Let's talk about promotion. Everybody wants it, but where does it come
from and how do you get it? Some people think that promotion comes from
other people. So they spend their whole lives trying to
impress their colleagues, their bosses, their employees.
Some people have even sold their souls to the
devil because they think that promotion comes from below.
But listen to what Psalm seventy five says. Verse six says, promotion cometh neither from
the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.
So promotion doesn’t come from the east or
the west that is to say the horizontal plane. And it doesn't come from the south, that is
to say below.
Then we know by process of elimination that we
know where promotion comes from, the north. Promotion comes from above and that's what
the next verse says explicitly. But God is the judge: He putteth one down
and setteth up another. But here's the difficulty, if you look through
scripture you'll realize that God's method of promotion
is counter intuitive.
Because when God wants to lift someone up, first
he takes them down very low. A good example of this is Joseph.
From the time Joseph was a boy he had dreams of greatness.
He saw his mother and father and brothers bowing down before him.
Ironically it was those very dreams of greatness that bred contempt in the hearts of his brothers
who eventually sold him into a humble life of slavery.
Joseph's path to greatness would take him through the lowlands of servitude, character
assassination and even imprisonment in the royal
dungeon. For a while Joseph's life seemed to have an
ever downward trajectory, constantly going from bad to worse.
Joseph descended that dark winding staircase of humility and submission and when he reached
the last door all the way at the bottom, he had
discovered that it had taken him to the top. Almost over night Joseph became one of the
most powerful men in the world. All along it was that downward, obscure path
that God had used to raise Joseph up to a place
of prominence and power. Joseph discovered that the way up is down.
Perhaps the greatest example of this comes from
the life of Jesus himself. Philippians 2:16 says although He was in the
form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal
with God, But made Himself of no reputation and took
upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in
the likeness of men.
And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him
and given Him a name which is above every name,
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth, And that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus' path of promotion was of the way of the cross and here's the principal:
The loftier the promotion, the lowlier the path.
Think of it this way if you want to build a very
tall building, you need to lay a very deep foundation.
If you want to find precious elements of the earth
you've got to dig very deep for them. This is God's way, the way up is down.
I remember years ago when I visited the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
I noticed that there were three different queues
you could join. One was going to the first level, one was
going to the second level and the other one was
going all the way to the top.
To come all the way to Paris and to stop at the
first or second level seemed ridiculous. I was determined to go all the way to the
top. But I noticed that the first two lines were
immediately going up the stairs. But my line was headed downward.
It seemed strange to me that the line that was
headed to the tallest point was headed down. But soon I saw why, the first two lines were
climbing with their hands and feet up those stairs.
The third line was going down to a lift, an elevator
that would take the people all the way to the top.
God's will for your life will always lead you on the
path of humility and submission. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the
low path, the humble path is the way for losers.
Some people are so eager to be successful that they're climbing level by level with
their hands and feet, promoting themselves with
feverish urgency. But you should know that God has an elevator
waiting for those who want to go to levels higher
than one or two. And the way to get to God's elevator is to
go down to the low place of humility.
This is path that Jesus walked, and it's the loftiest
place in existence. The way up, is down.