The Way of the Lamb
SUMMARY
In a culture obsessed with attention, recognition, and being "lions," Dr. Jordan Tatum calls Broadway Church to embrace a radically different way — the way of the Lamb. Drawing from Psalm 23, Proverbs, and Philippians 2, he diagnoses pride as the great spiritual cancer of our age and points to the humility of Jesus Christ as the model for God's people. We are not called to personal glory, but to follow our Shepherd in humble obedience.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Well, good morning, Broadway. I've been thinking a lot about our culture lately, and that's part of what we're going to talk about this morning. And I've become convinced that T Ball explains our culture.
I was trying to think of ways to illustrate what I see in our culture, and there's a lot of different things that I see. But. But I came across this video of a kid playing T Ball that we're going to watch at this point that I think illustrates our culture really well.
This is just a kid being a kid, and I recognize that. But I do think he illustrates pretty well what I see and what I find in our culture. It's. This is his moment. That was his spotlight.
He hit the home run and all the eyes were on him. And he wanted to keep it that way as long as possible. Church we live in a time and in a culture where everyone wants our attention.
We are an attention hungry culture. It seems like so many people are screaming in our culture. Just look at me, look at me. I'm up on stage speaking to a crowd of people. I'm doing the same thing.
Look at me. We see it on social media, right? How many of you have watched a YouTube video? We watch a lot of dude, perfect in our house. We've watched a little bit of Mr.
Beast in our house and it's always like, more. Give us more of your attention. I think about sports right now, it's not enough for an athlete to go out and show just how talented they are. No. They have to have podcasts or YouTube shows or all the other things to engage.
Not to mention all of the choreographed celebrations that they do just to have a viral moment. And Church, I'm not even saying that this is inherently bad, but we know there's a dark side to it as well. In 2023, there was an adult website. Not going to mention which one, but it made $6.6 billion in one year off getting people to look at me. We are attention hungry people.
And it doesn't take long within this culture to realize that normal and ordinary aren't going to get any. Any attention. They're not very entertaining. So we don't pay attention to normal or ordinary. So many people will do whatever it takes to convince you to pay attention to them.
Why be ordinary if I can be special? Our culture produces attention hungry people. Back in 2014, there were these two guys named Shawn Whalen and Dan Caldwell who started an apparel company or brand that you may or may not have heard of. It's called Lions not sheep.
They consider their company to be a symbol for a movement, more than just a brand. And here's what they say about themselves. This is a movement of people who have chosen not to be mediocre, not to be ordinary, and to never quit. It is made up of people who are willing to risk it all to bravely forge their own path at lions, not sheep. We choose to lead like lions and not be led like sheep.
Now, on the surface, I think that's pretty compelling. As a product of this culture, that makes a ton of sense. That resonates in a lot of ways. I think it highlights the mood of our culture. We want to be seen.
We want to be unique. We want a platform. We want to be lions.
We should not be surprised that this mentality finds its way into our churches. After all, we're a part of this culture as well. We can believe that the way to reach our community, the way to fulfill our mission, is to be like our culture. So we create ways to be seen, ways to be unique, ways to platform who we are and why we are different and better and more interesting than the other people down the street because we want to be lions.
But scripture tells us a different story.
In the scripture that Ben read for us a minute ago, in Psalm 23, verse 1, we read, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want so church. If the Lord is our shepherd, what does that make us?
We are meant to be sheep. We are dependent upon our shepherd. We are part of a larger herd. We are trained to conform to his standards, not our own. That is who we are meant to be.
I think sheep are a great symbol for the mood and the mindset that we are meant to have. Because church, we are meant to be humble. This week and next week, Carl has asked me to fill in for him, and I'm grateful for the chance to do so. But we're going to talk about humility both weeks. But to go there, I think we have to diagnose what's going wrong with our culture, what evil has taken hold of our culture.
And I think it's a pretty simple diagnosis. The problem with our culture is pride.
Pride is not unique to American culture. It exists in particular ways. It has unique expressions within our culture, but it exists in a lot of places. And there are several Proverbs in particular that talk about the evil of pride. Proverbs 16, verse 5 says, the Lord detests all the proud of heart.
Be sure of this, they will not go unpunished. The prideful are an abomination to the lord. In verse 18 of the same chapter, it says, pride goes before destruction. A haughty spirit before a fall. Pride leads to destruction.
In chapter 11, verse 2, it says, when pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. Pride leads to disgrace. That's awful. And one Last 1, chapter 8, verse 13. To fear the Lord is to hate evil.
I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. God hates pride.
Church the Proverbs are clear. Pride is evil. It is opposed to God and it does not belong among God's people. There are lots of other passages that make that claim as well. Passages in our New Testament that are important to us, like Romans 12 and in Matthew 6.
But we need to recognize pride is a problem, is a huge problem. Now, I think we can make some caveats and I'll be generous here. There is such a thing as good pride. I recognize that there's pride in your family, in your community, in your church, in your work. Sure, all those things are fine, but that's clearly not what we're talking about.
The pride that Scripture warns us against is the pride that consumes so much of us. It's the pride that takes hold of us. It's the pride that consumes King Saul. I think it's the pride that consumes so many of our politicians. It's the pride that tells King David he can have Bathsheba and the pride that tells men in our culture that they can have anybody they want.
It's the pride that promotes the self over the community. The pride that doesn't account for anyone else's need. The pride that gives us blinders to our sin, to our brokenness, to our desperation.
Brian Rosner wrote a book about identity. And one of the things. Excuse me. One of the things that he wrote that I found really helpful is he said pride is not only thinking too much of yourself, it is also to think about yourself too much.
How many of us struggle with that? Pride is self centered. It is self seeking. It is me for first and you if I have anything left. C.S.
lewis refers to pride as spiritual cancer. I work on an oncology floor. I see cancer every day.
And this is spiritual cancer. He says that a proud man always looks down on others. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.
Church do we see this in our culture?
Do we see this in ourselves?
CHURCH this is what our culture celebrates as being lions.
But I want to invite you to turn to Philippians 2 because I believe Jesus teaches us Something radically different than that pride. This is what I want us to think of as the way of the Lamb. After all, as the psalm says, the Lord is my shepherd. What does it mean to be his sheep?
In Philippians, chapter 2, verse 6, we begin this hymn. Who being in very nature God, Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. This psalm. Can we go back? This particular verse has a really significant meaning.
The truth is that Jesus Christ is God. That is not a small claim. That is a huge claim. They share the same nature. The classic way of saying that is that Jesus is God of God.
He's not something other than God, although he is distinct from the Father. They have the same nature. They are of the same being. So as God, Jesus has the right. He has the power.
He has the authority to use his nature to his own advantage. Jesus could force all of creation to worship him. He could exercise divine wrath on all who are disobedient. He could become the lion that we praise in our culture. Verse 7 says, Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness.
So instead of taking advantage of his divine nature, he empties himself and was made in human likeness. Now, I think that word likeness might trip us up a little bit. It doesn't mean that Jesus was like a human. Jesus who was fully God, became fully human. He didn't just appear to be human.
He wasn't Superman who comes down from Krypton and lands on our planet wasn't that. He became just as human as you and just as human as me. And the early church would sing this song of Christ's humility.
They recognized that for God to become like us is an extreme act of humility. God would stoop down to join us.
In so much of the Old Testament, God is holy. He is separate. He is other than creation. When God encounters Abraham, when he encounters Jacob, when he encounters Moses, in all of these stories, they highlight the holiness of God. Moses is told, this is holy ground.
He has to remove his shoes. And when he encounters God fully, he comes back glowing. It's strange. Isaiah has this encounter with God in God's holy temple, where Isaiah is called into the presence of God and he says, oh, I am undone. The people of Israel were supposed to belong to God.
But over and over again they choose lesser gods. And God rebukes them with his might, with his power, in order to draw them back. The picture we see in Scripture over and over again is that God is this powerful being who is holy and other and awe inspiring.
And then we get to Jesus and this story of Jesus becomes so surprising, so shocking, because God stoops down to join us.
Jesus shows us that whilst God is strong and mighty and supremely powerful, all those things are true.
God is also humble.
So in verse 8 we read and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.
At no point is the humility of God on greater display than when Jesus Christ is hanging on a cross.
Jesus could have called down the host of heaven to execute judgment. He could have taken that divine power which existed within him and stepped off the cross to everyone's amazement.
But instead, he humbled himself, endured the cross and died.
Church this hymn teaches us the way of the Lamb. Jesus chose humility, and it's our task to choose humility as well. If we want to follow Jesus, that is what we are called to in verse 5 of Philippians 2. This is Paul's beginning of this hymn and he says, let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
The culture that we inhabit teaches us to assert ourselves, to draw attention to ourselves, to make highlight reels for ourselves, to sell ourselves to each other. Because our culture wants us to be lions.
But Jesus calls us to be his sheep. Jesus shows us humility. He shows us the way. The Lamb Church we are made to choose that way. We are to think like Jesus.
We are to be humble. We are sheep. Our calling in this world is not to dominate. Our calling in this world is not to gloat. Our calling in this world is not to assert ourselves.
Our calling in this world is not to personal glory. Our calling in this world is to be humble like Jesus. Amen. So here's my challenge to you this week. Embrace the way of the Lamb.
Choose to be humble. Let's pray.
Lord God, we are in awe of Jesus Christ. God, the spotless Lamb of God who came and takes away our sins. God, we are so grateful that Jesus shows us the way of the lamb. God, we are grateful that we are called to be sheep, that we are called to belong to him. God, help us to choose humility.
This week we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
