Humble | Like Jesus

Hello and thank you for joining us on the Sierra Bible Church Sermon of the Week.

We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Nate Levering.

All right, good morning.

Uh, if that's the first you've heard of that, we ran uh the curriculum last uh spring, and I got to go to the graduation, and it was awesome.

And so for those that kind of, you know, sort of said, Hey, I I've got some stuff, just keeps coming up.

I don't like when my stuff gets on me or the people around me.

And this is a phenomenal way to jump in with some unbelievably skilled, trained kinds of people and really take a look at the word of God in the context of a caring community and let God begin to work.

And so the graduation was just awesome.

Um, and so we look forward to that this fall.

So if you're interested, maybe you know somebody uh and you would tap them on the shoulder and say, hey, this would be a great opportunity.

It was awesome for those uh that went and we're excited about it.

Uh, there's lots of other ways you can connect in around here.

They're in your uh bulletin.

So jump in.

We'd love to kind of help you connect into a group uh or a study that's happening and maybe launching this fall.

We're starting, as we've uh talked about a little bit, uh a short series, just three weeks between kind of our summer that we looked at discipleship and this uh fall, where we're going to spend some time uh looking through the book of Revelation together, uh, which I'm getting more and more excited about.

I was asked by a pastor this last week, why are you doing Revelation?

How are you doing it?

And I just really kind of said, I hope that it's an opportunity for our church to kind of find itself individually and collectively, like just before the throne of God.

You know, there's these incredible pictures where it's like God's people find themselves.

I don't know if you've ever had this experience even in worship, where you kind of forget about all the stuff you drug in, the stuff that you have to confront in a few minutes, and you just kind of lose yourself before the glory of God.

You know, there's a you sing these shouts to the words, it's like your soul's just like, God, I I want more of you.

And so we're excited about where God has us going uh specifically in the book of Revelation, but we want to take uh a few weeks, and I just want to offer this as we kind of get started.

I feel like for me personally, maybe us as Sierra Bible Church, these three weeks, I know there's Labor Day and travel things and all of that, but are super, super important.

And the nice thing is the theme we're gonna jump into, humble, is all throughout the scriptures.

It's tied to all different kinds of things that we think about and talk about.

But I just want to offer this personally and on behalf of Sierra Bible Church, that I really believe we have to get this right.

We it's so important.

And so you'll hear me kind of get excited a little bit here and there.

Uh, but I I just want to say it comes from this heart of almost like nervousness as I bring myself, as I consider bringing our church and our staff and all these crazy things God's inviting us to do locally and around the world.

I'm just saying, God, how do we how do we keep an honest assessment of the ridiculously awesome people and things you are doing through Sierra Bible Church?

But walk that out with humility so that it's definitely not about us.

It's not about our kingdom, it's not about our thing.

It's about who he is and what he can do and what he invites us into.

I want you to think we're just gonna start this morning with a couple words of Peter.

These are repeated in the scriptures a few times.

It's something all of us have in common.

You know, we all, these next few words, you know, I don't need to teach them, you don't need to elaborate on them.

It's just is all of us feel it in our bones when we read these words.

We're just like, yep, because we feel this way.

We know this is true, I think, in so many ways.

The crazy thing about these words, too, and Peter's gonna help us sort of sort this out, but they're also true about God.

And so what you might consider is while this is very much true about you, it's one of those things that's not just true about God, but it's true about you and God.

You have this in common with our creator.

It's just part of the way I believe that we think.

So here's how Peter says it.

He says this God resists the proud.

And I think it wouldn't take long for me to try and convince you if I did that you resist the proud.

Sort of this idea that that someone is self-sort of obsessed or arrogant, that they always have to talk about themselves, that as soon as you start sharing your story, they're on their phone going, like, when's he gonna be done talking about whatever boring thing he's yapping on about?

What?

Whenever you're sitting there going, are you even listening?

If given the option, right?

We wouldn't work with these people that some of us do.

We might not live with these people, though some of us do.

We resist them.

Part of the reason isn't just because it feels like when you're around them, there's like someone just in the background, like scraping fingernails on a chalkboard, but it's because self-absorbed people, proud people, people that are always thinking about themselves, could be highly or lowly, don't actually see you.

Why?

Because they're constantly looking at themselves, so it's no mystery you don't connect.

They're so busy, or we are so busy seeing ourselves, and so we resist the proud.

If signed up, I'd rather hang out with not so proud people, and so would God.

God resists the proud, next part of this phrase, but shows favor, gives grace, leans in to the humble, leans in, says, These are my people, these are the kinds of people that I can sort of open myself up to, that I can show up in the midst of their life.

It's humility that sort of opens us to the experience and the truth of who God is.

He says, I resist the proud, but I show favor to the humble.

So if if those are the kinds of people that we want in our lives, if we're honest, if these are the kinds of people God is saying, I can reveal myself to, I can show up for, then what do we need to do?

And Peter helps us right before this phrase.

He has this he says, here's all you have to do: clothe yourself with humility.

All right, let's close in prayer.

Like that should be easy, right?

Put on some humility clothes and get on with it.

Like, let's go.

Some of you are like, Praise the Lord, I've been waiting for that sermon.

This one's short, we're out.

But it's much more challenging than that, right?

Some of us are already like, yeah, but but humility is that virtue, right?

Some have claimed it's the shyest of virtues.

As soon as you name it, right, it disappears.

We can't look at humility, we can't talk to humility.

One of the things we're gonna do in this series, and Brian alluded to this a bit, is is try and be inspired by it.

And so each week we plan to tell uh next week's gonna be cute as can be.

This week not so cute, sorry, Nick.

Some stories of humility.

And so you're gonna hear a little bit of Nick's story uh as he told it in the long version, in a setting I was in, and just talked about what it was like to come to the end of the resources he thought he had to deal with what God had put in him, and then stepping in and saying, I need help and what God did in that.

So check out Nick's story.

Hi, my name is Nick Sabonga.

And this week, Pastor Nate's gonna be launching a series on humility.

I was very humbled before God in the recent years, about two to three years ago.

I am a first spawner here in the community, and for approximately four to five years, I tried to do it on my own.

And I tried to work through struggles because as first spawners were trained to just rely on the tools that we have in our toolbox and to rely on ourselves.

That doesn't work so well when we're talking about humility before God.

Um, so I tried to do things on my own, and that just left me broken and uh depressed and filled with anxiety.

And it wasn't until I turned to God and was humble before his feet that he allowed healing within me.

When we come humbly before God, he honors that within us, and he doesn't want us to do it by ourselves.

He wants to partner with us, and we're not meant to do this alone.

And that's why we need to partner with God and come humble before his feet because he wants us messy, he wants our dirty room, so to speak.

He doesn't want us to have a secret room closed off from him, and we need to have humility enough to open up our house to him and come before him and show him our dirty laundry because that's the only true way that we're gonna become clean.

So if you feel like you're struggling or you need help uh and you need to let yourself off the hook and put it on God's hook and come humbly before his feet, uh join us in this series.

Thanks.

And what that looked like for Nick is he could tell his story in length was sort of even checking himself in and just saying, I'm at the end of this.

I I've tried to fix it, I've even been given some tools, but it's still kind of coming out.

And so just kind of surrendering and walking with others.

One of the things that I realized is as I think about humility is this that uh circumstances alone don't cause us to be humble.

When I was a kid, I thought of this backwards.

Uh, and this has taken me some time to kind of get my head around.

I really thought humility or or humble meant like you didn't have or it fell apart.

At the uh expressed interest of some youth leaders when I was a student, I heard semi-regularly, as best I can remember, although it's been a while, Nate, you are proud.

You need more humility, you need more humility.

And that scared me.

Not just the fact of being wrong and just having to sort some things out, but this simple idea that I would, I can remember coming out of camp one time.

We were up at Hume Lake and I walk out and I'm like, okay, God, whatever you want.

And I heard that reverbing in my head, like, you need more humility.

But I was so scared as I walked the campus at night to pray that prayer.

God humble me.

Why was I scared of that?

I honestly believed that if God were going to humble me, it would come in the form of like missing the winning shaw.

Of God like taking away the girlfriend I liked or destroying this cool truck I thought I was driving.

I honestly thought it was in the circumstances that I had rather than the perspective I had about those circumstances or things.

And so if you're in this place of going, gosh, if I step into humility, does that mean like I'm gonna like lose all the money I've invested?

Does it mean my house is gonna burn down?

Does it mean my life's gonna fall apart?

It's like, there you go, be humble.

Not at not at all.

We all know people that have been through what we might call humbling experiences, but they came out the other side more kind of self-absorbed and self-protective than ever.

And so what is it?

This is really what it kind of boils down to, this reality.

And I hope this sort of resonates a bit, but it's this I cannot work on humility directly.

This isn't something, men, that you can fix.

You can't just go into your closet and clothe yourself with humility.

It doesn't work that way.

You can work on your pride, you can learn some tools, but humility isn't something that we just kind of put on.

It's something God puts on us.

It's how we look, it's how we think, it's the perspective about all the things.

We know people, right, that are on top of the world, we would say, but are incredibly humble.

We know people who maybe live a lowly humble kind of existence, but are incredibly proud.

And so, how do we allow God to reshape our hearts in this area where we cannot work on it directly?

Now, last week, as we were closing down our discipleship series, uh I taught for some of us, some of us, this is our language, but three words.

Do you remember what they were?

I had you look at your neighbor and say them out loud.

It was super uncomfortable.

What was it?

I am wrong, right?

And and that's a great starting point, right?

Even just saying it, it's like I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Okay, that's a good reminder that that occasionally happens.

Humility is not one of those same things.

You cannot look at your neighbor or your spouse and go, I am humble.

I'm humble, I'm humble, I'm humble.

Somebody kind of mis or I miscommunicated this maybe first service.

And they said, when I looked at my spouse, I said, I am humble.

She's like, that just defeats, it's like a self-defeating prophecy.

We can't work on it directly.

But God invites us to work on it none the less.

One of the ways that I think we can get kind of a good understanding of what God's talking about with regards to humility is to dive in for a minute into a book that C.S.

Lewis wrote called The Screw Tape Letters.

C.S.

Lewis is a British author and speaker, and he did a lot of work around pride and humility.

We'll quote him a bit throughout the series.

In in one of his books called The Screw Tape Letters, he actually kind of talks about what humility is and isn't.

And I think this is very important as we begin to think this through.

Now, Screw Tape Letters is kind of one of those books, if you're going to quote it, it's a little bit of a challenge because the book is kind of strange.

It's like upside down a little bit.

Because what C.S.

Lewis does, if you're not familiar, is he writes these letters from the senior devil called Screwtape to his understudy nephew Wormwood.

Now, Wormwood has been put in charge of a patient, a human being.

And at the point of the story where we pick it up today, Wormwood's patient or human being has come to Christ.

And so now what Wormwood's job is as sort of devil in this person's life is to not necessarily pull them away from the truth of who Jesus is, but to cause them to be ineffective in their lives now.

Does that make sense?

So he's kind of coaching him up.

Hey, do this, think this, cause them to think these ways.

Here's what Screwtape says to Wormlin.

He says, Your patient has become humble.

Ring the bell.

So you left today with humility.

You just clothed yourself with it.

All of a sudden, your devil in this story is a bit alarmed.

So he has some things he can do.

Have you?

This is the suggestion of um screw tape to Wormwood.

Have you drawn his attention to the fact?

Have you reminded him, hey, you're doing pretty good.

Just because your wife hasn't noticed yet, you're you're getting this humble thing down.

Catch him, he says, at the moment when he's really poor in spirit, when he's really empty, when he's really others focused, and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, I'm starting to get this.

I'm being humble.

And almost immediately pride will appear.

But it's not only the sense that we're getting it or we've got it figured out.

He says objection and self-hatred can do us so much, can do us such good, excuse me, if they keep the man concerned with who?

Himself or herself.

And above all, if self-contempt can be made the starting point for contempt to other selves, the patient will live a life of gloom, cynicism, and cruelty.

Lastly, he says this let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness, this is Lewis's term for humility, but as a certain kind of low opinion of his own talents and character.

Let him think they're nothing.

That will not be humility.

Let them think they're doing great.

That will not be humility.

Because in both cases, they're thinking about who?

Themselves.

There are people turned in on themselves.

And screw tape says to Wormwood, as long as you and I are turned in on ourselves, we will not be clothed in humility.

We will be fixated, absorbed with ourselves.

One interesting reminder I had of this this summer.

We went to Hume Lake, and part of what we did is we went up to a little camp called Wildwood.

So at the Hume Lake, if you haven't been there, there's lots of camps there.

Wildwood is their discipleship folk-focused camp.

They do some things at Wildwood to kind of shock your discipleship, if you will, to kind of like, oh yeah, this is a different way of doing and living and thinking.

One of those ways is kind of fascinating along these lines of humility.

Because what you'd realize, and these are high school teenagers, okay?

So they go in, they do whatever they do in the bathroom, they come out, and typically in a bathroom, right above the sink is a what?

Mirror.

In Wildwood, guess what?

They got rid of all the mirrors.

And so you walk through a week of your life, not one time, because they take your phone, you have no idea what you look like.

It's powerful for those of us that live to some degree in front of a at least a proverbial mirror.

How am I doing?

How do I rate?

How good's my hair looking?

How shiny is my head?

Whatever.

Right?

They strip them away.

Because part of discipleship, part of walking with Jesus, is looking not at ourselves, but looking at him.

The next step from that will be a practical kind of humility as we look at others.

So how do we begin to take these steps as people, maybe, that are like, okay, I'm a mess.

If the goal is to think of myself less, like I I don't know about you, but I just it's like impossible.

Does it does it not feel like a mountain we can't climb?

Especially in this world.

It's like I don't know about you, but like I always think about me.

I always think about my stuff.

I always think about it's just part of who we are.

In fact, there's kind of a couple questions that most people will say, hey, here's here's a couple questions that are pretty good in understanding kind of where you're at, how sort of self-absorbed you are.

One of them is this how well do you take criticism?

If someone criticizes how you're doing as a parent, someone criticizes how you're doing in some place you care about, even if they're right or not, how you respond will say a lot.

Whether or not you're defensive will say a lot.

The other area is in this area of comparison.

C.S.

Lewis does a lot of work in this idea of pride being formed in comparison.

And what he kind of gets at here is this that most of us are pretty comfortable with what we have until we come face to face with someone that has more.

One of the ways I'll talk about this is like if you tonight were the one person in this room that went to bed a billionaire, you would probably feel pretty good about yourself, right?

And if if that's you, I'd love to talk with you.

We got some projects we're looking at accomplishing in Jesus' name.

So, like that could be you.

So if you went to bed tonight, right?

I mean, most of us are like, man, if I had a billion dollars in the account, I'd sleep pretty good, I think.

Now the reality is, not so much maybe, but play this out.

But if, imagine you went to bed a billionaire, the rest of us went together some cobbled version of debt and hopefulness, but we woke up and in our bank accounts was$15 million, and you only had one, I mean, sorry,$15 billion, and you only had one, how well would you feel about your one?

Well, let me just tell you, you'd be jacked up, you would be jealous, you would feel like you're entitled.

Like, how is it he even got$15 million?

Did nothing for his.

I worked hard for my billion.

And it's because we compare ourselves to each other.

Another case in point.

Take a look for a moment at this picture.

That's my grandson.

He was born.

My point isn't a clap, although, thank you.

I had a lot to do with it.

Um, most of you probably thought your grandson was cute.

Then you saw mine, and you were like, dang, what happened to mine?

I'm gonna take a quick picture of that and show my friends, like I'm kidding.

But we compare that way constantly, and it exposes our pride.

So, what are we supposed to do?

Let me tell you this you came to the right place.

Here's another little piece of evidence of that.

In our offices, we um you know, we have desks like most offices, and so one day we just kind of walked into our office and a little elf had been there, and um, the little elf had pre-bought little signs for all of our offices.

If you've been in our offices, you've probably seen these because some of them are still up.

So you can walk into just about any office, and there's this little sign.

Some little elf decided this describes some part of whoever this particular person on our staff is.

So they went on Etsy or somewhere and had these signs made, and here they are.

So if you were to walk into our office, you would see the front.

Anybody know who's the fixer of everything at Sear Bible Church?

It's not Jesus, it's Deb, okay?

She was here.

If you know Deb, she's an absolute rock star.

The whole place falls apart if we don't have Deb.

She got fixer of everything.

Another person, they got this next one.

Kind of a big deal.

Does anybody know whose office that in?

Pastor Ralph, right?

She's pointing at me.

And we all look at Ralph and we're like, we have no idea.

But he's kind of a big deal around here.

I walked into my office, desk of a humble genius.

So, like I said, you're in the right place.

I'm gonna feed you a few nuggets of things I've learned.

I went in and I like snapped that thing down.

And I know this isn't accurate, but I was like, oh, that's blasphemy and heresy and every other C, because this is not who I am.

But it is who I long to be.

I long to walk with a sort of other's centeredness.

I love the title of Tim Keller's book.

He says that he calls his book this.

He wrote on humility.

It's a beautiful book.

We'll talk about it a bit.

He said that he he titles humility the freedom of self-forgetfulness.

The freedom of self-forgetfulness.

Wouldn't it be amazing to wake up in the morning, not concerned, but concerned with others, looking at the Lord, just walking in the freedom that comes when we're not focused on ourselves.

Keller says this in his book.

He's taken some of Lewis's language.

He says, the essence of the essence, excuse me, of gospel humil humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself.

It's thinking of myself less.

It's not me first.

One of the places that we see this coming into focus, uh, and really it's the place that comes into focus, and then it's Paul saying, This is where to focus all your energy in this clothe yourself with humility instruction, is in Philippians chapter two.

So if you have a Bible, I want to encourage you to read it or to open it up to Philippians chapter two.

We'll start in verse four, a little bit on Philippians first, because there's a word in that Paul uses in this text.

It's only used one time in the Bible, and it's a military word, and we'll get to it in a second.

And what you need to know about Philippi, or what's helpful to know, is that Philippi is sort of the place where the Roman military leaders would go to retire.

So there's a lot of money there because the Roman leaders have conquered other people and taken their stuff with them back to Philippi.

And this is now where they live.

So if you're a California person, maybe even a Navy person, the thing closest to that in our kind of area of the world is coronado.

It's like when you cross the bridge and you're like, whoa, we're like breathing military here, and this is really nice.

These are accomplished kinds of people.

This is Philippi.

So Paul writes a letter, we have it as Philippians, to this church in Philippi, and then to us by way of extension, because primarily there's fighting going on in the church.

So there's a couple of people who, out of their pride, are not getting along.

And so Paul writes them this letter and inserts into chapter two this sort of like recipe for humility.

And he does it in a fascinating way.

If you haven't read this before, many of us have.

This section in Philippians 2 is also the place that if you're just gonna do a hard study on like who is Jesus, Christology, you're gonna end up in this section.

Now, Paul is going to assume that these are people that are worshiping Jesus in who he is, and it's that then that shapes their humility.

Okay, so he's gonna dive into this.

Let's open our text.

If you have Philippians open with you, chapter two, let's start here in verse four.

Paul says these words.

He says, and he says, rather, because he's comparison rather than thinking of yourself, selfish ambition, vain conceit, all those things, he says this rather in humility, and then he's gonna give us a bit of a definition, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interest of others.

And then he's going to start in verse five in the direction of where he wants to take us.

He says this, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

Now, what Paul's trying to help them do is insert humility into the midst of their relationship.

So he says, here's how you do it.

In your relationships with one another, have the same what?

Mindset as Christ Jesus.

Now, again, this is this what's coming next in these verses.

Many people would think this was like kind of the original Christian song or worship song, or it's at very least a poem in the way it's written.

And so churches would have known this, people would have sung this.

This was an exclamation of who Jesus was and what Jesus had done.

And so, with incredible clarity, we're drawn into the truth of what God has done in Jesus between Christmas and Easter.

Okay, and so he's gonna kind of walk through all of this and invite us to look at it from the perspective of the way we do relationships.

So here's what he's gonna do.

So here's the the song that he sings, or that they have been sent sung.

And let me pause real quick before I dive in.

Sorry, I know there's a lot of pauses.

This is important.

I think what Paul's doing is this.

I think Paul is at one point, so he's got this church that's struggling in relationship.

Specifically, there's some people in the church that out of their pride, they're fighting with each other.

They're not thinking of the interest of others, they're not putting others in front of themselves, they're fighting.

They got their heels dug in, if you will.

And what Paul is doing in my mind's eye is he finds himself in a worship environment where he's worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ in the reality of who he is.

And it's in worshiping who Jesus is, what God has done in Jesus, that he begins to piece this together.

That what Jesus did for every one of us is what God's inviting us to do for each other.

It's that same mindset that if I can have with you the same mindset that Jesus had with us, these relationships can be healed.

Come on, you know this.

If if ever you're confronted, like you ever come into a conversation hot, maybe you came home from work after like that fiery text and you're like, oh, it's on, girl.

Come on.

Is it just in my house?

That was a long time ago, but okay.

I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna talk about this, but I'm excited to talk about it.

And all of a sudden you're confronted with this deep-seated humility and it just takes the gloves off.

I'm convinced two people, I don't care how big the problem has been, that come at each other with humility can live in harmony.

And so, what Paul sees in this moment is if we can treat each other the way God has treated us in Jesus, that will infuse humility into our relationships and they will work.

We'll be able to stay focused on Him and His work in the kingdom.

So Paul's seeing all this, here we go.

We'll finally get there slowly.

We're gonna kind of walk through this.

So here's what it looks like to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

Now he's gonna kind of just walk us through this song.

Who, that is Jesus, being in very nature God.

This is important when we think about humility.

What he's not saying is Jesus decided it not to be Jesus.

Jesus knew he was God.

Jesus knew he had a lot going on.

Jesus knew he was king, he knew he was creator, he knew with his voice he created everything we know and we see.

And he didn't say, Oh, woe was me, oh, I'm the least of these.

He said, No, this is who I am.

But he walked in who he was, specifically the advantage he was with, the advantage he had with humility.

So here we read these words, who, being in very nature God, did not consider this part's so important, equality with God, something to be used to his own advantage.

So all of his godness, he didn't consider all of the advantage, all of his power.

He did not consider what something to be grasped.

Grasped is the word that maybe some of you have, or or used for his own advantage.

This is where that whole military thing comes in.

Paul uses a word there that gets translated for his own advantage, or grasped in some English translations, and it's it's a military word as if the Romans were to go in and conquer a city or a nation and then plunder or grasp or take whatever they wanted for their own desires.

Are you with me?

And so here's the picture that this psalm is painting.

What Jesus did is not all that advantage, all of his godness, all of the fact that he's higher on the org chart, he's more powerful, he's more knowing, he has more rights.

He didn't grasp those for his own advantage.

He didn't say, I'm gonna take this to make my life better, but he took all that and look where he says he's going.

He doesn't leverage it on himself, he leverages it on us.

Rather, rather, verse 7, he made himself nothing.

The Greek word there is he emptied himself.

It isn't that he was upset with himself, it isn't that he he played some kind of you know weird self-effacing humility.

Oh, woe is me.

Jesus was like, oh no, it's me.

But he emptied himself, he emptied himself.

Now, I don't think it went this way, but it's interesting to think about.

Imagine if, in sort of the the historical timeline of what God is doing on earth, Jesus knows, I'm convinced, that in Genesis 3, when God says, I'm gonna deal with sin and crush the serpent, that Jesus is key to that.

He's gonna step into human history and crush the serpent, the devil's head, kill sin, death is taken care of.

That's the answer.

But what if, imagine for a moment, Jesus doesn't actually know how that's gonna go down?

But all of a sudden, God is setting his people, the nation of Israel, free from slavery in Egypt.

And all of a sudden there's all these plagues, and Jesus is a part of it, and he's doing this thing, and the father's like giving them plagues and plagues and plagues, and finally they get to the last, the tenth plague.

And the tenth plague is to be a sign for what God will do, this sort of serpent-crushing, sin satisfying work that he plans to do through Jesus.

And Jesus' like, oh yeah, this is my thing.

This is pointing to me.

And all of a sudden, God says to the nation of Israel, go get a perfect, go get a perfect lamb.

Slaughter that lamb and put the innocent blood or the blood of that innocent lamb over your doorpost as as a promise for what I will one day do.

Can you imagine for a moment Jesus?

I mean, I at least if I'm Jesus, which I'm clearly not, I'm thinking I'm coming in to crush the head of the serpent, and woe be that day.

I'm coming as a lion.

But Jesus comes as a lamb, not grasping all of his godness, but emptying himself, and then he goes on here, taking the very nature of a servant.

And this by-taking phrase, if if you're studying this in your own Bible, I just encourage you to circle that.

Humility, being a person of humility, will always have a sort of by-taking.

There's always a place where the sort of, oh yeah, Jesus, you're gonna do this all of a sudden becomes Christmas, which all of a sudden becomes the cross.

There will be a place where, in theory, while you were studying your Bible, God was speaking to you about confessing, about coming to someone, about helping, about serving, about giving, about going around the world and giving it all, whatever the thing is that God's impressing you and actually taking action.

And it's in that place, right, where you think, I'm not sure this was a great idea.

I'm not sure this was a God idea.

I'm not sure he said, whatever he is asking you to take on.

It's the place of action.

So for Jesus, this is what this looks like.

It isn't just, you know, that he gives up, you know, or surrenders, doesn't grasp his equality with God.

It isn't just that he takes, excuse me, that he empties himself, but he takes the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he here's our word, humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

And I think here's what Paul does.

Paul says this is a win-win.

If you will find a way, if you will forge a way, if you will fight for a way, to see clearly this God who became a human being and gave up his life on a cross for you, you will two things.

You will see the greatest demonstration of humility this world has ever seen, and you will begin to have those eyes that so quickly turn in on themselves, focused on the rightful attention that they demand.

So see him as humility, but then see him, walk focused on him.

It is the only way that you can begin to have the sort of pride, self-absorption, high or low, rooted out of your heart.

And so look at him, see him.

This week I spent some time uh just reading through the accounts of Jesus from the upper room.

The upper room is sort of the kickoff, if you will, to Jesus' movement toward the cross and then the resurrection.

And I just want to encourage you this week as sort of homework, humility homework, to maybe consider.

One of the gospels, really, Matthew's probably going to be the best, or Luke, John, you could do, but really maybe one of the others.

And start at the upper room and just watch Jesus as he walks to the cross.

This is what Paul's saying.

Have the same mindset.

It's Jesus on his way to the cross.

See him, see the sacrifice he made for you.

Focus, worship, fall down before.

Spend a few minutes with the God of the universe, who in John chapter 13 we read this.

John 13 · chapter mention

Jesus, with a full understanding of who he was.

I don't know what that meant, but like I think Jesus in the upper room sort of got the chills, and he was like, Oh, yeah, I'm the God of the universe.

I created all of these things.

We don't know exactly what that means, but it's an odd phrase that Jesus put that John puts in his gospel.

What does Jesus do after John says, This is the moment when Jesus had a full understanding of who all of his godness sort of it he took off his outer cloak.

He filled up a woman, he took the position of a slave, and he began to wash the feet of every one of his disciples.

Spend some time this week.

Try and carve it out as best you can.

Walk with Jesus as he leads his disciples out and prays with the Father the night he's arrested, when he's literally crying and sweating blood.

And he says these words that are so central to the life of hum of the humble.

Not my will, Father.

Remember what Jesus is saying?

He's like, Jesus, if there's another way, take the cup away.

Like if you want to do a whole like Isaac thing and like find a ram in the thicket, like I'm in, let it not be me.

But then what he says is this he says, but not my will, but yours.

Not mine.

I'm not looking at me, I'm looking at you.

If this is your plan, spend a little bit of time.

Do you remember when Judas shows up with the thugs?

They're gonna arrest Jesus.

Jesus looks at Judas.

I mean, this just shook me this week.

And he says, Do what you've come to do.

And then he adds a word.

You know what that word is?

He says, Judas, do what you came to do.

Friend.

Friend.

Friend?

Come on.

So humility might be calling that person friend.

Spend a little bit of time this week before Jesus.

As he's walking his way to this cross.

I mean, Luke says they slapped him.

They spit on him.

And I imagine there had to be some godness in him going, oh, it's it's coming.

And you know what the authors of the Bible say Jesus' response was?

He remained silent.

He remained silent.

What would it look like for us in these places where we want to defend ourselves, we want to fight back, we want clarity around the truth.

We want, oh, they hurt me.

I got something to say.

To be silent.

What would it look like for us to clothe ourselves in humility as individuals and as a church who God's doing some pretty ridiculous things in through some pretty amazing people.

But it's not about us.

But let's keep it about Him.

Let's pray.

God, thank you.

Thank you for this time of considering the places where we maybe look to ourselves, where we stand in front of the mirror.

And God, if it's a sense of like sort of defeat, or if a if it's a sense of like, I'm doing pretty good.

Look at me.

God, we bring those before you.

We bring those before the reality of what you've done for us.

Well, Paul uses, God, this beautiful picture of what you did in walking to the cross for us is this unbelievable picture of humility.

It's also the picture of salvation.

And so, God, I would just ask that if if some of us in here are have sort of lost this beautiful picture of the sacrifice you made for us.

As we're trying to think about humility, help us to first find ourselves as sinners in need of a savior.

A savior that didn't grasp, a savior that emptied, a savior that took the nature of a servant to the point of death for me.

And so, God, if if there's anyone in this room that hasn't taken that step, hasn't said, God, I want your salvation, I need your spirit in me, I want to experience your forgiveness, I pray that this would be our moment.

It would see you clearly, we'd worship you for who you are.

And God, you would bend our hearts, you would bend our minds away from ourselves and on you.

And God, as we focus on you, we experience your love for us, your joy over us.

May we be those that look then to the interests of others, taking the credible advantage that you've given so many of us, saying, How do I use this advantage not for myself, but for your kingdom's work?

We love you, God.

We pray these things in an amazing name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for joining us, church.

We hope that you enjoyed this message.

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