Wisdom in the Desert (Week 6): Humility - The Way Up is Down

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 the being born in the likeliness of men and being

found in human form, he humbled Himself by becoming obedient to

the point of death. Holy Spirit, help me even death

on the cross. Therefore God has highly exalted

him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so the

name of Jesus. Every knee should bow in heaven,

on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord and to glory of God the Father.

I want to begin by talking about one of the best movies ever.

My wife and I recently watched through all of the Indiana Jones

movies. Anybody.

Yeah. OK.

I hear some. I hear some chatter out there.

And we were watching through Indiana Jones Three.

I think it's the Last Crusade. And as always, Indy finds

himself in some temple that has some obstacles, and he has to

pass three tests in order to reach the Holy Grail.

Pretty cool. Now, the first Test is something

called the Breath of God. It's this like mysterious fog

that kills you if you don't know what you're doing.

And knowing that failure means certain death, Indy only has one

clue. And the clue is only the

penitent man shall pass. Kind of interesting, right?

And so they're trying to figure out this clue.

The clock is ticking. He's walking into this fog.

He's knows that he could die at any moment.

And he's trying to figure out this Riddle that only the

penitent man shall pass, only the minute penitent man shall

pass. And then he says, in this final

moment, the penitent man is humble before God.

And they says, the penitent man kneels before God and he kneels

at just the right moment. These giant like circular saw

blades go right over his head, right?

And it's this crazy moment where he rolls out of the way because

he dropped to his knees in humility.

He nearly misses, nearly misses these saw blades, which I don't

know how they got those in an ancient temple, but that's

beside the point, right? And he escaped death by a

whisker. And this moment is like this,

this great moment of cinematic flair, you know?

But it also has a profound message.

You see, Indiana Jones stumbles across an important truth that's

at the heart of the Bible, which is that following Jesus starts

with humility. It starts with being willing to

go to your knees in penitence, which is like another word for

being repentant, humble, aware of our sins.

See, the more we grow in revelation of God, the more we

find ourselves dropping to our knees in worship.

The only way through the tunnels and the twists of our lives is

through humility. I don't know if you've noticed,

but in my opinion, humility is not a not a trait that we widely

see in our culture. By and large, it's not normally

celebrated in our culture. In fact, I think it's becoming

less and less of a virtue in our culture.

We see success equals celebrity, success equals influence,

gaining attention or notoriety or maybe even advancing in your

field, right. In the corporate world, for

instance, often times the goal is to outperform the person next

to you to climb the corporate ladder.

Maybe you've heard or to be smarter, to be more marketable.

Like think about the the just the, the, the corporate resume.

You're trying to put on paper how awesome you are so that

people will will hire you. Isn't that an interesting

concept? And again, there's nothing like

necessarily all wrong with that or all bad with that.

But it's it's interesting that our culture seems to value power

over humility. Take a look at our our world

leaders today. Like even in the last 10 years,

would we say that our world leaders are marked by meekness

and by humility, right. As if that's a virtue.

Most people would say probably not.

We just don't see it as much anymore.

So the question for us today is how can you and I, as Christ

followers learn to grow in humility?

And how can we grow in humility without getting stuck in the

cycles of like shame and self defeat and oh, everyone else is

better than me and I'm I'm no good.

What does godly humility actually look like?

Well, today we are continuing in our sermon series.

It's called Wisdom in the Desert.

And so for the 40 days leading up to Easter, we've been

practicing what's called Lent in church history.

In the sermon series is a look at some of the desert fathers

and mothers. Those, this was this radical

group of Christians in the in the 3rd and 4th century.

And they went off into the desert, literally out of the

city, out of the hustle in order to find God and do spiritual

warfare. And part of what we see with

these desert fathers and mothers is that their their lives were

marked by obscurity and by humility.

They lived lives of secrecy out in the desert as best as they

could. There's this one quote by a man

named Anthony the Great, and he writes this.

He says, I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the

world. And I said, groaning, what can

get through from such snares? Then I heard a voice saying to

me, humility. That sounds very similar to the

Indiana Jones quote, Right, Right.

The penitent man shall pass. Basically Saint Anthony, he's

looking around at the world and he's saying, man, it seems like

the devil's just laid so many traps, so many different

distractions, so many different vices, so many things that catch

our attention and draw our focus away from God.

He, he's almost groaning. He's saying how can anyone

survive? How can anyone get through all

of these snares that are out there?

And he says, I heard a voice, It's through humility.

It's the way of Jesus. There's another famous man, his

name was the Apostle Paul, and he wrote most of the new or a

lot of the New Testament. And he also went on a journey

not only to the deserts of Arabia, but we see throughout

Scripture that Paul actually went on a journey of humility.

You see, Paul initially was a religious leader.

He had the pedigree, he had the notoriety, he was on the up and

up. But then he met Jesus Christ and

he gave his life over to Jesus. And it's interesting when you

when you read Paul's words over the course of time, it seems as

if his attitude about himself changes.

For instance, he writes early on that he calls himself the least

of all the apostles. OK, then a few years later he

calls himself the least of all the Saints.

So he goes from like being the least of like the apostles, just

kind of like a good thing. But then he says, no, no, no,

I'm, I'm the least of all the Saints.

Couple years later he says I'm the chief of all sinners, right?

Like it doesn't get lower than that, right?

So isn't that interesting that even with the apostle Paul, we

see him progressively becoming more and more humble, at least

apparently in the way that he describes himself.

He was on a journey towards Christlikeness and he wrote

about humility to this church in a city called Philippi, which is

where we get the New Testament book Philippians.

Does that make sense? So Paul's writing to a group of

people in Philippi, the Philippians.

And that's where we're going to be today if you want to turn

there. OK, Philippians is in the New

Testament. So maybe three 3/4 of the way

through your Bibles, if you want to find that short little book,

take a take a moment to find that.

We always encourage physical Bibles.

If you're able to bring, it'll be on the screens as well.

If you don't have them today, we just try and get away from our

phones as much as we can because they're distracting and

addicting, right? And so we encourage that.

But Philippians chapter 2, if you can find that Philippians

Philippians 2 · chapter mention Philippians 2:5

chapter 2, verse 5, the city of Philippi was founded by a man

named Philip the Second of Macedon.

He was this kind of great king like ruler who swept into the

aid of the city. It helped that that city was

flush with gold and silver. So he was glad to kind of jump

in and help and he named the city after himself.

But what we see here in Philippians 2 is Paul's calling

people to live out in humility. And what this section of

Scripture is specifically in six through 11, it's called the

Christ hymn. This is likely, this is what

have likely been like a worship song or a hymn that would have

circulated the early church, some scholars believe as early

as 30 to 40 AD. And what's remarkable is that

even though this is really, really early, really close to

the death and resurrection of Jesus, we see there's a really

well formed and robust Christology.

In other words, they had a really accurate and thorough

picture of who Christ was even at an early time.

This is important for things like apologetics and defending

the faith. We see that they have a fully

formed picture of who God was and who Jesus was before even

time and how he came to earth. And we'll read it here in verse

5. Paul writes this in your

relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ

Jesus, who being in the very nature God did not consider

equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

So Paul is speaking to the group in Philippi, speaking to the

Philippians and saying in with your attitudes with one another.

Show humility. Well, what kind of humility?

The kind of humility that Christ himself showed us.

It's interesting here that we see that Jesus says did not

consider equality with God something to be used to his own

advantage. Other translations say he did

not consider equality with God something to be grasped.

In the Greek this is idea of something to be like snatched or

something to be taken to be used to his own advantage.

In other words, even though Jesus was equal with God the

Father, he did not use it for his own advantage.

Some scholars call back to Adam and Eve because in Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 we see that God had previously previously made all

things good in the garden. But then the deceiver Satan

comes in and he tries to tempt Adam and Eve to disobey God.

And what is the line that he tells them?

Satan looks at this couple and he says you will be like God.

That's the temptation, you will be like God.

And So what does it say? It says they took the apple.

They took something that wasn't theirs.

Isn't it interesting that even we have terms when it comes to

taking power? We say that someone, we maybe

say someone took control or they seized power.

There's grabbing language when it comes to power.

What we see here is that Adam and Eve wanted to be like God.

They're like, there's something missing.

There's something in me that I don't have.

I want to be like God. And So what do they do?

They take. What we see here with Jesus is

that even though he had equality with God, he refused to take it

for his own advantage. Does that make sense?

We see his humility being lived out here.

So what does Jesus do instead? Rather than seizing power for

himself? Verse 7, it says rather he made

himself nothing. By taking the very nature of a

servant being made in human likeness and being found in

appearance as a man, He humbled himself.

Wow. Jesus was willing to humble

himself. This is the idea found in the

Greek called canosis. It's the idea of empty emptying,

emptying himself out or pouring himself out for others.

Can you imagine just a moment? Let's let's pause for just a

moment. Imagine that you're Jesus before

the creation of the universe. So you're hanging out with the

Father, you're hanging out the Holy Spirit and you're like, all

right, how are we going to map this whole universe out?

Well, let's have some like quantum theory in here.

Let's invent some physics there. Let's figure out how this whole

gravity thing and this the whole dark matter is going to work.

Oh, lights going to be pretty important.

Let's figure out how light will will interact with everything.

Oh, here, let's create this earth and the perfect placement

in the universe. So imagine you're in that that

realm. You have all power, all

authority. You're inventing things like

gravity and black holes, and then you come down to become a

baby. Imagine that.

Yeah, I like that is unfathomable to me.

The descent from going to on high, creating all of the

universe, to coming way down to becoming an infant.

You see, Jesus was tempted in every way, like us as human

beings. So that thing that you're going

through right now, that sin that you're tempted with, that

struggle, Scripture says that Jesus knows what it's like.

Jesus experienced everything from from being hot in the

desert to being cold at night. I would imagine he went from

everything from exhaustion to indigestion, right?

Like he was fully human and he was fully God.

And when Jesus was in the wilderness, Satan tempted him

with power and control, just like Adam and Eve.

He said, I'm going to give you all the kingdoms of the world.

If you just, you know, you know, just bow down and worship me.

Jesus refused. Why?

Because Jesus was called by God to take a different route to

glory. This is what it says in verse

28. By becoming obedient to death,

even death on a cross. You see, Jesus was being

obedient to the Father's will that He should come and live a

perfect life for you and for me. He was being obedient to the

Father, not by grasping power in the kingdoms of this world that

were offered to Him, but He was obedient to the Father by taking

the low road to the cross. Jesus was willing to die for you

and for me, and he did it to take your sins upon himself.

All the wrongdoing you've ever done, all the shame you've ever

felt, all the death you ever experienced, Jesus was willing

to take that upon himself in his own body, on the cross for you

because he loved you that much. And by doing that, he glorified

the Father out of perfect obedience.

This is the story of the Kingdom.

This is the story of Jesus. You see, the first Adam failed

to obey God by taking the power in order to be like him.

But Jesus obeyed God not by taking equality, but by being

willing to be lowered on a cross.

Adam tried to elevate up, but Jesus lowered down.

In other words, the first Adam grasped for power, the second

Adam laid it down. That's the story of Jesus.

There was this popular activity. I imagine it was probably

popular in like the 50s, sixties, 70s.

It was called limbo. Does anyone know what limbo is

where you grab a bar and you try and get under the bar, right?

Any, any older folks? Was this popular in like the

50s, sixties? OK, they're all raising their

hand. I like to imagine this like

groovy disco party where people are doing the limbo.

I don't know if that's ever happened, but I like to picture

it right? And there's this kind of,

there's this kind of chant that goes along with limbo.

How low can you go? Stay with me.

How low can you go one more time?

How low can you go? You're with me.

And the idea is that the person who can go the lowest is the

winner. This is like the world record

holder, by the way, with Limbo. You should go watch videos of

her. It is striking the way she can

move across that. And that it is, it's a bit

uncomfortable, quite quite honestly.

But my point in bringing this up is to say, when it comes to

limbo, the person who can go the lowest is actually the winner.

Does that make sense? The person who's willing to

lower themselves as much as they can is the person who is

elevated to greatness. And Jesus was willing to go

lower than any of us have ever seen.

Jesus went from equality to emptying to embodying.

Jesus went as low as you can possibly go.

Jesus was willing to go lower. Jesus Christ was the in the very

nature. He was the very nature of God,

the same essence, but he was willing to go lower.

He did not consider equality with God something to be used

lower. He made himself nothing lower by

taking on the very nature of a servant lower.

He was made in human likeness as an appearance of a man.

Lower, by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross,

Jesus was willing to go lower. He went as low as you can go.

Nobody, nobody has descended further than Jesus himself.

He went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.

He went from the the the spiritual realm and the

heavenlies hovering over all of the universe in the beginning of

time. And you came all the way down

and what to wear to the realm of the dead in the ground.

That is how far Jesus was willing to come for us.

That is how far love was willing to travel for you and for me.

There's this moment in the gospels where James and John are

wanting power and so their their mom gets involved.

Maybe you're familiar with the story and.

The mom is looking after her boy.

She see that sees that this Jesus is on the on the rise.

We he they believe that this Jesus is bringing in a new

Kingdom. And so mom is is looking after

her son. She wants the best for them.

She wants to know that they're going to be taken care of.

And so she approaches Jesus and she says, grant one of these two

sons of mine that they may sit on your right and the other at

your left in the Kingdom. She wants greatness for her sons

if there's going to be a cost. And the sons, James and John,

they're, they're looking at Jesus and they're saying, hey,

can we be great too? We want to be great.

It's a question we all want, question we all ask.

Jesus looks at there was a request for greatness and it

responds with a pretty simple question.

He says, I see it. I see that you want greatness.

I see that you want to be elevated.

But can you drink the cup? Can you drink the cup?

The cup throughout Scripture was was one's divinely appointed

destiny either for great blessing or for great curse.

And here when Jesus is talking about the cup, what he's talking

about is the is the cross, the fact that he was divinely

appointed to go and suffer and die for humanity.

And so when, when you know, James and John are hearing this,

there may be thinking of like David and Goliath, they're

thinking, yeah, I'm ready to go to war for you, Jesus.

I'm ready to take on the bad guy and, and, and receive success

and acclaim and notoriety. And what they didn't understand

is that the cup that Jesus was destined for was the cross.

It was the cup of being a servant, the cup of being a

slave. You see, the Kingdom values are

inverted with the ways of the world.

In the Kingdom, the way up is down.

In the Kingdom, the way up is actually by going lower.

Matthew 2028. The Son of Man did not come to

be served, but to serve in some way or another, in some facet of

our lives or another. We all want to be great.

I think especially as men, we want to achieve and we want to

be seen and we want to be known and, and it's, it's, it's kind

of a universal thing for all of us, I think.

And we go about it many ways. Maybe we try to gain followers

or achieve at work or even just like trying to maximize your

life, right? I'm going to be the fittest I

can possibly be. I'm going to improve my mental

health. I'm going to do all the things

and live my best life. And again, that's not all bad,

but it's how we're actually going about and how we're trying

to achieve greatness. So for for you and for me, it's,

it's not that you want to be great or you want to be an

achiever, you want to have notoriety.

But the question that we must ask is, am I willing to drink

the cup? Am I really willing to go where

Jesus went? Am I willing to follow his

model, His descent, even to the place of the cross?

Following Jesus always costs us something.

There is always a cost to discipleship.

And every single day we have to just be willing to ask ourself,

am I really willing to follow Jesus there?

Am I really willing to give it up?

Man, I feel like 95% of the Christian life is just learning

how to surrender. Just more and more and more

learning how to surrender. You take something on, you give

it. You get a little something in

life. Life throws you some some

blessing and it's just learning how to surrender it back down at

the feet of Jesus. This is not easy, but it's

necessary. Are you willing to drink the

cup? When we see here in Philippians

2 with this Christ hymn, see that we see that Jesus was

willing to be emptied so that he could be exalted.

Verse 9. Philippians 2.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the

name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every

knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, in

every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the

glory of God the Father. Paul uses the language that he

exalted him to the highest place in the Greek.

It's almost as if Paul is saying that that God super exalted

Jesus to the highest place. What we see in this trajectory

of Jesus that we see his descent and we see his exaltation with

Jesus, nobody has descended lower and nobody has ascended

higher. We worship a humble God.

For most world religions out there, those two words, a humble

God, those are an oxymoron. Those are a contradiction.

Those two things do not go side by side.

Those two words next to each other do not compete A compute a

humble God. It's only in Jesus Christ that

we see the perfect model of obedience to the Father by being

willing to be humbled so that God can do the exalting.

It's interesting here that the city of Philippi was named after

Philip the Second because the exact same year that Philip the

Second named the city Philippi, he had a son.

Do you want to know who that son was?

Alexander the Great, And he lived in that same region.

Isn't it interesting that this, this great king had a great son

in the city called Philippi, the city with greatness in the name.

And yet Paul is looking at the group of people living in the

city with greatness all around them, and he's saying have the

same mindset as Christ. Lower.

Lower. The call to the Philippians is

the call to you and me today. We have to be willing to go

lower just like Jesus. So how can we do this in our

age? How can we live this out and our

culture where everything is about achievement and greatness

and influence and followers, how do we actually model the

humility of Christ in our day-to-day life in a world where

it just seems impossible at times?

I want to give you really three really, really quick things as

we begin to conclude #1 is that humility is cultivated first and

foremost from identity. You can write that down.

Humility is cultivated from identity.

I believe part of the problem with Adam and Eve is that they

had an identity crisis. They said, wait, wait, wait.

We're we're not like God. There's something more that is

missing in ourselves. And Satan knew that.

They came in and he came in with that deception and said, you'll

be like God. You can be like him.

They had an identity crisis because what it says in Genesis,

what they didn't realize or what they failed to remember was that

when God made man and woman, it says that they made them.

He made them in His own image. In other words, He made them in

the Imago day. You see, what Adam and Eve

failed to realize is that they already were like God.

They didn't need anything else because God had already made

them with intrinsic worth. He made them in perfect

relationship. Their identity was meant to be

rooted in Him. They had a crisis of identity

and so their their temptation is our temptation.

They tried to take and they tried to grab and it LED them to

disobedience. You see, if we don't know who we

are, we will always try to measure up to others.

If we don't have a strong sense of self in Christ, we will

always try to elevate ourselves and try and find our place in

the world. We will always be lost.

And when Jesus started his ministry, there was these words

spoken over him, where God the Father during the baptism said,

this is my Son with whom I am well pleased.

And these words of identity were spoken over Jesus and they

propelled him into ministry. You see, Jesus never had a

confidence issue. Jesus never had an identity

issue. Why?

Because he knew the words that the Father had spoken over him.

This is my son with whom I'm well pleased.

Jesus never had the crisis of of identities and we have them in

excess. Would you agree?

I, I don't know about you, but I have confidence issues all the

time. I feel insecure all the time.

There's this phrase going around called, I think it's called male

fragility. You ever heard that phrase?

I, I don't exactly know what it means, but whatever it is, I

think I got it OK. I think it has something to do

with ego and trying to puff yourself up and trying to, you

know, have this sort of overconfidence, right?

I'm pretty sure I've got it. Men, you probably got it too.

And whatever the version of female fragility is, ladies, you

probably have it too. The reality is this, we're all

insecure to some degree or another.

We all lack confidence. We all try to puff ourselves up.

We're all trying to seek our place in this world.

And for so many of us, I think we swing from the two extremes.

We swing from the extreme of insecurity and feeling down on

ourselves and feeling worthless. Or we swing to the other extreme

of just this false sense of self in this overconfidence.

And as I've got it all together and I need to puff myself up and

rather than swinging back and forth between these two, what if

instead we were rooted and established in our loving

identity in Christ Jesus? What if instead we could hear

the Father's voice speaking over us that he is pleased with us?

What if we could step into our identity that we are more than

conquerors in Christ, That we are Co heirs with Jesus, That we

are fully known and fully loved by our Heavenly Father.

There are so many times even in this last week where I made

mistakes and I made the same mistake twice and it was

embarrassing and I had to humble myself.

And I just had this thought of like what is wrong with me?

Why can't I seem to get it figured out?

And then these moments where I'm tempted to just go into

insecurity, God reminds me of my identity.

Louis had this line in Mere Christianity.

He says that do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man,

I'm just going to actually read it over here.

He says do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man, he

will be what most people call humble nowadays.

He will not be thinking about humility.

He will not be thinking about himself at all.

In other words, humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's

just thinking of yourself less. So many people get this wrong.

They think, oh, I need to be humble.

So I'm just need to kind of live in this place of insecurity and

fear and not thinking too highly of myself.

But rather humility is just not thinking of yourself as much.

Otherwise, we just have a false humility #2 humility is living a

cruciform lifestyle. By cruciform I just mean like a

cross shaped lifestyle. This is a lifestyle marked by

self sacrifice and self-service to others.

The emphasis in Philippians 2 is the cross and Jesus being

obedient to his call. You see, the cross isn't just

the way to life. The cross is a way of life.

The cross is a, is a lifestyle for you and for me to sacrifice

ourselves more and more for others.

Tim Keller wrote a book by the name of the freedom of self

forgetfulness. And it's pretty rare that like

just the title of a book could change your life if you lived it

out right. This is one of them, the freedom

of self forgetfulness. And he has this incredible line,

super convicting for me. He says true gospel humility

means I stop connecting every experience and every

conversation with myself. Anyone else do that?

Every experience, every conversation, I somehow find a

way to bring it back to me. The point is this gospel

humility is a willing death to self absorption.

It's a willing death to self preoccupation.

It's a willing death to ego. How many of us would agree that

our culture desperately needs a death to ego?

Our leaders desperately need a death to ego.

And so we pray for them. We pray for them eagerly, that

there would be a spirit of humility for whoever's in the

president now to whoever's next, to whoever's next, we pray for

them. The goal is an influence.

The goal is resemblance to Jesus.

The goal is to become like him together.

Finally, as I wrap up, I'm going to invite the team back,

forward. Finally, Humility is magnifying

God becoming more and more aware of His Holiness to realize where

and who we are. Humility is being made aware of

our brokenness and our sinfulness and our need of

Jesus, and then thrusting ourselves into His arms and into

His love. You see, humility is not just

about us stooping down and lowering ourselves to a level of

insecurity, but rather it's standing at our full height and

realizing that God is even taller.

He's even greater. He is magnificent and he is

above all things. It's standing on our full height

with arms raised high and realizing God, you are so much

bigger than I could ever be, knowing our proper place that he

is God and we are not. And so as we conclude, I just

want to ask you, where are you tempted to self promote?

Where are you tempted, whether it's on LinkedIn, Instagram,

your dating app, your family, your friend group, whatever it

may be, your school, where are you tempted to elevate yourself

and how can you choose instead to honor others above yourself?

Romans 12/10 says be devoted to one another and love, honor one

another above yourselves. There are so many times as a

pastor with the spotlight and the stage and planting a church

where, you know, I get all these Pats on the backs and

congratulations and all of that. And there's a temptation in that

sometimes to, to, to allow my press clippings to go to my

head. Sometimes there's temptations to

allow my ego to, to, to go off and running.

But the humble reality is this. I'd be nothing without the grace

of God. This church wouldn't exist

without the people humbly serving day in and day out, the

people who are coming and setting up and tearing down

every single week, the people who are preparing communion

today and greeting people and people who are pouring out hours

and hours and hours. And so I just want to take a

moment to honour you all. I love this church and I love

seeing how you guys serve and I love seeing how you pour out for

the Kingdom. And it's humbling for me.

And it's, it's such a privilege to see that this is about a

Kingdom. And I honor you guys in that.

So we have a few practices for you.

These are invitations. These are not, you know, do them

or else you're a bad Christian or anything like that, OK?

They're just some invitations so that we can practice and

cultivate a life of humility #1 is maybe you just want to spend

some time in God's presence and allow Him to to show you all

those areas of brokenness and sinfulness and and allow His

love to meet you in those areas. Maybe for you it's asking the

simple question, where am I working to gain the approval of

others and just spending some time with God in that question.

Maybe this week you want to choose to embrace the mundane as

meaningful. Maybe this week as you're, you

know, dealing with your third blowout and your kids diaper, or

you know that the house is a mess again, or the dishes are

piling up, find meaning in those mundane activities.

Allow those activities to just humble you.

Find contentment in them. And thank God and realize that

even Jesus came to serve. So as you serve your families

and as you serve your children, as you serve whoever, find

contentment, find meaning in that mundane entity.

Maybe for you it's as practical as choosing a bad parking spot

instead of the best parking spot, or cleaning a toilet

without being noticed, right? Finding some way to serve in

obscurity, serve in secrecy. Or finally, maybe you want to

choose to associate with the lowly, spending time and

offering yourself to someone who advances your cause in no way

whatsoever, but you choose to just be with them anyway and

love them. Realizing that they are made in

the image of God too, and they have something to teach you and

offer you as well. And if you do all these things,

don't go tell people about it. Forget it.

Enjoy the humility and worship God.

So church, how low can you go? We need to remember that winning

is actually lowering and that the way up is down.