25-1207a - Detailed Summary

Tom introduces his sermon titled “Looking Low Enough - The God Who Hides in the Humble.” He addresses the common objection: “If God is real, why doesn’t He show Himself plainly?” People seek God in the spectacular—earthquakes, miracles, big churches, eloquent preachers—yet despite telescopes, microscopes, and satellites, modern humanity remains blind to God. The reason is pride: we look in the wrong places. Scripture repeatedly teaches that God deliberately hides Himself in the lowly, forgotten, weak, and despised. An old saying captures it: modern man cannot see God because he will not look low enough.

Humanity looks upward to skyscrapers, rockets, stock markets, influencers, TED Talks, filtered social-media highlight reels, and above all to self—our desires and personal truth as the ultimate guide. In contrast, Scripture and the Incarnation reveal God in low places: not mountaintops of achievement but valleys of humiliation, not palaces but stables, not thunder but surrendered silence. Isaiah prophesied that human loftiness will be humbled and only the Lord exalted. Stiff-necked pride (like an ox refusing the yoke) prevents us from bowing low to see God.

On the night Christ was born, Caesar ruled in marble halls, yet the King of kings was laid in a feeding trough surrounded by animals and the smell of manure. Angels announced the birth not to temple priests but to shepherds—men legally barred from court testimony because of their low status. Jesus hid His tears (unlike proud Stoics) but above all hid His divine glory, becoming man, becoming sin, becoming a curse on the cross (Galatians 3:13; Philippians 2:5-8). He stooped to wash feet, be numbered with criminals, and lie in a borrowed tomb—the lowest descent possible for our salvation.

Jesus declares in Matthew 25 that He is still hidden among the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and prisoners. Whatever is done to “the least of these” is done to Him.” Feeding the homeless, visiting nursing homes, writing prisoners, embracing addicts—these are direct encounters with Christ. The world (and too often Christians) treat such people as garbage, yet Jesus identifies completely with them. To refuse help is to refuse Christ Himself.

For thirty years the Eternal Word lived in despised Nazareth (“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”). He hammered nails, swept sawdust, and ate with sinners. His lowest moment came at Golgotha, the city garbage heap, where He hung naked, mocked, and bleeding as a common criminal. Modern people want a God of power and success, not weakness and failure—Hitler scorned Jesus as “the God of the weak.” Israel rejected Him because they wanted a warrior-king, not a homeless carpenter. The gospel reverses everything: the way up is down; to see God we must look low.

Paul reminds the Corinthians (1 Cor 1:26-29) that few of them were wise, influential, or noble—God chose the foolish, weak, and despised so no one may boast. The early church consisted of fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and repentant sinners—not a country club for the respectable. Restoration leaders like Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone called the church back to this simple New Testament pattern. James 2 rebukes partiality; the true church of Christ is the community that deliberately looks low, embracing the same kind of people Jesus embraced.

James 2 condemns giving rich people with gold rings the best seats while telling the poor in shabby clothes to stand or sit on the floor. Tom asks the congregation to examine themselves: Do we favor the well-off, educated, or well-dressed? How would we treat a homeless person who walked in? The church must treat the opposite of “looking low” when it uplifts the high and ignores the low. Even the Lord’s Supper—tiny cracker, sip of juice, hardly a royal feast—reminds us weekly that we meet the Lord in humble, ordinary things and therefore must meet Him in broken people.

Tom gives concrete examples of looking low enough: gently restoring the fallen instead of shaming or gossiping about them (Galatians 6:1); baptizing and welcoming teenagers from broken homes, recovering addicts, divorced people, and ex-convicts without judgment or whispers; making sure the widow on food stamps feels as welcome as the wealthy elder; taking the gospel first to trailer parks, nursing homes, and county jails rather than waiting for “better prospects”; visiting brothers and sisters in psychiatric wards even when medication makes them shake; refusing to measure spirituality by money, education, or address. He challenges the church’s outreach efforts: we must deliberately go to the lowly, because that is exactly where Jesus went and preached.

Jesus promises that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Him (Matthew 25:40). Because Jesus looked low enough to go to the cross, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name (Philippians 2:9). One day the lowly Savior will return in glory and lift up everyone who served the least. Today He still meets us in baptism, nursing homes, jail cells, and food pantries. Tom closes with an invitation: If you have never obeyed the gospel, Jesus looked low enough for you—will you now look low enough to come to Him in repentance and baptism? If you are a Christian who has forgotten how to look low and need restoration and prayer, come forward while we stand and sing.