Humility...

Check out this great video which really sets up this message

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z40KT8yzZak

A Life Lived Inside Out

We will study one of the greatest teachings on the humility of Christ. Humility often is seen as compromise or having no conviction, lacking passion and yet it is a most powerful attribute of Christ that we are called to imitate. Humility is laid out for us in contrast to its complete opposite, pride.

Pride is our greatest enemy and humility is our greatest friend. Pride rears its ugly head especially when it doesn’t get its own way and the way of humility is beautiful because it demands that we step back and place others in clear view.

Does it look like compromise and weakness from the natural view and often the answer is yes because your sinful, selfish tendencies will tell you that you will be forgotten, you will be left behind, you will drop out of the picture.

Lonliness can often be a great friend to humility because it isn’t that easy to embrace and it is for this reason that it is Christ like and Spirit enabled.

Pride is the encouragement to compare ourselves to someone who is ‘less’ than us.

Humility is the encouragement to compare ourselves to Christ.

Pride covets the success of others; We will critique people when they succeed.

Humility celebrates the success of others, how they feel, what they deserve

Pride is about me, it is about my rights, what I feel, declare, deserve

Humility is selfless, it champions the rights of others

Pride is about my glory, do you respect me, do you like me?

Humility is about the glory of Jesus Christ, At the end of the day do you respect Him, do you love Him more?

In pride, I am God; Humility is celebrating the loving God that I serve

Pride leads to arrogance, cockiness, it is repugnant, foolishness

Humility doesn`t lead to arrogance, it leads to confidence in what I believe

The point of pride leads to independence

Humility is dependent on Christ and learns dependence on others.

Pride is pregnant with all kinds of sin; it is the root sin

Pride is something we can achieve in this lifetime

Humility is something we will always be vigorous in pursuing

We live in a world that encourages nothing but selfish pride, calls us to self actualize, shows us self help

However as you read from Ken Blanchard’s quote, ‘Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less. We hold on to the high view that God has given us that He has crowned us with glory and honor. However we don’t go looking around for people to acknowledge us.

John Piper states it this way, ‘Humility is the opposite of a sense of entitlement.’

Do you walk through life believing that people owe you, do you walk through life with the kind of expectation? You owe me a certain look when you walk down the street, you owe a certain kind of behaviour, you owe me a response to my email...right away! ...and I get mad when you don’t pay. If we have that kind of orientation then we are not humble.

Paul in Romans 1:14 said ‘I have a great sense of obligation to people in our culture and to people in other cultures.’ Basically he was saying I owe everybody! Nobody owes me.

Jesus put it this way, ‘But many who seem to be important now will be the least important then, and those who are considered least her will be the greatest then. Mark 10:31NLT

Some of the disciples were getting wrapped up in this sense of entitlement. They wanted the prime seats in the new kingdom and Jesus just sits them down and makes it real clear that the pathway to true greatness is to serve others.

Philippians 2

It’s not about your rights, your vision, your calling – this is really counter cultural

v1-4 Nothing builds a church stronger than humility

Also realize that nothing breaks a church faster than pride and we can build a false sense of strength when we start talking about our accomplishments, achievements

This is the very reason that the tone starts with us as leaders in the church and how we handle controversy and conflict

Conceit in the church looks like this, ‘I want to vote, I want control, I want information, I demand to know and have access to the senior leadership and what I declare to be important must be heard.

Unfortunately what happens in this context is that pride so overwhelms the wisdom that we can`t even hear the good that is being said.

Humble people have a broader perspective beyond just my gift

It doesn`t mean that you always agree with the leaders, but that your message, motives, tone, tactics, action are in the right place.

If you have a good cause, you need to have a good approach as well. The end doesn’t justify the means

The question we need to ask is, ‘are we pursuing humility or not?’

V3 I want my default posture to be others oriented. God is blessed and longs to pour out his wisdom and understanding especially when we are living this truth out in this place!

Look not only to your own interests – the word interest here is a broad statement. The NLT states it this way, ‘your own affairs’ In its place you could put financial affairs, health, family – don’t just look here but look out, spy out for the needs of others like one couple I know did last week. They saw someone on their own and they simply asked, ‘hey are you going anywhere for thanksgiving?’ and the answer was no and they invited him over.

We are not just by nature outgoing like that, but we are called to be just that!

V5-8 Jesus is the perfect example of humility

V7 the Greek word here is kenosis and the best way to define ‘made of himself nothing’ is that He relinquished His rights to His status as God.

Jesus set aside his rights and his divine attributes so that He grow from a boy to man and learn to read and write, but chose to live like us in full humanity.

He wanted to teach us how to be fully dependent on the Father.

V8 No one is more humble than Jesus and it was seen in His incarnation

Carne – meat – It means God with meat on. Jesus is God with skin on. He is the Spirit of God

The hypostatic union – He is fully God and fully man

One of the reasons you should know that the Bible is true is that you and I would never have created a humble God.

Jesus’ death on the cross was the most humble act in the history of the universe.

The fact is that the realization of this incredible act of love from our Father through the Son should really overwhelm us! God owes us nothing but hell and Jesus went to hell for you and until we are completely overwhelmed by that we will have a sense of entitlement.

Know this, that your basic orientation in life will be ‘you owe me’ until you really discover what Jesus has done for you.

Practically what does that mean...I murdered God. Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God left being worshipping by angels to be disrespected by self righteous people just like me

My condemnation, my pride goes on Jesus and His acceptance, humility goes on me.

I was owed hell but I received heaven at the cost of God’s Son...so much for your sense of entitlement!

V9-11The Name of Jesus is the most beautiful thing.

It is the name that we should sing, exalt, proclaim... not just the humble incarnation, but the glorious exaltation

Will you do it today for salvation to be a friend of Jesus for your joy or will you do it later when you are forced to do it as a foe at the beginning of eternity as part of your judgment.

My name, your name doesn’t matter that much, our church name really doesn’t matter because it’s Jesus, that name, matters MUCH! Jesus is sinless, He died, He rose again, He is worthy of us speaking His name constantly!

What will exalt the name of Jesus? What will make Jesus look good because Jesus is good.

Jesus is our example of humility and we also need Him to enable it

God has two plans that we can track

Plan 1 – humble

Plan 2 - humiliate

God hates the proud in people - Proverbs 6:16,17; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5 God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

No one wakes up in the morning and says God I want to fight against you

God humiliates people who are proud

God wants to bless, YES, He wants to give grace, but the question is what is your posture?

A sense of entitlement or the realization that I owe Him everything I am, but not only that but I owe it to others.

I owe it to others because to serve is to really live.

Here’s the thing, proud people can’t laugh at themselves...they take themselves way too seriously.

How is God teaching you to take on the very nature of a servant with your wife, your children?

We need to fight pride constantly with humility.

This week could have easily been a very discouraging week for me. Early in the week I was confronted with my blind spots, my inadequacies and places where I had fallen short. My natural response would have been to get defensive and fight for my name, but the crazy thing was God was preparing me for it because I had been spending the morning up to that point studying for this message on humility.

Later that night God just continued to speak as Sharon read me a devotional which said basically, ‘refuse to give in the spirit of discouragement’. Not only that but God gave me verses like 2 Corinthians 12:9...My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. And Mark 8 when Jesus told Peter specifically to not look at things from a human perspective – look at them from God’s..and if that wasn’t enough my devotional in ‘Streams In The Desert’ stated this, ‘The Devil has two very masterful tricks. The first is to tempt us to become discouraged, for then we are defeated and of no service to others, at least for a while.’ It then went on to speak of how discouragement leads to discontent and doubt. A spirit of sadness produces in us mental paralysis.

I am here to confidently say I want to cultivate a spirit of joy!

As your pastor, I want you to know that I am here for you, I am not here in the position for myself. I am only here but by the grace of God.

Now having said that, my number one job is to hear from God and let Him speak into my life and into the life of this church.

Please let me know if you would like to connect with me, talk to me after the service....much better than before as I really focus on the service ahead. You can also check off the card, send me an email, call me.

Questions for Discussion

1. Can you recall a time when you were humbled? What were the circumstances that lead up to that event?

2. In what area of your life are you most vulnerable to a sense of entitlement?

3. How can you train yourself to have an ‘others centered’ posture?

4. Take time to consider the acts of love that will bring greater unity in your family and our church

5. Spend time reflecting on the incredible debt of love you owe to Jesus.