Humility Resists Pride

Next week, we're gonna look at how in this series, Beautiful Resistance.

Next week we're gonna talk about how hospitality resists fear.

How hospitality resists fear.

And I'm telling you, you don't want to miss it because in my study time it's it's just been powerful.

Now that's next week.

This week is about humility, how humility resists pride.

And it's gonna be great.

And so get your Bibles out.

We're gonna be primarily in Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11.

Philippians 2:5–11

And we'll also uh read a few verses in a couple other places.

Um but it's it's about how humility resists pride, and and you I want you to picture this because this is a little bit of all of us, but you can't hide pride forever.

It will come out, but it's most obviously seen probably in the life of a two to three-year-old who has just learned enough independence in doing things that they will tell you, I can do it myself.

I can do it myself.

No, mama, no, daddy, I can do it myself.

Right?

It's a little bit of a picture of pride.

Pride is dangerous.

As a matter of fact, pride may be our greatest adversary as believers in Jesus.

It's not the primary adversary, because we know who that is.

It's Lucifer, it's the devil, but pride cost Lucifer heaven.

It cost him a place in glory.

Lucifer's primary tool to keep you out of heaven will be pride.

Pride may be called the mother of all sins.

C.S.

Lewis in Mere Christianity says, according to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil is pride.

Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere, all that are mere flea bites in comparison.

It was through pride that the devil became the devil.

Pride leads to every other vice.

It is the complete anti-God state of mind.

So pride is always the opposition.

And so as we as we continue in this series, Beautiful Resistance, which, if you if you like to read and you like, you know, things that are applicable to our culture, um, John Tyson writes this book and it and it's powerful.

It's called Beautiful Resistance.

Last week we talked about this because he he we we talked about the story of the great German leader, pastor, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he was the part of this resistance to the Nazi regime in World War II.

And he and he he started an underground seminary and he and he told his friends, he said, this, and he's talking about the community of discipleship, the body of Christ, us as believers, this has to be greater than that, as he pointed to a Nazi base that represented the heart of evil.

I mean, you can't watch world events.

We keep repeating ourselves throughout history.

So I imagine there is a Ukrainian pastor that is somewhere in the midst of chaos calling the Ukrainian church to hold fast to the truth.

Don't align yourselves with the state, don't align yourselves with the evil Russians, don't align yourselves with the, you know, even the Ukrainian uh government.

Keep yourself aligned with Christ and Christ alone.

And so there's this beautiful resistance, and as the world changes, we as the body of Christ resist, but we don't risk resist by by floating our pointing our finger and bashing people.

We do it in a way that that follows the character of Christ.

And so the human will has the ability with the power of the Holy Spirit to resist pride, but it's it's through humility.

And humility always points back to Jesus, biblical humility.

Jesus is the model of beautiful resistance.

And so if anybody could have been prideful, it would have been Jesus.

Because he is God, he is the God man, he is our Savior.

And so he chooses the path of beautiful resistance.

He chooses the path of humility.

And that's why the world is enthralled with Jesus, even though they don't know what to do with him.

The world is is is looks at Jesus.

People will tell you throughout history, I don't like religion.

Gandhi said, I don't like Christianity, but I am just changed by this man, the Nazarene.

And he people don't know this, but Gandhi would read the Sermon on the Mount.

He would study the Sermon on the Mount.

Albert Einstein was a Jewish, Jewish, I mean, he he was uh the mind of his generation, he was brilliant.

And here's what he says: I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.

And Jesus shows us the pathway to defeat pride, to resist.

And it's and it's through humility, it's through this the stooping, the lowering of himself, love that reaches up is adoration, love that reaches out is affection, but love that stoops is grace, Donald Barnhouse said.

And so I think we can agree that Jesus is compelling, but he's not just a compelling figure in history.

He is the one who is able to change us from the inside out.

He is the one that can save us, he's the one that offers us hope in the midst of a chaotic world.

And so the big idea comes right out of scripture that where it says, God resists the proud.

There's a couple of places it says this.

God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

One pastor said it this way be humble or you'll stumble.

Be humble or you'll stumble.

And so here's what we're gonna look at.

We're gonna look at the life of Jesus in Philippians 2, 5 through 11.

We're gonna look at some words of Jesus in one of his parables or stories, and then we're gonna, I'm gonna ask you to listen to the Holy Spirit.

I'm gonna ask you to consider how God might be speaking to you today.

You know, we ask these two questions and and we try to come back to that.

The heart of discipleship is asking two questions.

God, what are you saying to me?

And then the second question is, what am I gonna do about it?

What am I gonna do about it?

God, what are you saying to me?

What am I gonna do about it?

So Philippians 2, 5 through 11, um, we're talking about the incarnation of Christ.

Christ is God becoming human in the incarnation, and so it this passage is considered one of the gems of the New Testament.

And many believe that it was a popular hymn that was sung in the early church, and it may have been, it may have been, but it was inspired by God.

As Paul wrote these words down, it is teaching us about the character of Christ, and it teaches us about how God reaches out to humanity.

One writer says God lowering the rope to pull us up out of the well into salvation, out of the depth of the hole of sin.

And it teaches us how God reached down to save us.

Love that stoops is grace.

And so there's three kind of peaks of mountain peaks of this passage.

There's the peak of humility, there's the peak of Jesus' glory, and then there's the peak of his mentality.

Let's look at the first one: the humility of Christ.

He gave up his divine privileges.

He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being when he appeared in human form.

Now, Jesus shows us humility in his birth and his life and his death.

In his birth, he becomes human, which is supernatural in itself.

That word, the word in the original Greek is morphée, which means form.

Jesus is able to change his form, which is supernatural, because God is in the in his form, he is unchanging.

We in our humility, in our human form, we are limited.

God is able to change his form.

We are unable to change our form.

So God changes his form to become one of us, to save us, and to reveal himself to us.

And so that word morphe, you know, the word metamorph means that you can change forms.

Metamorph, a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

But our human nature never changes.

Now we look different on the outside in different stages of life, but your humanity never changes.

Jesus changes.

He is God, so he is able to change his form.

He stays God and becomes human at the same time.

He doesn't change into humanity completely.

He is God and he becomes human, maintaining his God likeness and becoming human at the same time.

This verse refers to the mystery of how God does this.

How he is able to change and become human.

Now, so we see Jesus.

We see this beauty, this mountain peak, this in the humility of Christ, in his birth, and his life and his death.

And so in his life, Jesus did not consider it robbery to hold on to his God likeness.

Verse 7 says he made himself nothing.

And he made himself of no reputation.

Now I'm an ESV translation guy.

And so I know I love this passage and I get excited about this passage.

One reason I get excited about this passage is because it it carries me back to an early place in my life when I discovered the rich, the richness of God's word.

And I and I and it and how God could change through Bible study, change my life through studying the Word of God.

And I begin to discover how the language and every word matters in the Bible.

And I know some of you love this passage because you've been around Christianity most of your life, maybe much of your life.

Some of you love this, are going to discover how to love this passage as new believers.

And it is so rich and so full of nuggets of truth.

I'm an ESV guy.

I like studying every word.

The Bible was written primarily in Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic.

I like going and studying the Greek and the Hebrew and the Aramaic.

I like studying the original languages.

I think you discover some things by doing that.

The newer translations, newer translations are wonderful.

If you just sit down and want to read for devotional purposes, I'm going to pick the new living translation or maybe a translation like that, and it's easy to read.

Especially, maybe people have different backgrounds or maybe different levels of education.

And they need a translation that fits them.

They need it in a language that's understandable.

But it's so important to understand and to pick out nuggets of truth.

Jesus made himself nothing.

There is a word there.

It's called kenosis.

It's the Greek word kenosis.

And it's one of those words that's not used a lot.

Paul uses it.

He's very choosy.

And it literally means too empty.

Too empty.

It means that Jesus emptied himself of his godness to become like us.

He willingly took the role of a servant.

He emptied himself of independent authority.

He surrendered to the authority of his father.

The picture of this is in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he is in anguish, in prayer, to the point of bleeding, sweating drops of blood.

And he says, Not my will, but your will.

And you elbowing your spouse, you're like God.

And he served.

Jesus served people.

He washed their feet.

He healed.

He encouraged.

He touched the untouchable.

He was willing to come up close to the leper, the woman with the issue of blood.

Think of anything that is anti-cultural.

Jesus was willing to cross the line to come to us.

Verse 8 says he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.

So in his life, he is humble.

In his death, he is humble.

Death on a cross, the cross, this Roman, this Roman execution tool.

He embraced it so he could save us.

The reason he did all this, he left heaven.

He became human is so he could save us.

That couldn't happen unless he stooped, unless he stepped into our world.

That's love, that's grace.

He left heaven to save those that are yet to believe.

We receive forgiveness.

It's the gospel, it's the good news.

Jesus becomes man.

Jesus dies for our sins.

It's the lion becoming the lamb.

He's both simultaneously the lion and the lamb.

That's why we sing that song.

Verse 9 says, and we're talking about now, the glory of Christ.

We see humility in his birth, humility in his life, humility in his death.

And because of that, Paul speaks of the glory of Christ.

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Yes, hallelujah.

So, so Jesus is humble in his birth, he's humble in his life, he's humble in his death, but because of his humility, the Father exalts him.

He can't remain humble.

And so he will be exalted.

He has to be lifted up.

He demands our worship.

Paul says in Ephesians, he says that at the end of time, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.

Those that have believed and those that have yet to believe, and those that will never believe, they will all have to bow to him.

The Father exalts Jesus, lifts him up.

We see it in the resurrection, we see it in the ascension, and we see it in his dominion over everything.

Seven times in the New Testament, it speaks of Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father, and this speaks of his dominion.

He is worthy of all glory, worthy of all honor, worthy of our worship.

Revelation says in chapter 1, verses 12 through 14, when I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw, this is John the Apostle, I saw seven gold lampstands.

And standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man.

He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest.

His head and his hair were white like wool.

I like that verse.

It's white as snow, and his eyes were like flames of fire.

All the way through the book of Revelation.

The glory of Jesus.

Revelation 19, 12, his eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns.

A name was written on him that no one understood except himself.

Glory, authority, power.

See, humility is down, down, down.

Glory is up, up, up.

Jesus shows us the way of humility.

And it's down, down, down.

The world's response to Jesus may be rejection.

It might be to exterminate.

God's response to Jesus is to glory, to give glory and to exalt.

And so therefore, God elevated him to the highest honor and gave him the name above all other names.

Hebrews 1 6 says, And when he brought his supreme son into the world, God said, Let all of God's angels worship him.

Hebrews 1 8, but to the Son he says, Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.

You rule with a scepter of justice.

And if you ever wonder if humility was worth it, Jesus would say, Absolutely yes.

It's worth it.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 5, 6, he says, So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up and honor.

The way up is down, the way down is up.

And so we said that we're gonna look at the humility of Jesus, the glory of Jesus, and the mentality.

Of Jesus.

So let's go back to verse 5 of Philippians 2.

So Paul says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

Have this mind.

Have this attitude.

Have this way of thinking.

Verses 1 through 3, going back a little bit, he says, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Jesus was God, but he was a servant.

He became a servant.

He emptied himself.

And so he says, have this mind.

Have the same mind.

Have the same attitude.

Many of us don't know this mindset.

If we could practice these few verses, it would change all of history.

It would set us apart.

It would cause a world to wake up and to receive what Jesus is offering.

The world would say, I, oh, I see.

I see what you believe.

I see what you what you gather about.

I see what you stand for.

I see why you serve.

I see why you humble yourselves.

I see.

A couple things about humility.

Humility, we need to understand it in its proper context.

Biblical humility, not false humility.

False humility sometimes is pride that wears a mask, and you become a punching bag, not because you want to be like Jesus, but because maybe you have a low self-image or you have some dysfunction that you've inherited or something going on in your life.

Maybe you haven't been able to explain it, but but you mask your pride in false humility.

Humility is not thinking badly of yourself.

Some say that it's not thinking about yourself at all, it's thinking of yourself less.

Humility is the willingness to give up my will for another's good to accomplish God's perfect will or what is best.

James says this, and he gives grace generously, as the scriptures say, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Peter, back to Peter, 1 Peter 5, 5, in the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders.

And all you dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

The quickest way you want to pick a fight with God is to be proud.

When you swell up with pride, you close God off.

Humility is a tricky virtue.

Because once you think you have it, you've lost it.

God always has a way to bring you back to the place where you recognize that you're not God.

It's kind of like time change.

This morning, my body says that it's one time, my clock says it's another.

And I just, I'm thinking, God has his way of bringing us back to recognizing that he is true north.

He is the rock.

He is the only thing unchanging.

He is what we anchor to.

And he will bring adjustments to get us back to that.

The Titanic.

12,000 men took two full years to build the largest vessel on the seas.

It was considered unsinkable.

The captain was quoted as saying, even God Himself could not sink this ship.

And God says, just watch.

And on April 14th, 1912, the unsinkable ship sunk.

Proverbs 16, 18, pride goes before destruction and haughtiness before a fall.

So here's what I want to do is I want to take a moment, and I really want us to lean in and consider what God is saying to us.

So we're looking, the life of Jesus, words of Jesus, and I want to listen to the Holy Spirit speak to us.

And this is where we consider the two questions.

God, what are you saying to me?

And what?

And then you ask yourself, what am I going to do about it?

What is he saying to you through this passage?

How do we adjust ourselves to the word of God?

How do we recognize pride, repent, and trust the gospel, the good news?

Looking at the life of Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection.

And so what are some habits?

What are some practices in our life that guard against pride?

One is gratitude, habits of gratitude, practices of gratitude, saying thank you.

Thank you to every area of your life.

Thank you, God.

Thank you to other people.

Thank you to people I can learn from.

Thank you for people that lead me in worship.

This morning I'm saying, God, thank you for for those that lead us in worship.

Thank you for those that serve us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It's saying it, it's writing a note.

It's it's it's sometimes being willing to lower yourself, to wash feet, to do things out of your normal routine that reminds you of what the character of Jesus is all about.

I am considered, and I'm I'm I'm agreeing that I am an extrovert at my core.

And so I know some of you are surprised by that.

And so I am an extrovert, but I but I but I enjoy time alone.

The older I get, the more I enjoy it, quiet.

But by my nature, if there is a party, I want to be there.

And not only do I want to be there, I want to be in the middle of it and tell the world that I am here.

I am here.

I have arrived.

If there is a conversation, I want to insert myself.

If there is a Bible study, I have the truth.

I'm a horrible small group leader.

I'll ask the questions and then I'll answer them.

I so it fits perfect with being a preacher.

I speak and I have a whole crowd listening.

But that is a dangerous place.

Dangerous, dangerous.

And so one of the habits that I I discovered early in my ministry is the habit of grunt work.

And see, you want to know who somebody is, you find out what they do when nobody's looking.

Because I will serve, I will perform when I know people are watching.

It's just my nature.

You take an extrovert with the sin, sin nature, and what you have there is somebody that performs in public, but the dangerous side is in private, they're a different person.

Humility says, God, I need you to help me form habits where I can do things and serve and do some grunt stuff whether people are watching or not.

And so one of my pastors, Mike Lynch, he he is, we are very alike, and I've just I watched him in his ministry early on.

He holds doors for people.

He's the guy that at the big banquet that they'll ask to pray, but at the end you'll see him cleaning tables.

And he doesn't he and he's that that's who he is.

You just know that he's the same person on and off the platform.

Look for places where you can serve and you can humble yourself, you can become like Jesus, whether people are watching or not.

Open your notebook, be a learner.

I'm telling you, you watch, and I teach these young guys.

Look, be a learner.

Let's learn, let's learn from people that write books, let's learn from people from pastors who have years of ministry, and let's let's go.

I I learned at a young age.

Go and meet and talk with people, but take your notebook and be willing to learn.

Be willing to take notes.

And I you can watch people in life and you can tell whether sometimes when when somebody that's older or has more experience or more knowledge is speaking, and we sit back with our arms folded rather than leaning in to listen, you can tell the difference between pride and humility.

Pride teaches you that you don't need anyone else.

I can do it myself.

Humility says I can learn from anyone anywhere.

Pride is like a weed, and humility is like your lawn.

This time of the year is a great example.

Weeds need pretty much no fertilizer or water to grow.

They just show up and take over.

And the scary thing is we don't even recognize the pride in our heart and life.

Honesty and transparency are necessary to fight off pride.

Here's why you need community and you need a church.

You need it.

It doesn't matter what size, it doesn't matter style, you need community.

You need, even if it's a few men or a few women, you need it.

And you need to be willing to let people speak into your life.

Pride will ruin your life, it'll ruin your marriage, it'll ruin your family, it'll ruin a business, it will devastate a church, a community, ministries.

Pride is the cancer of the soul left undiagnosed and untreated.

It will destroy.

And this word of God, here's the listen, this the word of God says, humble yourself.

So we all have kind of a choice in life.

It's you either humble yourself or God will.

And some of you heard my story of not growing up in church, and my my dad, the kind of person he was, hard-hearted, rough.

He was the epitome of pride.

He was the epitome of I'm gonna pull myself up by my bootstraps and do it myself.

And so as I grew up, I I saw this, and and I I, you know, and when I became a believer, and I looked and I thought, how is my dad like this?

And I, as an adult, I have continued to discover the story of my family of origin to uncover the roots of my dad's pride.

Even a few weeks ago, or maybe at Christmas, I was able to have lunch with my dad's older sister.

My dad passed away in 1997 at the age of 62, 63, and and he had just brutalized his body with alcohol and smoking, and and he had spent most of his life shaking his fist at God, saying, I don't need you, I can do it myself.

And so this past Christmas, having lunch with his older sister, for the first time, as a 56-year-old man, I know you're shocked, she told me for the first time that my dad's dad left him and his family at the age of seven or eight.

Now, I knew he'd left, but I thought it when he was older.

And it was like, this revelation.

My dad had so much pain and so much hurt, and he blamed it on God rather than reaching out to God.

And it it ruined his life, but at the end of his life, three years before he died, he reached out.

He reached out to the rope that was lowered.

Now God had to break him.

It took the death of my brother, it took a lot of hurt and a lot of pain for my dad to respond.

And although his life was difficult and it was painful, he finally humbled himself and was willing to grab hold of the rope.

Jesus gives us a clear picture that contrasts the pride.

I love the this little parable, this short story that Jesus gives, and it's so simple.

He tells us about two men who've come to worship.

One religious, one non-religious.

And the religious man stands before God and he proudly gives a list of all of his spiritual religious accomplishments.

God, thank you for making me an Israelite, a Jew, and that I'm not like the others.

God, thank you for all of my religious duties that I have performed.

Thank you that I am clean and not like the unclean.

God, thank you that I am a giver and I'm a tither and that I attend church and synagogue like I'm supposed to.

He just lists his whole list.

Thank you that I, thank you, that I, thank you that I.

And at the same time that's happening on the other side of the auditorium or the synagogue or the temple is the irreligious, the unclean, the non-Jew, the outsider that beats on his chest and says, God, forgive me, for I am a sinner.

And Jesus tells that story, and then he says, in Luke 19, 14, he says, I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified, forgiven, accepted before God.

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

And so the Bible tells us that we are to magnify Jesus and to humble ourselves and lower ourselves.

Exalt Jesus, lower yourself.

John the Baptist says, I must decrease, he must increase, and in that way we are humbling ourselves and becoming.

Thank you.

Thank you for Paul's hymn or this passage, this beautiful set of verses that teach us so much about Jesus, that teach us about your heart, that teach us how to serve, that teach us how to lower ourselves, that teaches Jesus lowers himself into humanity.

He lowers himself into this well of hopeless, sinful, prideful brokenness.

And he says, Hey, grab a hold of me and I will pull you up.

If you will humble yourselves in due time, I will exalt you.

I will save you.

I will give you hope in a broken world and prepare you for the greater world that is to come.

And so I want to encourage you, if you have never put your faith in Christ, today is the day that you can grab the rope and you can say yes to Jesus.

Yes, save me.

Yes, Jesus, I am a sinner.

I have tried it myself.

Would you save me?

Would you rescue me?

Would you feel me?

Give me hope.

Give me joy.

Say yes to Jesus right where you are.

Just say yes.

There's no prayer.

It's saying yes.

It's a response.

It's repentance.

It's turning.

Instead of saying, I can do it myself, saying, I need you to do it for me.

If you're a believer, if you're a Christian, if you somebody put your faith in Christ, maybe today is a reminder of how you came to Christ, how you needed him.

It's a reminder that he is exalted and we uh we are to lift him up higher and higher.

And we do that by becoming lower and lower.

We humble ourselves, we kneel before our Maker.

We acknowledge that there is a God and we're not Him.

And we say yes, we want to exhaust you, we want to lift you up.

You are the lion and the Lamb.

God is telling us that if you're still breathing, He has a plan for you.

He has a purpose for you.

He's giving you gifts.

He wants you to use your gifts, not so you can further yourself or get a promotion.

He wants you to use your gifts so you can quit and give up.

And he would be exalted.

He would be magnified.

Oh, that we would understand that our lives should reflect this hymn that we are about to sing.

Oh Christ, be magnified.

I must decrease, you must increase.

And so, Father, as we declare this back to you, would you save some and awaken those who slumber?

Those who have forgotten, be reminded.

God, would you be exalted as we are humbled?