Foundational Characteristics: Humility Part 2

[0:00] Please sit down, have a seat, and turn to Ephesians chapter 4. As you know, we've been in the middle of Ephesians, just starting this second section.

[0:15] However, before I kind of get into that, I just want to encourage you tonight for our constant prayer. You don't have to be a member, but if you call this home, this church your home, this is where you're blessed by, I would ask that you would come out.

[0:34] Kind of the time of year right now is actually what sets the tone, what happens in September. For those of us who are in church leadership, these are the times when budgets are set, plans are put in place.

[0:52] As we have been submitting, we want to come open-handed to the Lord where he would have us everything from direct our money, direct our energy, direct our prayers.

[1:03] As you know, there is really never-ending need, but there are certain areas that I believe that we need to address as a church, and that means training, equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, which we're going to be getting to.

[1:22] There are certain age groups. As you see, we've got this gamut of children that are here that are going to be growing up. Some right now are actually in those high school years. They're starting to grow, and we need to equip them.

[1:35] We need to ready them for what comes next, and that's all a part of our responsibility as we bring them under God's Word. So we are trying to think and pray through what are more efficient and better ways in order to accomplish that.

[1:50] So my encouragement is please come. Please let your prayers be heard. We're going to set it up in a little bit of a different way that will give everyone either a chance to pray privately or in public or in small groups.

[2:06] So that would really be great if you're already a part of the family. I really do expect to see you here if you can move some things in your schedule. If you're new and just visiting, you want to come, that's great as well.

[2:20] All right, let's turn to Ephesians 4, 1 to 6. I'm just going to read this passage out for us first. Paul writes, As you can see from today's sermon title from the bulletin, we're actually in part two of what we preached on last week.

[3:26] Last week, if you weren't here, we dealt with the subject of pride. It was kind of one of those sermons that you went home and you looked over at your husband. Man, did BK ever nail you, right?

[3:39] You know, or you went home saying, Man, I can't wait to tell someone about this sermon and how it applies to them. Right? Right? From your laughter, you know that was not the effect of that sermon.

[3:52] That sermon was a deeply personal sermon that got to every one of us. And I believe it exposed a lot of our own pride. The biblical understanding of pride hits us all.

[4:09] Young, old, mature, unwise, learned, unlearned, those that are loud, those that are quiet, those that are wise. It affects us really all, some of us at the core of our being.

[4:25] However, just after that whole sermon, I really felt that I didn't do justice to the humility part. Because in order to understand humility, we have to understand pride and what goes on in our life.

[4:37] And now that we understand that pride aspect, we can get a better handle on humility and how we can grow in that incredible virtue.

[4:51] As you remember last week, I kind of defined the first part of Ephesians, which is chapters one to three, as kind of how God sees Christ in us.

[5:03] Right? That's the whole part that Paul's devised in this verse. But the second half, it's almost how the world should see Christ in us. We're now getting to the commands, the implications of the truth of the first three chapters are now being commanded as we're going to see.

[5:23] We're going to be encouraged. We're going to be urged to do certain things. So let's take a look at verse one again. It says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you, and we talked about urge last week, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

[5:45] Now, as we get into the subject of humility, there's two words here that are used that help us understand the framing of this passage. The first word is worthy.

[5:58] Worthy. It's an adjective. It means what is honorable, what is esteemable, what makes something have sufficient worth or importance.

[6:12] Or, in modern day parlance, if you are a fan of the Avengers, you know that there's only one who's worthy to pick up Thor's hammer, right?

[6:27] Right? You have to be someone in order to lift up the hammer. For you guys who pay no attention to those things, good on you. But there's a lot of us who understand the implications of what it is to be worthy.

[6:40] Now, what's interesting as this adjective is the definition is helped by the context. What is supposed to be worthy?

[6:51] Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, Paul writes.

[7:03] It's to meet a standard that has been established. You don't make the standard. The standard is outside of you, which has been set.

[7:19] Colossians 1.10. Paul uses the exact same type of words. He says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Remember, walk is a Jewish term, meant how you conduct your life.

[7:34] Hey, how's your walk going? How's your integrity going? How are you conducting your life? It's not a physical type of walk.

[7:45] It's what your life represents. Philippians 1.27. Paul writes, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

[7:57] Again, in 1 Thessalonians 2.11 to 12, he says, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God.

[8:11] And then just before that, in 1 Thessalonians 1.11, he says, to this end, we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling.

[8:24] So it's kind of interesting. We're reading both a command that we are supposed to do, but we're also reading that God is the one who makes us worthy.

[8:39] That's a pretty big tension in case you're not seeing that. That I have a responsibility and God has this responsibility.

[8:50] And if we sum up all these verses, Paul has this great desire for us to be worthy of your calling, worthy of the Lord, worthy of the gospel, worthy of God.

[9:06] He's communicating to us there is a way in which to live your life that is admirable, deserving, excellent, true, worthwhile of God.

[9:21] The question is, tell me how. If we are lovers of Christ, tell us how, Paul. Tell us how. Now the second word I think that underlines this statement is the understanding of the word calling.

[9:39] The calling which you have been called. Remember in Ephesians 2, before Jesus Christ saved us, the Ephesians were called dead.

[9:52] They were called alien. They were called trespassers. They were called foreigners to God. And the fact of the matter is, we all were.

[10:04] Before we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that's how we were regarded. Our lives were walking in a whole other direction.

[10:15] Notice in Ephesians 2, 1, he says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sin in which you once walked. That's how you carried on your life. Everyone at some time of their life walked this way.

[10:29] You were just walking and doing your own thing. You were living a life with a whole other set of priorities. Paul tells us that we were following the course of this world.

[10:45] We were walking the way of the world. We were walking the way of the prince of the air. We were walking to fulfill our passions and the sins of our flesh. We were walking to carry out the desires of our body and mind.

[11:01] And we were described as children of wrath. But it says here, God called you.

[11:14] You didn't get up one morning and started living a different life. You didn't get up and just say, I don't like this life.

[11:24] In fact, you might. But in your mind, that is the only life to live. But God gives you a different set of passions, a different set of priorities.

[11:36] This word, it says, the calling which you have been called. And it means to be subject to an authoritative command. When Jesus called the disciples, it was like a shepherd calling the sheep.

[11:54] They just knew that they were to respond to him. That that's who was their authority. People talk like this.

[12:06] Does God call people who don't want to follow him? No. All those who are of God want to follow. They hear the sheep's voice and they follow. So here we have this calling.

[12:21] Something changed the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you lived. Before you walked as a dead person. Now you work as a living person.

[12:33] Why? Because Jesus loved you with such a great love that he called you to him. He calls you to salvation.

[12:46] And with the salvation comes a sealing of the Holy Spirit. That sealing, and we talked about this, is almost like a branding. Where God is saying, you are mine now.

[13:02] You are mine. And now, because of this branding, you are going to walk in a way that's different than you walked before. And what's really cool about this branding, it joins us all together.

[13:16] Amen? All these spirits, this Holy Spirit joins us all together in one body, which we call the church. He actually uses the word building up, calls us a holy temple.

[13:31] It's a place where the Spirit of God lives. So it's in this context that Paul calls us to walk in a manner worthy of this church.

[13:45] And the first two characteristics that he talks about are both humility and gentleness. So that's where we're going to spend some time today, is on what it means to walk in a manner worthy, in humility, and gentleness.

[14:01] And these terms are actually linked together. And today, as we go through, as we understand humility, we will understand gentleness.

[14:12] It'll make a whole lot more sense. What God is actually doing is showing us how to live as living stones in this holy temple.

[14:25] So today, in order to be worthy of what God calls us to, I want us to understand what Paul means by humility and gentleness, and how humility and gentleness is to be achieved in our lives.

[14:39] And as I did last week, I asked you some questions. I'm going to do the exact same today. So let's take a look at your bulletin. And I put a definition of humility in your bulletin. It's kind of the working definition.

[14:52] It's not a perfect definition. It's not an all-encompassing definition. But it's drawn from Scripture. The definition of humility is the mindset of Christ.

[15:05] If you were honestly looking for the perfect definition of humility, you'd be right with the Sunday school answer of Jesus Christ. Right? He's the perfect picture of humility.

[15:17] But it says, The mindset of Christ, a servant's mindset, a focus on God and others, a pursuit of the recognition and the exaltation of God, and a desire to glorify and please God in all things, and by all things he has given.

[15:39] So let me ask you the all-important question. Is humility important to God? Right? We read last week, Isaiah 62, 66, 2, which reads, All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declared the Lord.

[15:59] But this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

[16:11] The key to being noticed by God or pleasing God is to be on the road to humility. In fact, God commands humility.

[16:22] 1 Peter 5, 5 states, Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

[16:36] Which tells us that pride is the enemy of humility, which is ultimately the enemy of God. God, in fact, hates pride. Proverbs 16, 5, we looked at last week.

[16:49] Everyone, everyone, not some of you who are arrogant, but every one of you who is arrogant, in heart, is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured, he will not go unpunished.

[17:10] That's big. But we also read in James 5, 6, that God blesses humility. God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

[17:26] Think about that for a second. The word of God promises that those who are humble will know God's blessing.

[17:40] Is there anybody here who wants to know God's blessing? Okay, a couple dozen. We all should, right? There's no shame in that.

[17:51] That is actually not a prideful thing to know God's blessing. What it is, is a sincere cry, a sincere understanding to how great God is and wanting to know his blessing in our life.

[18:09] I couldn't think of anything of greater value this week than to know what God's blessing is. Now, before we get to know how to develop humility in our lives, we need to understand a couple more things.

[18:25] One, there's a difference between humility before God and humility before man. All right? So one frames the other. So humility before God.

[18:35] I'm going to talk, I think I got seven of them. Seven ways that describes humility before God. So the question is, how is humility demonstrated in our actions and attitudes before God?

[18:55] The first way that humility is shown before God, it is a free and sincere confession of one's insignificance and sinfulness.

[19:07] It's simply saying, you are God, I am not. You are perfect God, I am not. It is to marvel at God.

[19:20] It is to look outside, know that God is creator and respond to that in our hearts, that God is creator. He is the high God.

[19:33] He is the holy God. He is the almighty God. God. So what does that mean for me? Well, Paul expresses this perfectly in 1 Timothy 1.15.

[19:47] He says, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ came into the world to save sinners, of which I am the foremost.

[19:59] this is Paul who did many great, incredible miracles, whose work as an apostle of God is tremendous.

[20:14] You see, to know yourself is to know that you are the greatest sinner. You know what's in your heart. You know what's in your mind at times. We don't see it.

[20:24] We just see the polished version of one another. But the reality is we also see verse 16. But I received mercy for this reason in that in me as the foremost sinner Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

[20:50] If Jesus Christ can love a wretch and use a wretch like me, guess how much more he can use you. Right? That is the attitude we're all supposed to have to one another.

[21:03] Humility before God is always knowing our unworthiness before God and that everything that we receive from him is a precious gift. Nothing that we've done or earned has got to do with us.

[21:17] It has to do with God. The second way of humility before God is a complete lack of trust in our own heart and complete dependence upon God for all things.

[21:31] You see, humble people know and understand that he who trusts in his own heart is a fool according to Proverbs 28-26. Jeremiah 17-9 writes, The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick.

[21:49] Who can understand this? What this means is that God has to be the source of our wisdom and our instruction. A humble person never trusts himself.

[22:04] He always sees outside wisdom. You see, this is the battle. Sometimes we win a few battles on our own.

[22:16] You know what? We're submitting to God. We're accomplishing something. Then we kind of get, you know, one battle. We kind of move over to the second battle. Then that third battle, you know what? I've already done this twice. I really don't need your input in my life anymore, Lord.

[22:29] I'm just going to go to that third battle. You know what happens then, right? Boom. But we find ourselves there time and time again.

[22:41] And we hear people say, well, you need to know my heart in that. No, I don't want to know what's in your heart because what's in your heart is actually not very good even though we think it's very good.

[22:56] Remember David, King David, had this great army and he wanted to take a census. He wanted to number all the men. And God knew, if you start counting the men that are in your army, you're going to start depending on those men rather than me.

[23:14] What did he do? He counted his men and he lost the next battle. God wants us in a continual state of reliance on him.

[23:25] It's never, hey, rely on me for a while until you get strong enough and do it on your own. That's not what he's saying. I want you relying on me all the time.

[23:39] All those victories that we have in this life are because of God. And this leads me to the third way to express humility before God. It's never taking glory from our own good and it's done by giving all glory to God for all things.

[23:58] All right? We never take the glory. Psalm 115.1 says, not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory.

[24:12] You know, the reality is some of you are more talented than others. Some of you are wealthier than others. Some are even better looking than others. And by virtue, that has given you a step up on some people in this life.

[24:30] The reality is that's still all to God's glory. Did you know that? It's got nothing to do with you. There was a, at one of my old churches, the elders were dealing with this person and it was quite interesting.

[24:44] A person spoke six languages, was educated as a doctor, a businessman. Like, the world was this person's oyster.

[24:55] And the person made some comment about how much they had achieved. One of the elders was quick to point out, which school did you go to? And it turned out they had gone to the greatest private schools like in Switzerland, leading to finally being able to go to Harvard here, to Kellogg School of Business.

[25:18] Like, we're talking the top of the top schools in the world. They simply said, could you have done that without your dad? Could you have been able to handle the $100,000 tuition for one year of private school?

[25:31] The person had to say, no. Because that's the reality is we don't have control over who our parents are, what our parents did.

[25:46] There's some things some of us have to do more for the others, but it's still by the grace of God. Amen? Spurgeon wrote, how many have been destroyed by prosperity?

[26:00] The fumes of popularity have turned the brains of many a man. The adulation of multitudes has laid thousands low. Many have I known who in a cottage seem to fear God, but in a mansion have forgotten him.

[26:19] Too much prosperity is not a good thing. James 1.17 says, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of light.

[26:35] Humility is always giving all the grace and glory to God. The fourth way is by respecting and receiving and responding to the Word of God.

[26:48] I know this is simple, but it's true. When I say respect, they understand it as in fact God's every word. It's not a religious relic and we go to great lengths to understand it.

[27:06] Here it is. To not read and study God's Word is a sign of pride. It's simply stating, I don't need God's input in my life.

[27:18] I've got it. I've heard people say, I've already read it through once. I'm going to tell you, more than likely not saved because if you were saved, you would understand how much that Word speaks to our heart and we want that daily.

[27:42] The one who is humble is the one who trembles at God's Word, who wants to know what God has to say. And we respond with great conviction. The fifth way is completely submitting to God's will.

[27:57] One, not when it's easy, but when it's difficult, right? Remember Meshach, Shedrach, and Abednego? They were Daniel's compadres in the book of Daniel and they were told that they were to bow to the king in honor and worship and declare him a god.

[28:17] They didn't do it. In fact, they were thrown into the furnace and they lived. If you ever get that book, Fox's Book of Murders, Book of Martyrs, sorry.

[28:34] It is, but it is. It's Fox's Book of Murders. Stories of Christian saints who were told to simply deny their faith and they didn't. It's a sobering but incredible book to read.

[28:49] If you don't have a copy, you should have a copy in your library of it because those are the people that are largely the reason why we have a Bible in English.

[29:01] That we understand our faith as people because they died for the faith and God used those tragedies for us but they humbled, right?

[29:14] Talk about submitting. The fact is we don't want to submit. I've got a friend. I'm dealing with this counseling issue. He knows that he makes a decision for his family that he knows it's the right for his family.

[29:25] It will ostracize the outlaws and it's a tension and he calls me every two weeks and I tell him the same thing. You have to make a decision and the right decision is a cost.

[29:38] The sixth way is submitting to God's providence without complaining. Hey, let's be honest. We're good at submitting to God's providence.

[29:48] We have nothing to do with it. Why complaining, right? But the true humility is not complaining. It's understanding that all is by God's holy decree and we show our delight through worship and praise.

[30:04] It is praising God that he knows best. Lord, may you humble us. The seventh way is simply recognizing and trusting God's character.

[30:18] So those are ways we humble ourselves before God. Humility before men, it looks something like don't do anything selfish for ambitious and greedy gain.

[30:29] Don't take advantage of one another. There's a whole book written on this called Esther. If you read Esther, it's about this guy, Haman, who wants to get all the glory and he sets up this guy, Mordecai, to look like the goat.

[30:45] In the end of the story, God reverses it, right? The one guy is humble before the Lord and God raises him up. The guy who tries to control everything ends up dead.

[31:00] It's not to be a show-off. We don't show off with our abilities, our riches, our riches, anything that might make us seem better. The way we're humbled toward another is being thankful and grateful for one another.

[31:17] It's to expect nothing. It's a mindset of we expect nothing, therefore anything given to us is greatly appreciated. The fourth is seeing ourselves no better than others.

[31:30] Fifth way is being a good listener. To listen is to say, you might have something really good that I might learn from this. That's a humbling point for some. about talking about others only if it's for good or for their good.

[31:48] And what I mean is don't gossip. And if you're going to say something that might be hurtful or we'd say bad for one another, it's to do so in a positive manner to that person to help them deal with that problem, right?

[32:04] Hey, you have a chunk of broccoli the size of the state of Nebraska in your teeth. We're helping them, right? That's what it means.

[32:19] Being thankful for criticism or reproof. That's really easy, let me tell you. It's serving. it's being quick in seeking forgiveness and it's quick in granting forgiveness.

[32:39] Humble people are genuinely glad for others and humble people possess close relationships. We talked about that. Pride is seen in people who do not have close relationships because they do not want people to speak in their lives because they want to be the truth of all things.

[32:56] Came across this interesting article last night. It was in the Post and this guy is arguing that every single student who goes to university should sign this declaration.

[33:11] All right, I'm going to read you the declaration. It's not a biblical declaration but it makes perfect sense in regards to humility and pride. It says, when I go to this university I recognize that I am ignorant in very much.

[33:25] I have a real desire to escape immaturity of thought and to fit my mind as much as I can expand my sensibility to the appreciation of the works of intellect and imagination.

[33:43] Above all, I want to encounter new ideas. I want to escape the sludge of teenage thought and I want to extend my range of opinions. Imagine if you could even just give that to your kid to sign that.

[33:56] All right, you're 16, you need to sign this, right? But he says, I also wish that under the supervision instruction of wiser and more learned people than I am, I desire to graduate with fuller, clearer ideas of myself, my potential, and an awareness of the finest achievements of my own and other civilizations.

[34:17] Should an undergraduate degree also improve my chance of finding employment, I will regard that as a side benefit. And he simply says, the heart of this application is, one, I am ignorant and immature, so please teach me.

[34:33] Life would be a lot better if that's the way we conducted ourselves, right? We so much want to show how much we know, rather than recognize how little we know. So there's three, there's a couple things here I need us to know before we go into this.

[34:52] One, God is intimately involved in the processing of diminishing pride in our hearts. You know that? God loves you. God loves you.

[35:05] And his desire is to see you become full, perfect in Christ. Christ. So he is going to be a part of the process.

[35:18] Because without the reality of God being a part of the process, you are powerless to change. You can't do it. You can try, you try, but you cannot do it.

[35:31] You and I, however, have a responsibility to respond. God does command us to be humble, and our actions are there, but he's a part of the process as well.

[35:44] The second thing that we need to keep in mind is pride is our natural state. It is naturally who we are. To be humble is an unnatural state.

[36:00] There is never a day that we can take off. There's never a time where we can just relax and put our feet up. As I stated last year, pride is at the door, and it knocks day and night.

[36:15] And obedience and humility is an ongoing basis. So, three foundations for humility. First one, awareness of our total depravity that comes in the work of the Lord of the Spirit of salvation.

[36:29] What that means is, you know what our first action is? Accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Repent. Confess your sins. Jesus, without you, I am nothing.

[36:40] It is to pray the prayer that we read in Luke 18, 13, God, be merciful on me, a sinner. That's the first action. You want humility in life?

[36:50] That's where it begins. It can't be without anything else. Two, it's the understanding that humility is a work of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5 tells us what the work of the Spirit are.

[37:03] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Guess what? Proud people lack love for others.

[37:15] Proud people lack joy in all situations. Proud people lack peace in their relationships. Proud people lack patience with difficulty.

[37:26] And for proud people kindness is a means to an end. And ultimately God uses his word to produce humility in us.

[37:41] 2 Timothy 3.16 All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

[38:00] So from all of that we understand one, humility is a big deal to God. Two, God hates pride. And at this point I hope you're thinking teach me the way of humility.

[38:13] Alright, you ready? We're going to get into this. There's good news and bad news. The good news is there are some actions and thought that you can begin working on right now that will help you grow in humility.

[38:24] humility. The bad news, there are actions that God will take in your life to grow you in humility. How does God do it?

[38:35] One, reality is God uses hard experiences to humble us. We know that. One of the best ways for God to humble us is to place us in a situation that is completely beyond our control.

[38:51] Israel, desert, 40 years. Are you going to listen to me? Are you going to listen to me? Are you going to listen to me? Imagine that every year for 40 years. No, we're not.

[39:01] All right, go around again. Right? Difficult circumstances show us the reality of our lives. Are we truly dependent on God for everything?

[39:14] Second thing, God uses other godly people who are wiser, more mature, more gifted, and more effective than we are to humble us.

[39:27] Often, we will find ourselves envious of such people. It's true. Instead of thanking God for what has given us, we begin to focus on what we do not have.

[39:44] Let's be honest. It's really easy to compare ourselves to other people, isn't it? We're always doing it. Man, I wish I was good looking as that person.

[39:56] I wish I could speak with the same eloquence as that person. I wish I knew as much as that person. You see, God really wants us in a position that says, I really am nothing, and anything that God accomplishes is for his glory and through his power.

[40:18] Amen? Amen? Any goodness that I'm able to give someone is solely because of the grace of God. Our pride shows up so much in this people.

[40:33] I remember one of the biggest implications in my life. I was 30 years old. Okay, maybe 35, 36, and I thought I could do everything, right? I feel like I'm smart, I got a great education, I've had a great government career, I think I know everything, and I remember I get this job performance evaluation.

[40:57] What, you guys are nuts, you don't know anything, and it's not horrible that they're saying my job is doing, but they're saying there's certain things you're just not going to be. That's a hard thing to take, right?

[41:09] Because I come from that time in your 20s and 30s, if I work and apply and learn, I'll be able to accomplish anything I want. And it was interesting because I found myself 10 years later writing these guys and say, how right you were.

[41:23] And part of it was you just need to accept who you are. So I remember even in my first church that we were leading, there was this younger guy, he was younger, my junior by about eight, maybe six years, he had more money than he knew what to do with at that time, and could that guy lead.

[41:38] It was intimidating for me as a pastor because he could figure out all the things I've been working on a day over, he'd be done in like five minutes and have everything restructured. And it was right 99% of the time.

[41:50] And I remember just trying to be him, trying to be him, just trying to be him. And the Lord had to free me of that. And it made me love the church so much more because it spoke to me how God has given us gifts and that there's not one person who has all the gifts.

[42:14] That's why we're going to learn there's actually a plurality of elders that we have in the church. It's not like I'm the number one guy here and my decision goes. I need the other men in this church who have equal, the same amount of stake as I do in this love of this church as elders to use their gifts to complement mine and my gift to complement theirs so that we're seeking after the one God.

[42:38] Amen? It's what it is. It's the same thing for you guys in the church. Two, three, God uses other people to rebuke and criticize us, right?

[42:49] Whether we like it or not, that's a fashion that we learn from, we grow in. It says, few things in life help us to understand the depth of our pride like our natural response to an honest rebuke or criticism.

[43:08] More so, our pride is revealed in the fourth one is when God allows other people to misunderstand or misrepresent us.

[43:19] You know when your pride really gets elevated? It's when you're in a performance evaluation and they're wrong. Right? The right stuff you can say, okay, okay, I get that. It still kind of hurts, but it's the stuff they got wrong.

[43:33] Then your pride really gets up because you think you're justified, right? Nothing brings up a wrong criticism to make us understand what's truly the idol in our lives that we don't want kicked.

[43:49] Our motives to our actions are sometimes not understood and we find this difficult. Fifth way is that God uses our sins and failures to humble us.

[44:00] And the sixth way is sometimes God even allows Satan to come against you. It's hard. We read this in Job and we read this in Paul's life, right?

[44:12] 2 Corinthians 2, 12, 17, that God gave him a thorn so he would not become boastful. Even the most godliest of people be given over to pride and God will sometimes allow Satan to be the one to humble them.

[44:30] God's love So what can we do? Last week I said we can think about the cross and I say the same thing to you today. The cross does not exist to flatter us.

[44:45] The cross exists to let us know exactly who we are. The cross does not tell us how great we are. The cross tells us how great God's love is.

[44:57] and it also tells us how much he hates sin. Think of what Jesus Christ endured on the cross for us.

[45:13] He took all our sin. And you know what? He didn't fail. He endured it.

[45:23] He died and rose again. And you can also say that's how much God hates pride. Think about how much God loves the humble and hates the pride.

[45:44] pride. Whenever you're feeling proud, put that verse up. Proverbs 16.5, God, pride is an abomination to God.

[45:59] Third way, think about Jesus. Jesus who sat on high at the right throne came down.

[46:10] Think about that. God comes down as a little baby totally helpless, puts himself in really the hands of teenagers. That's crazy.

[46:21] How many of you, right? God forbid, one of your younger kids has a child that's a teenager. It's, you know, questionable parentage.

[46:34] How many of you are jumping in to take over there, right? You know you are. God didn't. God that's incredible humility and circumstance.

[46:52] He also let his creation kill him. A fourth way to drive towards humility in their life is think of humble people.

[47:08] Get to know them, observe them, their actions, their words, listen to their prayers, ask them what they read.

[47:23] Meditate, the fifth way to meditate on everything that we've accomplished comes from God. If you've got a nice home that you're proud of, go home today and say, Lord, thank you.

[47:38] Thank you for giving me the ability to earn, to be in the right market, to afford a home. A lot of people who can't today. It's crazy. We were just talking about a brother. They lost the ability to make money and just maintain the rent.

[47:52] They couldn't stay in squamers. They'd have to go to a far other land, far away land to live. That's how tough it is. So the fact that we have a place, a home, Lord, thank you.

[48:06] Sixth way, spend time with humble people and avoid arrogant people. Proverbs 13, 12 says, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

[48:21] You who are parents, kids who still have control. Guide your kids to wise families, not foolish families.

[48:37] And as Carl stated today, join a growth group. Get honest, get real. You know, it'll take time. Our growth group, I've been in that growth group for a year now.

[48:50] In a lot of ways, we're just starting to scratch the surface of stuff and trusting each other to love, support, and care for. And it's really a beautiful thing. Know Jesus.

[49:07] Read a book on the attributes of God. It will change much of what you think of yourself and what you think of God. Reality is, we all understand that Jesus Christ is the perfect example of humility.

[49:22] Read him, know him, worship him. That's how we become humble, my friends. Now let's briefly move over to gentleness.

[49:35] Gentleness makes a whole lot of sense now that we understand humility. If you had an old King James version, an old version, it actually used the word meekness. It would not use gentleness.

[49:46] And the reason they switched over is because meekness in the common vernacular has come to be weak. It means weakness. The true meaning of meekness does not mean weakness.

[50:00] It's kind of one of those things where a culture has changed words. You guys, you ever use that word I perused the newspaper? Okay. You guys, most of you, use that word 100% wrong.

[50:13] Peruse actually means to deep study. But we use it to take a glance at. How weird is that, right? It's like when I asked my kid, how was your day? It was really bad.

[50:23] I don't know if that's good or what, right? Because bad can be good and bad can be bad, right? So that's kind of why they switched the word meekness to gentleness.

[50:35] But the true meaning of that word is power under control. So what Paul's calling us as believers is to be both humble and meek, which means power under control.

[50:52] They would use this term as you trained a racehorse. Any of you guys have been around horses a lot? A horse is an exceptionally powerful animal.

[51:04] If you're like me, you knew horses, they bring you great fear, right? But for some people who really knew horses, they know how to talk to them, pet them, communicate with them.

[51:14] They're a lot like a dog, I'm told. I think they're like all wild stray dogs. But anyway, they can get that horse to do incredible feats, but it's power under control.

[51:27] Who was that? Jesus. The whole time he walked on this earth was the power of God in human form.

[51:41] Oh, you want to whip me, beat me, put a crown of thorns on me? Go ahead. That's power under control.

[51:54] Could I have called down legions of angels? Yes, I could have. In fact, I just needed to call one. God. So what we're seeing here is Paul is getting into this text.

[52:11] This church is built around an understanding of what it is to be like Jesus and these are the areas that we can be like him too. So it's interesting that on this day that we come together, we're celebrating communion.

[52:33] You know, on that night, before that cross, none of the guys knew what was going on, right? Even Judas, who he knew in his own heart, God actually put him in a place of honor to dip and give him the bread first.

[52:51] God's mercy, do you know that was a God merciful anger, action towards Judas? you can still repent, you can still turn. I can stop you right here from leaving and then from later identifying me in the garden, but I'm not.

[53:12] I'm going to give you a choice. You have a choice to honor me or dishonor me. Remember Peter later on, I will never ever deny you.

[53:26] I'm with you to the end, to the very end, oh Jesus. Peter gets pushed around by what we believe is a preteen girl in front of a fire.

[53:39] Aren't you Galilean? And Jesus submitted to that. Jesus went to this most important, cherished time, which was a time of praying in this garden of Gethsemane.

[53:55] asking Lord, hey, if it is your will, God, there's any other way that these people can be redeemed. Can you do it?

[54:08] And you know the hordes of Satan are there at his feet, fighting for him to not take that cup. but he did.

[54:23] And before that, he instituted this meal that we really didn't understand. The apostles didn't understand at that time. But he asked in obedience, so if you are going to take up your cross like I am going to show you, which is absolute humility and absolute meekness, if you would take up that cross as well, you can share in this feast with me.

[54:46] So that's what we're here to celebrate today in this time of communion.