Humility | Proverbs | Jarryd Cole

Welcome to the Ambassador Church Podcast, a church in the city for the city, on Milwaukee's east side.

We pray this message meets you where you are, challenges your faith, and draws you closer to Jesus.

All right, all right.

You can go ahead and find your seats.

And good morning.

Welcome again to Ambassador Church.

I'm excited to jump in this morning.

If you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and grab those out.

You can meet me in the book of Proverbs.

It's there in your Old Testament.

If you came here this morning, you found us in the second week of our new sermon series called Real Wisdom for Real Life.

As we've been jumping into Proverbs, Proverbs is a unique book, right?

It's not like many of the other books in your Bible.

It doesn't flow like the other books.

It's not like a narrative, it's not like stories, it's not like uh doctrine, all this kind of stuff.

It doesn't really flow in any cohesive manner or collective thoughts, right?

But we treat it a little different because of that.

And so over these next several weeks, we'll be jumping around, including today, uh, looking at several Proverbs to see what Proverbs has to say about wisdom on certain topics.

And so if you were here last week, we put up a slide that showed uh all the different topics we're gonna be talking about.

Here it is again, and we're gonna see uh from the book of Proverbs, King Solomon, he wrote a lot of these Proverbs.

We're gonna see what he has to say about different topics like this.

And our hope is that over the next nine weeks, this will be a really helpful and practical series for all of us as we deal with and dig into the wisdom of God.

If you were here last week, we talked about uh wisdom and the fear of God as we set the tone for this series.

And we're even gonna talk a little bit about the fear of God today, more about wisdom.

Because if you think about it, if you think about the book of Proverbs as a whole, what Proverbs is doing is trying to help us as people understand what the wisdom of God is versus the foolishness of the world.

And so, if you want to put Proverbs in a nutshell, the question is asking is how can you walk in wisdom and free from foolishness?

How can you pursue things that are wise and pursue and flee from things that are folly?

So, this is the question that we're asking.

And so, as we're looking at these topics, this is what we're gonna do.

What does wisdom say as we're looking at a lot of these different things?

And so today we're gonna be talking about humility.

As I was preparing for this message, you can imagine uh humility can kind of feel like an elusive trait.

It's not easy to pinpoint humility, you can't just put your finger on it, like all these kinds of things.

You think about it, and it's hard for a person like an achiever like myself.

Any achievers in the room, right?

You just want to strive and go get and all that kind of stuff.

And the main question you always have when you're doing things is like, Am I doing it?

Have I done it enough?

Right?

Like, give me some feedback.

Like, how how's it going?

It can be difficult for an achiever.

Why?

Because what are you gonna do?

You're gonna just like say, hey, I'm the most humble person in the room.

Have I achieved humility?

I mean, think about so many of the topics.

You can look at things like marriage and speech and work and all this kind of stuff.

You can say, hey, yeah, I've gotten more of a rain on my tongue lately, right?

I I have a right view of work in my life.

So many different my marriage, it may not be the best it can be, but it's better than it was, right?

Like you can kind of measure some of those things.

But humility is it's it's kind of different.

Because the moment you're like, I'm growing in humility.

You can't say stuff like that.

The moment you talk about it, it just dissolves from your hand, right?

Like you can't talk about humility like that.

But here's the thing: even so, the scriptures are full of this call for Christians to be humble.

And we're gonna see this in several passages this morning.

But first, I want to help kind of define humility for us, okay?

So we're all on the same page.

And I want to do this by talking about a couple different narratives.

Two narratives, two people, they're both hypothetical, okay?

Don't think about it too long.

But the first one is this guy named Jack.

Jack lived a life of excess.

He based his well-being on how much he could accomplish and how many things he could buy.

He believed that he didn't, if he didn't live a life that pursued pleasure and power, then he wasn't living a life worth living.

He modeled his reality that if it didn't benefit him, then he wouldn't give any time or attention to it.

He used people to his own advantage.

He hardly listened to any advice.

At the end of his life, he had done a lot, he was well known, he had popularity and influence.

And on his deathbed, here's what's his final words.

He said, I did it.

No one has lived a better life than me.

That's Jack.

Then this girl named Liz.

And Liz was a woman who lived a life of scarcity.

She lived a kind of minimalist life.

She believed that if she wasn't living a life giving up everything to her name, then she wasn't living a life worth living.

She lived a life modeling this reality that her worth and value came from how much she could neglect herself, not how much she could get.

Her wants and her needs, all of it given away.

She hardly did anything for herself, but did everything for others.

And at the end of her life, she had done a lot, but unlike Jack, she wasn't well known.

She was easily forgotten.

And on her deathbed, her final words were this, I did it.

No one has lived a better life than me.

So a question for the room this morning: Which one of these people do you think were humble?

Jack?

Or Liz?

Just curious, raise your hand for Jack.

Was he humble?

What about Liz?

Was she humble?

At least a couple hands that went up on that one.

Trick question?

Neither one was humble.

Both are prideful.

Because here's what we have to know.

When you think about humility and pride, they're just opposed against one another.

And here's how pride can kind of trick us, right?

Because pride obviously has this kind of self-exaltation face.

We know that.

But then pride also has a self-degradation face as well.

How many of you know this?

See, self-exultation is when we have too high of a view of ourselves, but self-degradation is when we have too low of a view of ourselves.

And so when we think about a life like Jack, it's easy to pinpoint that and be like, hey, that's pride.

When we think about pride, things, people like Jack, when you behave like Jack, like that's what comes to mind.

But when we think about self-degradation, a life kind of lived like Liz, this is harder to spot.

It's harder to spot pride in the person who's living their lives not for themselves, who never value their own opinions, who always are making self-deprecating remarks, who never have any passions, who never speak up for themselves or the people who need to be spoken up for.

And if we're honest in the room, some of us are like Liz, and we call that being humble.

Can I tell us what humility really is?

C.S.

Lewis has this quote, it's gonna pop up here on the screen.

C.S.

Lewis, old Christian author, here's what he says: he says, true humility is not thinking less of yourself, but it is thinking of yourself less.

So humility isn't saying I'm worthless.

Humility is not saying I have nothing to offer or believing the lies that people tell you that you'll never measure up, you're stupid, you won't amount to anything.

No, that's not being humble.

What that is, that's being prideful through self-degradation.

And the scriptures don't call us to that, but nor do they call us to self-exultation.

Here's what they call us to.

Here's the kind of humility I kind of want to unpack for the rest of the morning today.

Humility is really burned out of two things: right assessment and no advantage.

Humility is when you have a right assessment of who we are and a recognition that there is no advantage in who we are.

No advantage.

Meaning there's nothing about you that makes you better than anybody else.

Yes, different, but not better.

Uh last year we were coming into the summertime and we were doing preview services, and uh it was July 27th.

It was a Sunday, I'll never forget it, okay?

We were gathering here for one of the first towns.

We held one in June as well, had our second one in July.

And there was a young woman in the back, just right back there in that section back there behind you.

And she was sitting back there.

We were beginning worship.

Many of you were probably here at that time.

You guys remember this?

And the worship started, and all of a sudden, we hear this big boom.

This thud happens.

And this woman, she falls back, she faints, all this kind of stuff.

And we had security who popped up, went straight over.

I had never been more grateful that we had so many meds medical students in this church than that day, who snapped into action for that.

Security popped up, somebody called the authorities right away.

The like the ambulance was here in no time.

Somebody went over to the woman and got down beside her, was taking vitals, all that kind of stuff, making sure she was okay.

Her husband got up, yelled, screamed, okay.

She was even pregnant with her second child.

Her first one was up in ambassador kids, all this kind of stuff.

It was a wild Sunday.

Make some noise if you remember that Sunday.

Anybody in the room remember that?

She's okay, by the way, if you're asking, all right?

She's she's great.

She's living doing her thing.

Babies are all fine.

But could you imagine if the people who knew what to do in that moment didn't do anything in that moment?

If the people who knew how to help were like, I don't want to be so prideful, and that's a lot of light on me, and I'm just kind of doing this kind of that's not humble.

That's not humility.

You kidding me?

You better get your behind up and spring into action if you know how to do the thing.

Right assessment, doing what you know how to do.

That's not pride.

That's actually demonstrating the gift that God's given you.

Like, you better do those kind of things.

That's not what humility is.

It's gotta be first a right assessment of who we are.

This principle also oozes out of the gospel.

I love the way the apostle Paul talks about this reality in the book of Philippians.

He spends almost two whole chapters talking about humility in the gospel, and in chapter two, through the lens of Jesus, but in chapter three, through the lens of himself, it's gonna pop up here on the screen here in Philippians 3, 3 through 6.

Here's what Paul says.

He says, For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh.

Hear this.

But although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh, hear what Paul says about himself.

If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have even more than them.

Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the beloved tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews.

Regarding the law, I was a Pharisee.

Regarding zeal, I even persecuted the church.

Regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.

You see what Paul's doing right here?

He's like, right assessment, he's saying, Hey, check my resume.

If you can find somebody who has a better resume than this, find them.

I dare you.

Show me a better one.

But look at what he says in verse 7.

He says, But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered it to be a loss.

Why?

Because of Christ.

Right advantage or right assessment in Paul.

No advantage in Paul.

This is what he shows us is true humility.

Which means he doesn't go around bragging about what he's done.

He doesn't go around flaunting his resume and what he can get accomplished.

Look at me, look at me, although he could.

He says that here in Philippians 3.

But because of what's new about him in Christ, he no longer looks at himself at all, but he looks at Christ.

He no longer sees himself as the advantage, but he looks in the right direction.

He takes his eyes off himself, looks at God, and says, Hey, Christ is the advantage.

And as we look at his treatment of pride in Paul's life, he actually helps us diagnose and treat the pride in our own lives.

And what he does is he helps us see that pride isn't primarily about who we are and what we have.

It's not primarily an identity or possession issue.

Here's what Paul's saying: he's saying that it is a focus issue, it is a vision issue.

Is your focus on God or is your focus on yourself?

In other words, for the Christian, humility is God focus.

Pride is self-focus, however you slice it, self-exaltation or self-degradation, both of those, when you have your eyes so surfing yourself, that's pride.

Humility is the opposite.

It's taking your eyes off of yourself and looking at God.

And church, here's what we have to know about pride: God hates pride.

Hear these verses, you're not gonna see them, but listen to me.

Proverbs 29, verse 23 says this a person's pride will humble him, but a humble spirit will gain honor.

Proverbs 29:23

Proverbs 3 34 says this.

He mocks those.

God mocks those who mock, but he gives grace to the humble.

In James and chapter 4, verse 6, the brother of Jesus, he says this God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

He puts a new spin on Proverbs 3.

And in Matthew 23, Jesus even says, Hey, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

What are these verses telling us in all about pride?

Here it is pride is sin, and God hates pride.

And the way we find it, I hope you're here this morning, is not that we begin to try to do some things in ourselves that we tend to be like, man, I'm so lowly and all this kind of stuff, but we wholly and completely decide, Holy Spirit, help me take my eyes off myself and help me put them on you.

So here's what we're doing for the rest of our time is I want to help us grow and what it means to move towards humility instead of pride.

People who focus our eyes on God rather than people who focus our eyes on ourselves.

And here's how I want to do this: a couple different movements.

First, I want to show us two drivers of biblical humility.

I want to show us what biblical humility leads us towards, and then I want to give us an action step to walk away with this morning.

Super practical.

You guys in on that?

All right, let's get it.

The first driver is this biblical humility is driven by a fear of God.

Here's what it says in Proverbs 15.

You can turn there quickly if you can.

Proverbs 15, verse 33.

Proverbs 15:33

It says, the fear of the Lord is what wisdom teaches, and humility comes before honor.

If you remember last week we talked about the fear of God back then, you can go back and listen to that message.

We dealt with it in detail.

We won't hear.

But I mentioned that the fear of God is this.

Maybe you came in the room today and you're wondering, okay, the fear of God.

I know about the fear of God.

I've been told about scared, tactic, all this kind of stuff.

Maybe you came in today because, or maybe you, this is your first time coming in today because you're just like, I don't know about church.

Because what I grew up learning is all this kind of stuff about the fear of God.

God's like this cosmic meaning.

He just wants to pick me by my collar and just shake me and say, hey man, obey or else.

This was about the fear of God.

But last week we defined the fear of God not as that.

It's not like being scared out of your mind.

But what it is, is this deep and reverent awe for a holy God.

And I want us to see this correlation between these two concepts from this verse, the fear of God and humility.

Not oppositional, apositional, meaning this, that one leads to the other.

So inevitably, when we grow in the fear of God, simultaneously we grow in biblical humility.

But the opposite is also true, right?

When we begin to lack in our fear of God, then we begin to lack in biblical humility.

There's a game I often play with my kids.

Well, used to play a lot with my kids, and we called it playing monster.

Anybody with kids like play like a monster game, you run around the house, you just chase them, and all that kind of stuff.

It's one of the games my kids just love to play.

And as a kid, you gotta understand, this is a really fun game, okay?

Some of us in the room, we even still get this because we have a little, you know, scary bone in us.

We kind of get excited when we get a little scared, right?

And we kind of like that.

But kids love this.

And what happens when I play monster with my kids?

Uh, one of two things happens.

Either it's really fun, everybody has a good time, or we get a little bit rough and somebody's crying, okay?

Like this is what happens when we play monster.

And one of the things about monster is the the kids in the room, maybe you babysat before, but when you're chasing kids around the house, they get a little puffed up and cocky when you're at a distance away, right?

Maybe you've been playing on stairs, the kids at the top of the stairs, nanna na na boo-boo, you you, you know?

And as soon as you make that first little jump, boom, screaming, crying all the tears, running around.

My kids are no different.

This is what happens with them.

And oftentimes, you know, back in the day, first had kids that were really young, uh, introducing them to this game, uh, often it what ended more fearful than it ended fun.

All right.

Dad got a little bit uh carried away.

To the point, six years ago, 2020, we actually had to put a pause on the game, okay?

We were like, hey, this isn't really fun anymore.

You guys aren't really having a good time.

Maybe we'll just stop playing Monster for a little bit.

Had a slogan for it, but No Monsters 2020.

Dad, can we play Monster?

No, No Monsters 2020.

Isn't that crazy?

Like kids, even though they're like having a difficult time, hard time, they hate it, right?

They know tears are gonna come almost immediately, and they're just like, Can we still play monster?

No, we're not playing monster.

But I love this because it kind of shows this reality of fear.

It's like we understand what it means to be fearful of something that is much larger and greater than yourself.

Don't we?

In full circle, I want to bring this to us, right?

This isn't the kind of fear that Proverbs is talking about.

It's not this fear that kind of makes you run away and cower under the covers.

It's not the one that makes you want to go hide into the closet, but this kind of fear of God is the kind of God that should actually draw you closer and nearer to Him.

This is the kind of fear that we're talking about, a reverent awe of a holy God.

Yes, rightly understanding the difference between you two, but not one that pushes you away, it's one that draws you near.

This is the kind of fear of God that humbles us.

Fearing God isn't this kind of fear that makes you see God as a fretful monster, but it's a reverent fear of God and being in awe that helps us see ourselves for who we really are and helps us see God for who he really is.

We are sinful people, we are weak people, we are imperfect and we are finite.

But here's who God is: He is holy, he is perfect, he is powerful, and he is forever.

He is the definition of glory.

Speaking of glory, do you know where glory comes from?

We think like big and bright and showy whenever we think of words like glory.

In the Hebrew where this word comes from, it actually means like weight.

There's a heaviness to glory.

You know, you see something that's just so magnificent in the glorious nature of it.

The only word you have to define it is glorious, and it's just except it's it's it's overwhelming.

But the emotion that you feel, what you feel on your nervous, and what you feel in your body is this heaviness of like, whoa! I am woefully overmatched with this.

God is glorious.

Sometimes I play monster with my kids and I put my whole weight on them and I make them scream.

And they're like, and I'm like, what?

You can't take the glory of your dad?

You know?

That's just a joke.

Okay, anyway.

Here's the point: if you've met Jesus, you've seen the glory of God.

You've seen his weighty presence and his holy nature and character should be enough to cause us to fall to our knees in reverent, holy awe of a holy God.

Wonder and joy.

Biblical humility is driven by a fear of God.

Secondly, biblical humility is driven by a trust in God.

The second point, Proverbs 3, 5 through 8.

Here's what this says popular passage.

It says, Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding in all your ways.

Know him, and he will make your path straight.

Don't be wise in your own eyes, but fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

This will be healing for your body and strengthening for your bones.

You see this?

Biblical humility is driven by a trust in God.

Trusting God means you have more faith in him and his ways than you do in yourself in your own ways.

It means relying completely on him for guidance and the direction in your life.

And in order to do that, it takes humility.

And I love the kind of outcome of this in the Proverbs.

It says that this even has a benefit to you.

How many of you know and want to trust in and lean into the benefits of God?

We often think of like some of us who can be super churched or just like, yeah, I'm just whatever, I'm here, whatever, no, no, no, no, no benefits from God.

But no, did you know God loves you?

He desires to be with you, and he's a good God, He's a good father, and He desires to give you benefits.

Just fully trusting in Him can be healing for your body, it can even be strengthening for your bones, your inner bones.

Man can be recovered, can be healed.

Only by relying completely on him, though, for guidance and direction in your life.

A while back before we started Ambassador Church, I went to this town, Dayton, Ohio.

Okay.

And many of you heard this story before, but I was with this guy called a church plant guru, whose name is Luke Francis.

He's amazing.

Um, and I remember I got to his house and I sat down in his basement.

And in his basement, he had this all planned.

I had no idea what I was walking into, but I spent the next 48 hours of my life in his basement with like getting literally everything in my mind out of my mind for the sake of what we're hoping to see here in the city of Milwaukee.

And I remember I sit down in this chair and he comes talking to me.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and he just like jujitsu tricks my mind.

This gets me to just explode and all this kind of stuff.

And the first thing I see is this white tearaway sheet on the wall.

And on this wall, it had these kind of four truths about the Christian faith.

I want us to see this, it's gonna pop up here on the screen.

If you are a Christian, here's what's true about you, okay?

The lens that we now see our lives through.

God leads and we follow.

God speaks and we listen.

God starts and sustains, and God gives unique vision.

How many know that this is true for your life?

When you place your faith in Jesus Christ, one, you give up the reins.

God leads and you follow.

You begin to listen to a voice that's outside of yourself to give you the best direction, of course, for your life.

You God speaks and you listen.

God is the starter and he is the sustainer.

He is the starter of your salvation, the starter of all things in your life, and he will ultimately bring them to completion however he sees fit.

God gives you unique vision.

You were saved for a purpose.

You are a workmanship of God.

There's something specific God has for you.

These are true things for all Christians everywhere.

And when I was in this moment, this was the first thing I saw on the sheet of paper.

In my mind, thinking through the Christian leadership lens and the achiever mindset that I have, what I begin to do is I begin to rank this list.

I'm like, okay, Jared.

And this wasn't even part of the exercise.

This is just who I am, right?

I'm just looking at this sheet of paper, and I'm like, how am I doing in these four things?

You know what I end up doing?

I end up turning the list on its head.

Look at this next slide.

This is my list of how I reordered these in my own mind.

Here's what's true.

I was firmly planted in this idea that God first gives unique vision, that God starts and sustains, God speaks and I listen, and God leads, I follow.

Now listen, this list isn't supposed to be in any particular order.

There's just four true things.

But if you're a person like me and you can be a person that's like, man, how am I doing in these things?

You want to rank them in four different ways?

I wonder what you would say.

What would you think is the most true in your life right now?

What do you think is the most truthful thing about the Christian faith right now for you?

Not what you want to be true, but how your life is actually lived.

This is how I ranked it back then.

I was full of this idea because I was hopped up on vision and excitement for a new thing that God might be doing.

I'm like, yo, God, I know I trust you for the vision.

You give you any vision.

Yeah, yeah, thank you for all the vision.

I'm the vision guy.

God starts to sustain, like, yes, God, only by your power, only by your might.

I just want to be a part of it.

Let's do it.

But then when it came to God speaks and I listen and God leads and I follow, here's what I began to know that was true about me.

I wanted to be the primary voice in my life.

That led my steps, that ordered my way, that did what I wanted to do primarily, not what God wanted me to do.

I wanted to lead, not follow.

I didn't want to wait.

Do you know what I was most pressured by when I was in my like you guys all know what this means, church print residency, okay?

But the thing you're doing before you're actually doing the thing, I was full of impatience, man.

The number one thing I've had to do with the past leaders in my life is literally apologize because I had been a poor follower.

Not only of God, but of them as well.

And leaders in the room.

If you lead anybody, if you're a parent, if you're whatever, a maybe you're in business and all that kind of stuff, you're a teacher.

Do you know what makes poor leaders?

Poor followers.

If you can't follow well, you won't be a good leader.

And you know who best to follow?

Nobody but better than your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Nobody better.

And so as I was thinking about this, here's what I learned that yes, I believed in God and I trusted him with my future.

I was secure in eternity.

It wasn't about that, right?

It wasn't that I wasn't trusting God for my salvation and all this kind of stuff.

It wasn't like I wasn't like reading the Bible and any of that, but I wasn't trusting God for my day-to-day.

Like I trusted him with whatever's coming in the future, but I'm like, God, but I gotta hold on to this right here.

Because I don't know if you have the best in mind for me.

I was trying to be the master of my own faith, the captain of my own ship.

Even as I was in prayer, even as I was reading the Bible, even as I was doing all these kinds of things, but here's what's true: in those moments, I would be valuing information over intimacy.

I was going to God all the while, having my eyes fixed on myself.

And you want to know what comes of stuff like that?

You'll get this sense of anxiety in your body.

Sense of stress.

I remember many nights, lack of sleep, insecurity welling up in me, comparison, so many different kinds of things.

Maybe some of you have been in a season like this, maybe you're in one right now, like there's a fog literally in your mind, underlying levels of stress that you haven't been able to name.

I hope you get a chance to be able to name them today.

Full of anxiety, full of insecurity.

I want to point us to a proverb right here, Proverbs 16, 18.

It's gonna pop up here on the screen.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

You can find it if you want.

Proverbs 16, 18.

Pride comes before destruction in an arrogant spirit before a fall.

Another popular proverb.

Pride comes before destruction in an arrogant spirit before a fall.

Often when we think of this proverb, we think of like some huge fall from grace.

But a fall, even in this context, could simply be the pit of depression or anxiety that you find yourself in because you refuse to let go of the steering wheel of your life.

Because you refuse to trust in God.

And to be clear, I'm not trying to mock clinical depression or clinical anxiety here.

I believe those are real conditions that need real medical attention.

But what I'm talking about is this ability that we have in our lives to mishandle our trust and the type of depression and anxiety that can result of that when you're stuck not in trust of something outside yourself, but you're stuck in self-absorption.

Trust in your own self.

And if this is you this morning, here's what I want you to know.

If you're still just have this kind of death grip on your life, you think you need to be the one that's in control.

You think you need the one that's kind of steering your life.

You're afraid of what might happen if you were to literally let your hands go and trust God for the things in your life.

If this is you, here's what I want you to know.

You don't have to hold on to all the fears and worries in your life.

The scriptures tell you where you can take that.

You can take those to Jesus.

Can I just comfort you for a moment?

You can literally take your fears and worries to Jesus.

Some of us are feeling so squashed under the emotional pressure of our lives.

Why?

Because we're still holding on to the suitcases of fear and worry that we were never meant to carry.

So you don't have to do that anymore.

You can actually bring those to Jesus.

He's not afraid of your emotions.

He's not afraid of the questions that you have.

He's not afraid of all the things that you've experienced through failed expectations and all that kind of stuff, but you can actually bring it to the cross.

He's big enough to handle it and he's big enough to do something about it, most importantly.

You can bring your fears and worries to Jesus, but you can also just rest.

And I say this again for all of the achievers in the room.

Because if you're anything like me, this is what's hard to hear.

You just like working, you just like running your nails down to the bone.

Even when you have an opportunity for rest, even when someone says, Hey, I can do it for you, you don't have to worry about that.

You're like, I'd rather just do it and worry myself, okay?

Leave me alone to my own worry.

This can be us.

But this should be a consensus reminder in our lives that we can be people who rest.

Like, I don't know what you have to do.

If you're taking notes, write that down, achiever in the room.

You can rest.

I can rest.

Write it down.

Print it out, put it on your fridge, put it on your mirror, whatever you see, put it on the steering wheel in your car so you can see it all the time.

Because your default will be to not lean into your weakness and be like, hey God, help me be a person who rests.

Help me become a person who can stop.

Help me become a person who can trust.

Why?

Because your failure to rest may be the thing that's fueling your pride and killing your ability to trust in God.

Don't you know you're not the one holding on to your life anyway?

You're not the one holding it up.

God is.

So this invitation to rest is a powerful word and reminds us of the truth in Galatians 6.20.

Remember what Paul says to the church in Galatia?

He says that it's no longer I who live, but it's Christ who lives in me.

Which means the Christian life isn't lived by us, but it's Christ living through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's not us, but it is Christ that should free us from the realm.

To know that He is the one who was starting it, He is the one who was sustaining it, and He is the one who says He will bring it to completion.

You can be a person who rests.

And so biblical humility is driven by the fear of God, it's driven by trust in God.

But here's a question we have to answer now it's what does biblical humility lead us to?

Here it is.

Biblical humility leads us to a love for God.

See, those of you who need to know, love is the highest virtue in the Christian faith.

There's nothing greater than love, and there's nothing that will outlast love.

I want to take this to the New Testament in Matthew chapter 22, 37 through 39.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

Here's what Jesus says.

Somebody comes to him and asks him, hey, what is the greatest law and commandment?

Here's what Jesus says in response.

He says, it is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind.

This is the greatest, most important command.

And the second one is like it to love your neighbor as yourself.

He says, All of the law and prophets, everything you need to know about God depends on these two commandments love and love.

So when we're becoming people who are more in awe in the fear of God, when we are becoming people who are more trusting in who God is in our lives, here's what's true: biblical humility should lead us to a love for God.

But not only that, Jesus is clear in saying it should push us to a love for others.

One of the core attributes of humility is that it pushes us not only to be God focused, but others focused.

And many of us can forget this because in our 2026 American context, our rabid individualism that we all want to be a part of, even that, believe it or not, makes its way into our spirituality and our spiritual beliefs.

And we think, man, all I need in my Christian faith is just me and Jesus.

I just need me and my Bible.

I just need me, my spot I love to go to, my nice cup of hot coffee, or my latte, or my matcha.

The green stuff is disgusting, by the way.

Don't drink those.

And I need Jesus.

This is about it, okay?

We want to be this kind of tunnel vision on Jesus and me relationship without actually applying the things Jesus is actually telling us to do.

But if we listen to him, we will know that Christianity isn't about this kind of individual faith.

Christianity is the communal faith.

But hear this yes, you do need an individual relationship with God to be saved.

Nobody can believe in God for you.

Nobody can trust in God for you.

This is something that you have to do.

You have to have this individual belief in God.

You need to know that you know, that you know at the core of yourself that you believe in a holy God, that you are saved.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

But there's a reason why you have to.

It's not just for that and for that reason only, but there's a reason.

It's so that you can now begin to live the life of obedience that He's now called you to, which is ultimately this: a life governed by a humble love and relationship with God, so that you can have it live a life with humble relationship with those people around you.

One of the most profound realities of coming to faith in Christ is this new family reality that we have.

Family in the church universal and family in the church local.

I love that reality of being a Christian.

That because you are in Christ, you are now part of this family universally of all believers everywhere across the globe, and not only that, all believers everywhere across time periods.

Do you guys understand what that means for us in our lives?

And we get to call Peter, Paul, James, brothers, Ruth, Mary, and all the other Marys in the New Testament, sisters.

We are part of a larger family, far greater.

Our brothers and sisters overseas who are not being persecuted for the faith.

People can't even gather like this.

Brothers and sisters, spiritual moms and dads in the faith.

Even people we can be learning from.

The universal church, we are now a new family, but also locally.

This is why family is a core value here at Ambassador Church.

The church isn't just like family, the church actually is family.

What happens when you believe in Jesus is you become an heir of God.

You are co-heirs with Christ.

We are adopted sons and daughters of God, but not only that, we are also brothers and sisters now to one another.

Because of what Jesus has done, we are not only adopted children of God, but we are responsible siblings who are called to love one another and display that love to the world.

Love again is the highest virtue in the Christian faith.

And here's what's true for the room: the Bible knows nothing of an unloving Christian.

And any of the Christians in the text who show this unloving behavior, what do you know to be true?

They are rebuked, they are challenged, and their story arc is them learning to grow on what it looks like to love.

And guess what?

If you're wondering what the power of the Holy Spirit is doing in you right now, who believe in Jesus, it is working that in you as well.

It is working you to grow in this kind of biblical, radical humility that grows in this love for God and love for the people around you.

It is pressing you into being a more loving person.

Even to those who are different than us, even to those who live different, who vote different, who sin different, whatever, right?

The Christian call is to love, driven by a humility that's rooted in the fear of God and rooted in the trust of God.

But we also have to know this fear isn't, or this love isn't just exists simply for the sake of loving other people.

Like there's good intent in that, but there's no inherent good in that.

But as Christians, our humble love for others is an outcome of our love for God, and even deeper than that, it's an outpouring of God's humble love even for us.

I love what it says in 1 John.

1 John tells us that we only love God.

Why?

Because he first loved us.

And here's what's true: if a holy and perfect and powerful God chose biblical humility to put on human flesh, to display the ultimate form of love and to die, a criminal's death for a sinful people like us, then how much more so should we who have received the benefits of this love choose biblical humility?

Why?

To die to ourselves and come alive in the spirit and live for the people around us.

If Jesus can do that too, the right response is for us to be that to one another.

If you're not a Christian in the room, I want to speak to you for just a moment.

Maybe you're just visiting, maybe you're checking out Ambassador Church for the first time, maybe you're just trying to jump back into your faith.

You walked into these doors.

We're glad you're here.

I want to be clear with you about the gospel.

This is what you need to know.

The gospel in one sentence is this Jesus in your place.

The perfect life that you couldn't live.

He lived it, the death that you should have died, he died it for you.

Why?

In order to purchase a way for you to be with him in eternity.

And the way that you get that is you put your faith in him and you humbly declare that you need Jesus.

You say, I am a sinner, Jesus is my savior, Jesus take away my sin, and I vow to follow you for the rest of my life.

And I love the promise in the text is that if you make this declaration with your mouth, believing in your heart, listen, you not might, not maybe will, not hopefully someday soon, but it says, Hey, you will receive salvation, you will be saved.

This is the promise of the text.

And when you experience salvation through Jesus Christ, this is what's happening.

One, you are overcome by this humility of Jesus to give his life for you.

And you are two, being transformed into a new creation.

And three, you are compelled to live a life of humility, submitting to God out of love for him and for the sake of others.

If you've received the glorious, glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, church, here's your question for this morning.

Is your life marked by this?

Is your life marked by humility that stems from the fear of God?

Is your life marked by trust in God?

Do you have a right view of God that leads to a right view of yourself, that leads to a sense of worship and reverent awe of a holy God?

Is this true of you in the room?

This is my prayer for us this morning.

So I'm about to land the plane.

And when I do, I have an action step for you right here.

And the action step I want to give you this morning is this as we talk about humility, like I said, it is difficult to pinpoint this on your own.

You want to know the best way to grow in self-awareness and who you really are, where you lack, where you're not being humble.

It's not to do a self-assessment on yourself, but it's actually to bring people in around you and ask, what are you seeing in my life?

What are you seeing?

This is difficult to do because none of us want to hear the thing that we don't want to hear.

And you know what is gonna be true when you become a person who humbles yourself to do something like that, you're probably gonna hear some things you don't want to hear.

But it's the best way to grow.

It's the best way, and so an action step for you this week is maybe you find somebody in your life who you know loves the scriptures, who loves God, but also has this radical love for you, and you begin to ask a sensitive question and say, Hey, what do you see in me that I'm not seeing in myself?

How have I missed a ball on humility?

If you came here with someone, I bet they would love to tell you a thing or two.

You don't have to search very far.

You can ask.

Humble yourself to ask the question.

Seek the right wisdom, seek the right guidance.

Listen, it might hurt a little bit.

I'm not saying about hurt.

This is a difficult thing I'm asking you to do.

I know this.

But Proverbs stresses the importance of wise counsel.

Proverbs 12:15 says this the way of the fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

Proverbs 12:15

Would you choose wisdom over foolishness today?

Would you choose wisdom over foolishness this week?

And not stiff arm counsel, but would you be someone who welcomes counsel even as it pertains to your humility?

We need people in our lives with a view and a voice to speak words to us that we don't want to speak to ourselves, that we don't want to hold on to ourselves.

So if you're a brave soul in the room, would you take that challenge?

And if you do trust this, it will take humility as you take your eyes off of yourself and you refocus them on Jesus, the one who was the Lord over all things, but became humble and lowly for us.

Listen, I want you to know you won't be doing it alone.

You have the Savior who has gone first, you have the Savior who has gone before you.

And if your life is hidden in Christ, you don't have to fear what you may discover, you don't have to fear what you may learn.

But you can lay that even at the foot of the cross.

You don't have to carry that suitcase of fear and worry either.

Don't you know your God is a forgiving God?

Don't you know your God is a loving God?

Don't you know your God is an upholding God who desires nothing more than for your goodness?

He is the God of grace.

You know the character of God.

You can run to him instead of running from him.

Fear of God, right view of him, right view of yourself, pushing you to a place of humility.

So, church, let's be a people like this.

Right assessment, no advantage, leaning into the biblical humility for the sake of Christ.

Amen.

Pray with me.

Father, we love you.

And we're grateful for this morning.

We're grateful for your word, your comforting, your challenging word.

And God, would you help us be people who love and desire nothing more than more of your son?

And would we see him, yes, as our savior, the only one who can do it we can't, but also as our sacrifice, our model, the one who's gone before, the one that we can place our eyes on, the one that we can place our entire hope on, the one we can place our trust in, the one that we should be people who go to our knees, fall to our knees in a humble reverence for a holy God.

And where that draw us to a place of humility, and when we be people who not seek to be self-blind, but we need self-awareness, and we can't do that on our own.

But we need to look at the scripture and live our lives according to that.

Lean into the people around us and ask the hard questions.

What are you seeing in me that I'm not seeing in myself?

Would you help us be that person?

Holy Spirit, would you comfort and guide us and instruct us even as we say yes to that?

A difficult thing, but a worthwhile thing.

Only in your power, Jesus, would you have to be so in this room?

We thank you, we praise you in your mighty name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to the Ambassador Church Podcast.

To learn more, visit ambassadormke.org or follow us on Instagram at Ambassador MKE.

And if you're in the Milwaukee area, we'd love to see you this Sunday at 9 or 11 AM at 2308 East Bellevue Place.

Grace and peace.