Joy in Humility (Can I Have Your Helmet?)

Well, if you're just joining us, we're in a series right now called Unbreakable Joy.

We started this a little over a month ago.

And what we're doing is going through this letter in the New Testament called the Letter of Philippians, letter to the Philippians.

It's a church in a city called Philippi.

It was written by a man named Paul.

And if you read it and you don't know the context of what's going on in Paul's life, you would think that he is having the time of his life, like he's on vacation with his good friends, everything's going great, he's eating good food, everything is working out for him, because it is filled with all these statements and reflections, these inspirational ideas about joy and how to enjoy life.

In truth, Paul was in prison, facing very possible execution.

He would eventually be executed and persecuted for his faith to that degree.

He wasn't experiencing rosy circumstances.

He's in prison.

He might die, and yet his letter isn't somber, it's not sad, it's filled with joy, and it shows us that there is a kind of joy we can have through a relationship with Jesus that this world does not offer us.

Because usually the formula for joy in life is very simple.

Things go good, joy goes up.

Things go bad, joy goes down.

That's how it tends to work.

So let's say hypothetically, just a hypothetical scenario, you grew up as a huge Duke basketball fan.

And you're like, man, this year's Duke basketball team, the best you may have ever seen.

Like, as someone hypothetically who's watched all of them, you're like, this is, I think, maybe you've even text all your friends, I think this is the best Duke team ever.

And then, like last night, you're watching the final four, and you know, for most of it, your joy is high.

And then with about, I don't know, 60 seconds left in the game, your joy just falls off a cliff.

And then someone comes and makes sure that your joy is dead and just does a double tap to ensure that yes, your joy is in fact completely dead.

That's how life tends to go.

Right?

That's how it goes.

Things are going great, I'm so happy, I'm filled with joy, but it can turn in an instant.

And all of a sudden, where'd the joy go?

That's the world's version of joy.

It is fleeting, it is fragile.

The joy that Paul has is unstoppable, it is unbreakable.

You could be sitting in prison, persecuted for nothing other than your faith and your desire to tell the world about Jesus.

And there's not one part of you that's going, this is unfair, how could this happen to me?

God has abandoned me.

You are filled with joy.

I want to have that kind of joy in my life.

Um, I'm definitely not gonna let it ride on my my sports teams anymore, right?

Anything like that.

Or, I mean, anything in culture.

I want to have that kind of joy, and all of us can.

So we've been exploring it, and it's interesting because the sources of joy that Paul describes are not what you might think.

A few weeks ago we talked about the joy of suffering.

He actually viewed suffering as a source of joy.

Last week we talked about the joy of death, which is, if you were like, what?

Go back and listen to it.

Hopefully it was good.

So even in the idea of death, Paul found joy.

And today we're gonna talk about the joy of humility.

I also thought about titling this message, Can I Have Your Helmet?

But that's gonna make sense later.

I'll explain.

But this is the joy of humility.

If we want to follow God, like truly follow God, we have to, we have to learn to love what God loves and oppose what God opposes.

We've got to be for what God is for and against what God is against.

Like we want to line up with God as much as possible.

It's pretty basic.

There are few things that God is more against than pride.

There's this word in a lot of the Proverbs, haughty.

It's a word that we don't use that often.

It's still in our language, but it says that the Lord detests haughty eyes.

And haughty eyes is a the language it just means like unashamed pride.

And scripture talks over and over again about how much God opposes the proud.

But in terms of what he loves, the things that God loves, that he celebrates, oh my god, humility?

God loves humility.

Let me give you some examples from Scripture.

I'm gonna go to Luke chapter 14, verses 7 through 11.

Luke 14:7–11

It says, when Jesus noticed that all who had come to the dinner were trying to sit in the seats of honor near the head of the table.

He's at a dinner, people are showing up.

He gave them this advice.

When you are invited to a wedding feast, don't sit in the seat of honor.

What if someone who's more distinguished than you has also been invited?

The host is going to come up to you and say, Give this person your seat.

Then you're going to be embarrassed.

You'll have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table.

Instead, take the lowest place at the lowest table.

And then when your host sees you, he will come and say, Friend, we have a better place for you.

And then you will be honored in front of all the other guests, for those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

This language definitely resonated in the early church.

This was something that was taught over and over again.

We see this in 1 Peter chapter 5.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

Peter writes, All of you dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.

Cool.

I don't know if you guys, something fell, but it's fine.

It's fine.

I'm sure it wasn't expensive.

There's this theme of humility.

Jesus talked about it often.

Those who came after Jesus reflected on it, and it's because Jesus himself is humility-embodied.

No one has ever been more humble than Jesus.

Which is interesting to think about because he's God.

And that's what Paul writes about in Philippians.

Philippians 2:3–11

Chapter 2, verses 3 through 11, Paul says, don't be selfish.

Don't try to impress others.

Be humble.

Thinking of others as better than yourselves.

Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges.

He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

And when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God, and he died a criminal's death on a cross.

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.

Now, what Paul writes about here in Philippians, it is like one of the most beautiful theological descriptions of Jesus that we have in all of Scripture.

We think of Jesus as a sacrifice.

We sung a lot about it today.

A lot of what we sang today is kind of a, it's getting us in the mood for Easter.

Jesus died on the cross and then he rose again.

And when he died, that was a sacrifice.

We take Lord's Supper together, we take communion together every Sunday to honor that sacrifice that Jesus made.

But before that sacrifice, he had already sacrificed far more than a human life.

Jesus left heaven.

He was worshipped, he's God.

And he left that and he sacrificed divinity, or at the very least, all of the privileges of divinity, and he came down and he became for 33 years one of us.

And he lived a life like all of us live.

He sacrificed heaven to be with us, to be near to us, to save us.

He humbled himself.

He didn't consider himself higher than us for that period of time.

He served us.

He is humility incarnate, and we're called to be like him, but it's hard.

Humility's tough.

It's one of the toughest things.

Because if we're honest, we all like to be celebrated to some degree.

If you're an extrovert, you really like to be celebrated, maybe publicly, or something like that.

If you're like Hannah and you're an introvert and you want to crawl off a stage anytime someone mentions you, at the very least, you still want to be important.

You want to be recognized for your contributions to the world.

This starts at an early age, this desire that we have to be celebrated, recognized.

We get awards in school.

Like, how many of you have been to a children's award ceremony in an elementary school classroom?

You have kids, yeah, all right.

You go, it's funny, a couple years ago I went to one for my son Judah, and every time I go to those things, I have this really like cranky attitude for the first few minutes.

I'm like, why are we here?

This is such a waste of time.

They're second graders.

This is dumb.

Until your kid gets an award.

And you're like, this is pretty good.

I'm like, okay.

I'm into this now.

A couple years ago, I'm just gonna throw this out there.

Judah was the student of the year in his class in reading and in math.

I want you to think about that.

That is both the letters and the numbers.

I'm pretty sure that's just school.

That's just saying, you win at school.

So we pulled him out in homeschooled him because we didn't want him to get a big head, you know?

We're like, let's stop.

No, I'm she's um we did do that, but for different reasons.

But but no, like he got, I was super excited.

I took a picture, and I'm celebrating that, and rightfully so.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But man, it doesn't take much to start to swell and puff up a little bit.

Social media makes it great.

Like, can we just be honest?

Can we just honestly like own our stuff?

How many of you have done the humble brag on social media at some point?

Like you've posted a picture, and it's like I'm just so blessed to here's my awesome.

No one?

Guys, how many of you have done it?

If you're honest with yourself, you're like, my motives were not completely pure.

I want it to appear as though I'm just so grateful, but in reality, kind of want everyone to know what I did or my kid did.

I think it's it's hardest with your kids, especially if your kids are good at things.

Like if you have a kid that's good at sports, oh that's it.

How many of you have a kid that's good at sports?

They're not that special.

I've learned that.

I have a kid who's good at sports.

And you're like, when they're young, you're like, I think they might be special.

And then you find out that they are, they're just special, like hundreds of thousands of other kids who are good at sports, right?

So the point is, anything that comes along in life that that is celebrated, that's exciting, it's just easy for us to use that, to go to that, to let that be a source of fulfillment in us, and and it puffs us up, we're proud.

And Jesus calls us to humility.

It's like, no, no, reject that stuff.

Be careful at the very least, be wary.

We desire at the very least to be important and to contribute.

But here's the thing we often forget how easy it actually is to be important and to contribute.

Like when we think about being celebrated or recognized, we tend to think of big things.

Especially when it comes to God.

Like if I want to be important in God's in God's eyes, I gotta do something something big.

But in reality, humility, humble acts of service, small, seemingly insignificant moments of obedience, humble service.

That is what God loves the most.

I said a few minutes ago that I thought about calling this message, uh, can I have your helmet?

And here's why.

When I was in college, I had a good friend, a bunch of good friends actually, who played football.

Uh three of my groomsmen, all but one of my groomsmen were football players at our college.

I did not fit in.

I was like the oddball.

Like I would walk through the hallways with my guys, and they're like, What?

Who's that little guy?

Um and my roommate, John, played on the football team.

Well, let me rephrase this.

He was on the football team.

He didn't play.

There's a difference.

Like I've got a buddy who goes to his hands named Cam, and he probably gonna hate this, so apologies, Cam.

But Cam played Division I college football.

He was a starting quarterback, and he threw for 3,000 yards his senior year.

And he will never tell you that, but I tell it to all these other people.

Like anyone I meet, I'm like, have you ever met Cam?

This is what he did, isn't that cool?

And he hates it.

I think he hates it, maybe he doesn't hate it.

I think the reason he hates it is because Cam is smart enough not to get his fulfillment from things he's done in the past, but he knows that the best is yet to come.

Um but I just think it's cool that he did that, so I talk about it.

So, Cam played college football.

John, my roommate, he was on a team.

It's very different.

Okay?

John was third string, he did not play.

Um, in fact, one year he was he was gaining a bunch of weight, and he was like, I don't know why I'm gaining all this weight.

And I was like, I do.

Because after every football game, everyone on the team gets a whole pizza and you eat it, but you didn't play.

Like some of those guys burned a cow, like a pizza's worth of calories.

You burned as many as I did watching the game.

So that's why, John.

Like we would have because you know, guys, when you're friends, you tease each other.

Well, John started taking things even more seriously around our junior year, and I remember he would come back to our room exhausted.

And he he was telling me, like, man, it's it's happening, it's clicking.

Like, I've been killing it in practice lately.

Coach is he's actually pointed me out several times, he's mentioned me by name, and what he was hoping for was the moment for the first time when he would get in the game.

And for a brief minute it looked like it was it was gonna happen.

There was a game about third quarter, coach yells his name, his last name, pal.

It was pal, and John just lit up, ran up to the coach because he's like, This is it, this is my Rudy moment.

You know, they're gonna put me in, and it's gonna happen.

And here's what the coach said we need your helmet.

Turns out one of the starters had had a helmet that busted, and they looked at their equipment sheet and found that John just so happened to have the exact same helmet that that starter had.

And so, John thinking, it's happening, it's my moment.

Like he's already getting puffed up, he's already excited.

Finally, my time.

I get to do my thing, and the coach is like, We need your helmet.

And if you think it's hard to be third string and get in the game with a helmet on, when you don't even have a helmet, I'm just saying your chances go way down.

I've never seen someone look as sad.

I know.

And man, did we tease him about that for so long.

Because that's what friends, that's what college guys do.

I hadn't thought about that story in a really long time, but it came back to me this week as I was preparing for this message on humanity, and what hit me was even though we we teased him and it was funny and all that kind of stuff, and in actuality, that's something to be celebrated.

He did his part.

It was a small thing, it was a humble thing, but he contributed more to a college football team in that moment than let's be honest, pretty much all of us.

Except for Cam and maybe a few other people.

But honestly, like I didn't contribute anything to our college.

I would even sneak in the games, I didn't even pay to get in.

Like I didn't I contributed nothing.

It was security was lax, man.

We weren't very good.

So in that one moment, just him taking his helmet off and giving it to his coach, he was contributing more to something bigger than himself in that moment than I ever did.

And so rather than laughing about it this week, I was thinking about it, like, yeah, that's what we're talking about.

Humble acts of service.

And if you think about scripture, scripture's filled with examples just like that.

Take Matthew.

Actually, we'll go to John.

John chapter 6, it's the story of Jesus feeding over 5,000 people miraculously.

John 6 · chapter mention

If you've been in church long, you've heard this story.

If you haven't, it's a cool story.

So here you go.

It says, Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him.

Turning to Philip, he asked, Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?

He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.

Philip replied, Even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them.

And then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up.

There's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish, but what good is that with this huge crowd?

Tell everyone to sit down, Jesus said.

So they all sat down on the grassy slopes.

The men alone numbered about five thousand.

And then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to all the people.

Afterward, he did the same thing with the fish.

They all ate as much as they wanted, and everyone was full.

Jesus told his disciples, Gather the leftovers, so nothing is wasted.

So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.

Now, incredible story.

Jesus gets the glory as he should.

He does a miracle.

It's amazing.

But you think about that boy, that nameless boy, we don't know his name.

He just had to give Jesus his bread and his fish.

It was like Jesus saying, Can I have your helmet?

And he did it, and a miracle happened.

I don't know exactly how heaven works, no one does.

But I've always thought about the fact that we're gonna like meet people in heaven that were in Scripture.

And like if you met that kid, how cool would that be?

If you're like, hey, what was your life?

Oh, I was actually, I don't want to brag, but you know, I was the kid who I was the kid who gave Jesus the loaves and fish.

If you actually met that kid, you'd be like, dude, you're famous.

People have been talking about you.

Millions of people talk about you all the time.

You were that, that's that's huge.

Like on this side of Scripture, we recognize that's a big deal.

But that wasn't anything different than my buddy John giving his coach his helmet because it's what was needed.

It was just a humble service, a humble act of obedience.

Scripture's filled with those.

In Matthew chapter 21, Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem on his way to the cross.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

It's a day that we call Palm Sunday.

In fact, we're going to be talking about that in just a few weeks.

And it says that in chapter 21, verses 2 through 3, Jesus tells his disciples, Go into the village over there, and as soon as you enter it, you'll see a donkey tied there with its colt beside it.

Untie them and bring them to me.

If anyone asks what you're doing, just say the Lord needs them and he will immediately let you take them.

So some people own a donkey.

We don't know their names.

We don't even know the name of the donkey.

Or if it had a name.

And Jesus tells his disciples, hey, I need a donkey to ride into this city on.

Go ask for one.

And if someone says, Hey, what are you doing with that donkey?

You say, go take it.

Like, just go take the donkey.

Go steal someone's donkey.

Jesus said that.

And if they're like, hey, that's my donkey, Jesus says, just say the master needs it, and they'll know what that means.

That was someone's donkey.

But that day, for that moment, that creature carried the king of the universe and brought Jesus into the place where he was destined to die and rescue all of us from the power of sin and death.

It's like the most important vehicle in history.

And it was just someone's.

We don't know who it was.

And basically, Jesus sends his disciples to say, hey, we need your helmet.

And they go, Yeah.

That's a huge deal.

Again, one day if in heaven I'm talking to someone and like, yeah, so what was your story?

Oh, well, you may have read about me in scripture.

I'm not named, not one of the named ones, but I owned a donkey and Jesus needed it.

It was my donkey that, you know.

You would be like, that's amazing.

You're famous.

People talk about you all the time.

You're in so many stories.

Humble acts of simple service and obedience.

That's what moves the heart of God.

We want to be important.

That's a good thing.

We desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

We desire to be significant, and we are, but very often in our minds, we think that to do something significant means doing something that the world celebrates, doing something that people go, wow, that's amazing.

That's a really big deal.

But what if what if it's as simple as just giving God your helmet?

What if it's as simple as just having a heart and a mind that is open to whatever God asks you to do, no matter how minuscule?

I was talking with Megan, my wife, about this a few days ago, because uh she's the sounding board.

I mean, it's just the way our life goes.

I'll be like, hey, I'm talking about humility.

I know this is weird.

I want to tell the story of John and his helmet, and I think it connects, and here's how I think it connects.

And I always use Megan as a test, because Megan, like, uh, how many of you are married to an honest woman?

Maybe, like you would say, too honest of a woman.

You know what I'm saying?

Or you're like, I don't need to know all your opinions.

But I'm joking.

I'm very tired, by the way.

I got very little sleep last night.

So if I say something, that's that's my excuse.

Um, no, no, Megan's just she's honest, and she's honest with her face.

So I know instantly when something's a bad idea, because it's just there's a face.

And so I said, Hey, the helmet thing, humility, it's like you know, helmet and the loaves and the fishes, and she goes, Like, okay.

Like, you're thinking about it.

That's not net that's not.

Bad though, because if she didn't like it, she'd be like, she just do that.

She didn't do that.

She's thinking about it.

And then she said something really profound.

She said, Yeah, because it's sort of like if God asked you for that, A, would you do it?

And B, would that be enough for you?

Would that actually bring joy to you?

Would it be enough to fill you with joy to know that I just did this little thing God asked me to do?

Or would you need something bigger?

Something that is perhaps more celebrated.

It was funny, I my role is kind of celebrated.

Um I stand on a stage almost every Sunday and I talk about Jesus.

And it's not that special because thousands of people have done it, millions of people have done it, and it's mostly plagiarism.

I'm just reading the Bible.

It's the good stuff's already been written.

I throw in a few jokes, it's not that hard, okay?

But when I think about my time at His Hands, I've been here almost 20 years.

Some of you have been here almost that amount of time.

You've seen me, you know, grow up, I guess, a little bit.

First time I ever uh spoke on the stage, I was 23 years old.

I'm 42 now, almost 42.

So I was 23, and I thought I did a good job.

I thought I crushed it.

I was 23.

I was very humble, 23, you know.

And so a short time later, the people who were in charge at the time wanted to meet with me.

And what I anticipated was like, hey, you wow, let's start there.

And uh you did so well, we want you to do it more.

We want you, we want you on that stage more often.

And I would have humbly accepted.

But what they said was, hey, great job.

You did a great job.

It was really great for us to see your communication style.

Here's what we'd like to do we're gonna put you in charge of the elementary school kids.

And for three entire years, every Sunday, I taught the first through fifth graders.

Every single Sunday.

Um, some of in fact, Riley, who's running cameras this morning, you were one of those back in the day.

I remember you.

You were pretty rambunctious.

Um you were awesome, like truly.

But that wasn't what I had in mind.

I was thinking like moving up.

The big people.

And then I think they knew that my heart needed to change.

And for three years they put me with the the little the kids, which oh you talk about training, by the way, kids are they're more honest than wives.

Like, if you don't do a good job, a third grader will make it very clear to you.

Because when you like, I know not every message is a home run, and for some of you, maybe this is the one that you're like kind of bored.

Uh, and you're you're you're tuning out right now, but you're acting like you're listening.

Third graders, they'll just like literally turn completely around.

Like you just see the back of their heads, and you know you're you're I'm doing a terrible job.

So your pride just dies.

A slow death.

For three years, that was my life.

And I'm so glad that's the way that it worked for me.

Because I I was at 23 dumb.

Not that if those of you who are 23, you're smart.

But me at 23, I I thought, like I thought I had so many things figured out, and I thought I was really good at this.

Like, hand me a microphone, here we go.

But the leaders here recognized a lot of things inside of Justin need to change, some things need to die.

Let's put them with those wild children for three years and see if it smooths some things out, and it worked, I think.

At first I I didn't love it, but I grew to.

Like I really, I really did.

It was like the highlight of my week with the little kids.

And I'm just saying that to say that even as someone who does something, I'm just recognizing I do something that is celebrated, this isn't really a big deal to me.

It's a big deal to me in that I when I walk off the stage, I really want God to be pleased.

I really do.

And I want it to help you.

But I don't need this.

I used to need it, I don't need it anymore.

Like if I didn't do this for the next year, I'd be fine.

I would be totally fine.

I would actually, in some ways, be relieved.

Um I'm not announcing that I'm leaving for a year or anything like that, but that would have been a funny segue.

Uh so on that note, peace out.

It's been real.

Okay.

Uh no.

I'm just saying that this is something I desired for so long because I saw it as a big deal, as something that was to be celebrated and and and it's not.

This is just my thing.

I just talk about Jesus.

What what is the thing that God wants you to do?

Like this is my helmet.

It's just my mouth.

What what is your helmet?

What is the thing God wants from you?

And what if it's something that in your mind is so small and so insignificant?

But in God's eyes it's huge.

Would you give it to him?

Would you give it to him?

And would you enjoy that?

Would you be able to find a joy, to actually have it be a source of joy to say, I I just did this one thing for God?

It might be, it might just be praying for somebody.

It it might mean having a conversation with someone at work that you know is struggling, and you just want them to know that, hey, I'm thinking about you and I'm praying for you.

It could be something.

I mean, it could be anything.

That's the beauty of it.

It's like an endless supply of tiny things that we can do in service to God, humble acts.

There's no end in sight.

We spend so much time trying to think sometimes what's the big thing that I can do.

I'll give you another example, and this is a shout-out to Fred.

Um, sometimes I think Fred gets too many shout outs.

So, Fred, after this one, nothing for three months.

Just, you know.

Fred was one time uh no, I don't know.

I was gonna make a dummy, I was gonna make the dumb okay, I'll tell you what the dad joke I was gonna do.

I was gonna say that Fred was once offered an award for humility, but he refused to accept it.

You know?

The trophy was just too big.

He was like, no, can't do it.

Um that was I was gonna say that dumb joke, and then I stopped myself, but then I went ahead and did it anyway.

All right.

So Fred uh has been, and a number of other people actually are involved in this.

Like there's a whole group of people sitting back that way that are awesome.

You guys know who you are.

Um they they Fred and and Jill got somehow some correspondence from a pastor in India, and I believe it started with something as simple as, and I actually think it was through their grandchildren too.

It was, I can't remember all the details, but it was basically they this orphanage needed some shoes.

And it was like, can you can you fund shoes for the orphans?

And it was very inexpensive.

And so Fred's grandchildren donated money that was theirs and they got this started, and that's how it all began.

With just this humble act of, yeah, here's some shoes.

You fast forward to today, years later, um, it's this ministry that we talk about from time to time called His Branches.

I believe there are three to five, I'm gonna get it wrong, three to five orphanages now.

Okay.

There are hundreds of pastors who have been trained and sent out to communities that have not heard the good news.

I'm probably getting some of the numbers wrong because I don't run that ministry, but it's a it's a huge deal.

It's affected like hundreds and hundreds of people.

I think in the last couple of years, it's 500-something baptisms.

And it started with, like, yeah, here's some money for shoes.

And then it grew and it grew, and it's still growing and growing and growing.

The point is, if you start with the small thing, if you if you can find joy in the humble act of service, you have no idea what that becomes.

Maybe nothing.

Maybe no one else will ever know.

It's just you and God.

And that's wonderful.

Find joy in that.

But maybe, maybe that act of obedience is the start of something bigger than you could ever imagine.

You never know.

Great example in the book of Matthew, chapter 26.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

It says, Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy.

While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over his head.

The disciples were indignant when they saw this.

What a waste, they said.

It could have been sold for a high price, the money could be given to the poor.

But Jesus, aware of this, replied, Why criticize this woman for doing such a good thing to me?

You'll always have the poor among you, you'll not always have me.

She's poured this perfume on me to prepare my body for burial, and I tell you the truth, wherever the good news is preached throughout the world, this woman's deed will be remembered and discussed.

And Jesus is, he's right about that.

Um, her story, this little moment, it's one of the only events that shows up in all of the Gospels.

It's in all of them.

And it was a it was a humble thing.

It was a big deal in some ways, it was expensive, but she valued Jesus a lot more than money.

But all she did was anoint his head.

She just honored him.

She bowed before him, she served him, she worshipped him.

And Jesus says, this will be celebrated.

Because that's what Jesus does with humility.

That's what he experienced.

He humbled himself, he became one of us, he died, humbled himself even to death, and so God exalted him, and now he is the name above all names.

So the question, and we'll we'll begin to land the plane, uh can we find joy in little humble acts of service?

Can we be people who just say, God, if you want my helmet, it's yours.

Whatever that is for you.

Can we find joy in that?

And we are warned, by the way, in this scripture of Paul's that we're reading, that there are some things that get in the way of that.

Because human nature is an interesting thing.

So on one hand, we're like, yes, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant, God, I will do it, and I will just beam and know that I did it for you and that's good enough for me.

But Paul's wise.

And the Holy Spirit inspiring Paul is very wise, and there's things that are going to get in the way of that, if we're honest with ourselves.

He says, look, don't do anything out of selfish ambition.

Don't do anything with an ulterior motive.

If God calls you to do something, just do it.

Maybe don't even tell anybody about it.

Just let it be between you and him.

Check your heart at the very least, and if it's a story that you want to tell because you think it brings God glory, great.

But just check your heart and make sure that you don't have ambition, that there's not a desire in you to take that and use it to prop yourself up.

Paul says, don't do that because it's so easy to do that.

It's so easy to do that.

He says, Don't try to impress others.

Don't even try.

It's pointless.

Man, I I've has anyone here ever wasted significant amounts of time like trying to impress people, only for it to backfire completely?

Yeah.

I'll tell you what'll break, what'll break you of that, just personal experience.

Um just work really hard to impress people and then disappoint them.

It's like inevitable.

No, but seriously, I I had a group of people at one point, when I first became the pastor here, I was 30 years old.

So I was super young for this role, and I felt that.

I felt insecure in a lot of ways about it.

Sometimes I still do, but but back then, very much so, because a lot of the people who I was supposed to lead had been people that I had seen as leaders of me, and now I'm supposed to lead them, and I wanted to impress them.

I wanted them to be like, you are wow, you're great.

And so I worked really, really hard for many, many years to impress those people, to show them, like, wow, I'm a good leader, right?

Like I really hear from God, have you noticed?

Um and I didn't do it like that, I'm I'm being facetious, but I did want them, I wanted, I cared very much what they thought about me.

And then I remember there was this moment where I made a decision that was like completely within my purview here, and they didn't fully agree with it.

And so I listened to their feedback and I was like, that's actually interesting feedback.

Let me think about it, let me pray about it.

And I did, and I thought about it truly, and I prayed about it, and I was like, no, I I think this is the direction we need to go.

And in my role, I gotta make some of those decisions.

So I made those decisions, thank you for the feedback, and like within a month of that, several of them were like, hey, God is calling us somewhere else.

And I was like, No, he's not.

Just be honest.

You're mad.

They know it's God.

You can use God for that.

I guess he's okay with that.

You can just, if you're dating someone, you say, I just think God wants me to be single for a while.

Just use God, throw that out there, just use him as your get out of jail card.

Um, so you don't have to have an awkward conversation.

I'm not actually suggesting that.

Completely facetious, a little cynical.

Maybe I'm a little burned, okay?

Maybe there's some bitterness inside of me.

I need to pray, Lord, let help me.

Okay.

Another version.

Some of you guys know this about me.

And worship team, you guys can make your way out.

Um, you know, I joked earlier about being a Duke basketball fan, huge Duke basketball fan.

I know some of you who are, it's still too soon.

We'll never forget about what happened last night.

But for several years, some of you who know me well know this story.

I was a sports journalist and I covered Duke, and I spent many years covering that team.

I've been in their locker room and interviewed players, the current coach there interviewed him when he was a player.

The first time I got to interview Coach Kay, who was the former coach at Duke, who's like a legend, I do, I wanted that guy to think I was awesome.

So I thought for days about the question I would ask him when he finally called on me.

And I had he pointed to me.

I was working for CBS Sports, and he called my name, and I was like, had it, Coach Coach K, Justin, CBS Sports.

And then I rattled off this question that I had like researched and crafted.

Because I wanted him to be like, that question shows me that you are a basketball genius.

And instead, Coach K went, I don't like that question.

And he called on somebody else.

That was my first moment with that guy.

And I was just like, you know.

Yeah, but the the issue is not good for him.

Why should he waste his time with a question that was clearly motivated by my own pride?

Like he was wise to recognize that.

I don't want to answer that question.

The issue is that I had such a desire to impress him.

And we're we're we're called, not don't do that.

If you have a desire to impress people, that will destroy humility.

Like it's just a breeding ground for pride.

And if you can actually say, I care so much what God thinks, and I care a little bit what a small number of people who I really respect think, and I don't really care that much about what everybody thinks.

If you can be free of trying to impress people, oh, that lets humility grow, and pride just doesn't have something to latch on to.

So don't try to impress people.

Don't have selfish ambition.

Don't compare yourselves to everybody.

Don't try to compete and get ahead.

Life is not a competition.

Just humble yourself and say, Lord, I'm gonna use this one more time, this analogy until it's beat to dust.

You have my heart and you have my helmet.

Whatever you need from me, it's yours.

I'll do it.

And help me when I do it, not to let it fill me with pride.

Help me not to do it with an ulterior motive for any selfish reason.

Help me not do it in a way that I use to impress other people or compete with other people for some type of like holiness, spiritual award.

But Lord, I just want to do whatever you ask me to do, no matter how small it might be.

You have my yes.

It's yours.

And if you can find joy, if you can find joy in small, humble acts of service to God, you will be tapping into an unending source of joy that most people never experience.

If all it takes for you to have real joy is simple acts of obedience to God, you're gonna have joy your entire life.

Every day you'll have something.

Every day God will give you a little mission.

There will be some moment where you're like, this is what God wants me to do, and you do it, and if that fills you with joy, I mean, watch out.

You have more joy than most people know what to do with.

It's the joy of humility.

Small, simple, and oftentimes insignificant acts of obedience to God.

They're awesome.

They do so much for us, they allow us to be part of what he's doing in this world, and very often they grow and become bigger than what we we could ever imagine.

But even if they don't, even if they don't, they're they're what God loves.

And if we love him, we have to learn to love what he loves.

With that said, let's take Lord's Supper together.

And if you're new, I don't want you to miss out on this.

You're not forced to either, there's no pressure.

But if you want to take part in this, we have these cups with bread and juice.

They're in the back, but sometimes when you walk in, there's lots of people, it's easy to walk past this.

So get up, grab one if you want.

We do this every Sunday.

This is our way, like I said earlier, to remember the sacrifice, to honor the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.

And we've got a very small piece of bread.

It's it's humble, I think we could say, but obviously it represents something incredible.

But it's amazing how often something incredible and something humble are the same thing in God's eyes, because we were just told in Philippians that Jesus humbled himself even to the point of death on a cross.

This was the ultimate act of humility in Jesus' life.

The God of the universe, the creator of everything, with all power, allowing himself to be killed.

What could be more humble?

And he did that for our benefit, but also as an act of obedience to the Father.

Sets the perfect example for all of us.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this piece of bread.

This is both humble, small, and at the same time bigger than anything we could possibly imagine.

This is your son.

This is the body of your one and only son, broken for our benefit.

As we eat this, Lord, remind us how much you value and love humility.

And as we take this into us, let us also take in that same attitude that your son had.

Help us be willing servants, ready to do anything, no matter how small.

Let's take the bread.

Now the juice.

You poured everything out, you held nothing back.

That is how fully you obeyed your Father.

Help us do the same.

We thank you, Lord.

Without this, we would have no hope.

But through this, through what this represents, our faith in you, our acceptance of your sacrifice on the cross is our only means of forgiveness and mercy.

We have hope.

We have life.

We thank you, Jesus.

Let's take the juice.