministered unto. Christ did not demand to be ministered unto. He came to serve. He came to give. He came to offer up his life for sinful humanity. Here's the example, Christ humbled himself. We don't appreciate the wonder of it sufficiently. We're so used to these things. When in doth Christ's humiliation consist and the children learn to rattle off these words and their precious words, but oh to really feel the wonder of the Son of God bringing himself low. of Christ humbling himself to bear the guilt of sin, to endure the curse, to experience the wrath of God, in all things to glorify God by perfect obedience, that many might be saved. That is wondrous, isn't it? That's reason to praise and to glorify our Lord Jesus. Is there not food there for spiritual reflection? Is there not meditation there that will humble our proud hearts and fill us with awe, with wonder at the love of Christ, at the beauty of His work? Christ teaches Christian service. Christ exemplifies Christian service. And here is the course of every believing life, of every true believer in Christ, humble yourself in the sight of God. Come low, come to the very feet of Christ. that he might lift you up, that he may give you better glory than you could ever conceive of, that he may give you an eternal reward, utterly undeserved and yet so precious, that he may make your impure and contaminated works in this world holy, gold, silver, and precious stones, and worthy and deserving in eternity to come by his grace, of that reward which awaits for the child of God. Oh, to Christ be the praise, not unto us, Lord, not to us, but to thou, glory take. Oh, that this would be our attitude, that this would be our conclusion as we consider this sin, the sin of spiritual pride. As we finish, let's just give a couple of final applications. Let me urge you as the Lord's people to guard your hearts against pride, and especially to guard your hearts against false humility. It's easy to talk about humility. Think about it. Think it in your heart. Don't just praise others as though you yourself are nothing and all the time feed the pride within. Think others higher than yourself and Christ above all, above all. Think it. Romans 12 verse three, for I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. Think it. Be willing in Christian service. There's a lot needs to be done in the house of God. There's a lot required in the cause of the kingdom. There are many tasks, most of which are tedious and trivial and small and thankless, yet someone must do them. There are in our congregations many who are good at sitting back, and few who are ready and willing when the call comes. Be one who is ready and who is willing. When there's an opportunity there to serve, seize it with both hands. Do it as unto the Lord. Do it to his honor, do it to his glory, not to feed pride, but to exalt Christ, to advance his glory. And do it as a servant. Whosoever will be great among you, really great, spiritually great, let him be your minister. And above all, in all things, let us look to Christ. It's so natural to us to look to self, so natural to take confidence in our own capacities and abilities, so natural for us to turn from the Lord to worship and exalt our own hearts, guard against it. Oh, that we would see more of Christ, that we would see more of his worthiness, that as he has the glory, so we ourselves would be nothing before him. Faith itself demands that in humility you cast yourself on Christ alone. Dear friend, what do you see of your sin this day? Do you see it as ugly? Do you see it as deserving of God's wrath? Friend, if so, come to Christ. He's the one with the answer. He's the one who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. There's the answer, the blood of Christ shed. Come to the Lord Jesus, find his forgiveness and find the blessing of a new life in him. Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Amen. And the Lord bless his word. Let's seek his face in prayer.