Do Christian Values Work in What We Call the "Real World"?

In his classic text, The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson wrote:

As a pastor, I don’t like being viewed as nice but insignificant. I bristle when a high-energy executive leaves the place of worship with the comment, ‘This was wonderful, Pastor, but now we have to get back to the real world, don’t we?’ I had thought we were in the most-real world, the world revealed as God’s, a world believed to be invaded by God’s grace and turning on the pivot of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The executive’s comment brings me up short: he isn’t taking this seriously. Worshipping God is marginal to making money. Prayer is marginal to the bottom line. Christian salvation is a brand preference (p. 27).

That paragraph hits home with me. I hear, “Back to the real world,” and I think that I have somehow failed to convey the reality of God’s world to you. Still, that voice creeps into our heads: in here we play at being Christian, and out there is the real world where the real values apply. Sometimes you’ve just got to do things the world’s way. Do Christian values actually work out there, or is it all just something we talk about in here?

Jesus at Dinner

That’s the question Jesus addresses in Luke 14. He finds himself in a very “real world” situation. Back in verse 1, we’re told:

“One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully” (Luke 14:1).

So he’s a famous rabbi now, and he’s invited to dinner—not really for hospitality, but for inspection. They want to see if he knows how to play by the rules. 

We all know the game. You put your best foot forward, show you know how to act, flatter the right people, and follow the unspoken rules.

We all play the game. The question is: which game are we playing? Jesus walks into this Pharisee’s house, and while they’re watching him, he’s watching them (v. 7). And what he notices is the seating chart. Everyone is jockeying for the seats of honor. Everyone wants proximity to the host, to the place of power.

And so Jesus tells them this parable.

The Parable of the Seating Chart

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you" (Luke 14:8-10).

At first glance, it’s the simplest parable—barely a story at all. More like a proverb. But it has a profound truth hidden in it.

Everyone else was playing the game of self-promotion. Jesus says: That’s the wrong game.

The world says: if you want to get ahead, promote yourself. If you don’t look out for number one, nobody else will. You’ve got to push, dress to impress, call attention to yourself. That’s what celebrities do, and we celebrate them.

But Jesus says: that game doesn’t even work. If you push yourself into the seat of honor, you risk humiliation. But if you choose humility, you risk nothing. Nobody gets asked to move down from the lowest seat. The only way to go is up. Humility may even lead to honor when the host himself invites you higher.

And then Jesus says this:

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 14:11).

This isn’t just a proverb that works sometimes. It’s not like the sayings in Proverbs that are situational. This is a universal principle. This is how the universe actually works. Pride leads to a fall. Humility leads to exaltation. Always.

The Story of the Universe

Our society tells a different story about the universe. C.S. Lewis called it “the great myth.” The story goes like this: in the distant past, there was nothing but chaos. Out of chaos, order arose for a while—our universe, our lives. Things get better for a time, but eventually it all declines back into chaos. 

That’s the story. So the moral is: get what you can while you can, promote yourself while you can, because it won’t last.

But Scripture tells another story. Paul writes in Philippians 2:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5–11).

Jesus began in glory. He emptied himself. He took the lowest place, even to the shameful death of the cross. And then God exalted him higher than ever. That is the story of the universe. Not chaos to order to chaos, but glory to humility to greater glory.

Conclusion

We think we’re winning at life, but often we’re not even playing the right game. We’re out on the basketball court bragging about our home runs. We don’t understand the rules of the universe. Jesus tells us: humility is the path upward. Pride is the path downward. That’s the way it really works.

So I beg you to believe it. The path of humility is not weakness—it’s the way of Christ. It’s the real story of the world.

Dr. Benjamin Williams is the Senior Minister at the Edgemere Church of Christ in Wichita Falls, TX and a regular writer at So We Speak. Check out his books The Faith of John’s Gospel and Why We Stayed or follow him on Twitter, @Benpreachin.