“…do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.”
Romans 12:16b
I don’t know if you remember the playground at school, but maybe you do. If you’re like me, those days were often filled with either elation or devastation.
The kids would go out on the playground and play sports—soccer, football, and others—and the start of that was ‘picking teams’.
There were always two captains, and then each captain would pick teams, and the best players were chosen first, and down through the line it would go.
This was like emotional torture.
One week, you’d get picked early. Then maybe you’d drop a pass, or miss a route, and then the next week you’d get picked late.
And your social credit score would go up or down depending on when you got picked.
And that hierarchy - those cliques and ‘inner rings’ - are EVERYWHERE.
They’re in our workplaces.
They’re in politics.
They’re among the neighbors on our street.
They’re in friend groups.
They’re even in families.
And the danger of cliques like these is that they destroy love. They are built on the back of hierarchy.
CS Lewis said "I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the inner Ring and the terror of being left outside.”
However, if there is anywhere that this should NOT occur, it is in the church. And yet, if you’ve been a Christian long, you’ve probably seen something like this. Perhaps you’ve been in a church like this, where everyone at church has a certain level of spiritual ‘stock’, so to speak. Or we might say, ‘street cred.’
There’s the head pastor - he’s like…some kind of all star, especially if it’s a big church, or he’s a well-known guy in evangelicalism.
And then there’s the elders and deacons….the people everyone kind of wants to be with.
Then there’s the spiritually minded who are not elders. They’re usually the slightly cool and rebellious types - on the inside, but too cool for an office.
And the list goes on.
You can often tell where people rank by their clothes. Are they wearing a suit? Do they have a little entourage of people running around behind them?
They’re class A people.
And Paul wants us to repudiate all that. It’s all trash. We cannot allow ourselves to slip into that model.
We are all the same, and if we’re thinking of everyone as equals, that won’t happen. It can’t happen because we’re thinking of everyone as equal to US.
In other words, there are no favorites. No all-stars. No higher-ups. We’re all equal.
And so Paul tells us in Romans 12:16 to not be haughty in mind.
Instead, we’re to associate with the lowly.
True Christian maturity is a willingness to associate with the lowly ones -the ones who don’t get picked. The ones who are outcasts. The ones who are left behind when everyone is together.
But how?
The answer, of course, is Jesus. He left us this perfect example of not being rapacious for position or fame, but instead considering others more important than Himself (Phil 2:3-6).
And, in dying for our sins, He has opened our eyes to see His glory—a glory that is so much sweeter than anything the world can offer us. The glory of His love for us can so satisfy our hearts, and we no longer seek the praise of man, but seek to love those who are in need, just as He did.
So - is your heart filled with the glory of Christ, and is your mind set on caring for others as His was? If not, remind yourself of His great love for you at the cross, see His glory, and be changed.
