Humility is the Key

In the book of Exodus chapter 20, Moses receives the law, and Lord willing, this will be the end of our foray into the fifth commandment, and we will be, I guess we could say, halfway done in a sense. I do think the last five will not take as long as the first five. Of course, I've estimated poorly before. But Exodus 20, verse 12, we're told, Honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

So that was God's holy word. It sounds like a simple enough command. And we have discussed the duties of the children. And I still have the notes on that if people want to be able to review that with their kids, if kids actually want to review it themselves. and we talked a lot about the duties of parents toward children because when we read the scriptures, we try to understand what the scriptures is really exhorting us to.

And sometimes the surface level reading that's just, oh, I guess kids should obey their parents, sounds rather simple, and it is. But if you think that's all the commandment means, then you're misunderstanding. As a father and as a mother, your job is to help your parents to obey, or help your children to obey the law. And so I exhorted the parents as well.

In the catechism for the Fifth Commandment, the Baptist catechism, we're told, question 69, what is required in the Fifth Commandment? So anybody that wants to understand the commandments better and the expansive nature of them, you can read this. and for each commandment we're told what's forbidden and what's required. What is required in the fifth commandment?

The answer is the fifth commandment requireth the preserving the honor and performing the duties belonging to everyone in their several places and relations as superiors, inferiors, or equals. So in fact, as the New Testament authors authors apply the Fifth Commandment to different areas of life, and you can see the verses that are even chosen by the catechism writers. What we find is that you have a responsibility not just for kids to do what their parents tell them, or even for adult children to somehow honor their parents, which I'll talk about briefly today, but it even has to do with how you interact with all of those in your relations that are either your superiors in some way, inferiors in some way, or equals.

So that's why I felt justified telling parents, well, here's what the fifth commandment is telling you to do in relation to your children. I wasn't adding to God's law or making God's law mean something. It wasn't. I was trying to explain what God's law meant. The next question, question 70, what is forbidden in the fifth commandment? The answer is, the fifth commandment forbideth the neglect of or doing anything against the honor and duty which belongeth to everyone in their several places and relations.

So it's the flip side of the same command. It's the other side of the coin. One part of the command is telling you this is what you must do. the other part of the command is telling you this is what you may not do so for example when we get to the sixth commandment which is a little easier to understand for some people I think thou shall not kill we're forbidden from taking someone's life but it also requires that we take lawful action in order to protect life and preserve it and so there's more to the command than just okay if I just don't do the thing it forbids I'm good and so children you are still even several weeks after I preached it, you're still exhorted to obey your parents, to honor your parents.

Now, in the case of a parent who is disobedient to scripture, we talked about that, where as a child, you need to grow in your discernment and your understanding of scripture so that you will be able to know when you may actually have to not do what a parent says because it's a violation of God. In those cases, you will also need to be ready to suffer. And whatever the punishment may be, because you choose to follow God instead of the parent, you will need to endure that like a good soldier of Christ.

This is no different than if the government, my authority right now, one of the governmental authorities told me, you are not allowed to go to Planned Parenthood anymore and preach. And the people that go with you, they're not allowed to go with you. And if we see you there, we're going to say that it's illegal. Now, they have the right to make that kind of decision, I guess.

In the eyes of God, they really can't. But they can do that. That's what governing authorities do. They make laws and make decisions. And I would get to choose, well, am I going to obey God and continue to do this thing that we think God actually is commanding us to do, to go and stand for the innocent lives that are there and to preach the gospel to those who need it? but then I would have to be ready to endure the punishment that could be inflicted upon me for doing that.

And anybody that's paid any attention to the news the past few years knows that there's been a number of very faithful pastors who have suffered greatly because simply they decided to keep having church. So one of the reasons why, you know, obviously we talk about doing church at home because we save thousands of dollars a year that feels like maybe it's not well spent right now. We can talk about all the details.

That's fine. We will. That's one of the main reasons. But another thing is, it wouldn't be bad to be prepared to be able to meet at homes if we have to. There may come a point when there no building that would lease to us Or where we would have a building even if we owned it and somehow it could be taken from us And so to be prepared and actually ready to simply say yeah, we know how to sit on couches and chairs and do church, isn't a bad idea.

If I do anything good as a leader in a church, I think hopefully trying to prepare people for what could come, what's likely to come is one of those things I'd like to think I could do. So now, as we think about the fifth commandment, and you're told that, well, let me back up one step. I want to talk about adults who have parents. And you adults, some of you have parents that are still alive, some of the parents will not be alive at some point. the fifth commandment doesn't end when you turn 18 necessarily okay uh the fifth commandment also applies to aunts uncles and some of these other relations that you have in your life and so this is why you know in my case i still call my aunt aunt annabelle i don't just call her annabelle even though we're both adults you know i call her aunt annabelle just a form of respect and so if you're an adult and you have parents there is still a form of honoring your parents that you need to employ so that you can say that you're actually trying to obey God's commands.

And in fact, it shouldn't be burdensome. You should love to do these things. And that can become extremely difficult, I understand. And I'm here to tell you that I know what it's like to have parents that do not follow Christ. I know what it's like to have parents that say things and do things that you can't help but speak against. And I understand that.

And I'm not going to tell you that if you're a 25 year old person or 35 year old person or whatever you are, that if your dad says do something, you have to do it. In fact, it doesn't work that way when you're an adult. But finding in your heart that desire to still honor the people who God had put in that place over you is what your goal needs to be.

And you need to figure out how I can do that. It's not through obedience. You people who have left the home and got married, right? It says a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, right? You're no longer under your father and mother's authority in the same sense once you leave, even if you're an adult living at home. It's a different type of authority even at that point.

It's not a you obey me because you're my child. It may be you have to do things because I'm your landlord in a sense, or I'm giving you a free place to live. But so in your heart, I was trying to figure out how can I preach a whole sermon on honoring parents as an adult, and I thought I can't. You just do two, three minutes and just let you know that if you need ideas, I've got some.

But in the end, it's about your heart. When your parent calls you and asks you for help for something, do you want to help them even though they've wronged you maybe? Something else to remember. When I think about my aunt Annabelle, I'm thinking about her because I talked to her recently. She's a real sweetheart. I was thinking about, like, here's a person who, regardless of what I think about her today, regardless of the kind of person she is, and she's not a Christian, here's a person that probably changed my diapers for me at one point.

You know what I mean? I kind of owe her some respect. And there's a lot of people in your lives that aren't just your parents who you still owe respect and honor to for that reason. This includes governmental authorities. Romans 13. If you want to turn there, you can.

This is the beginning here. We're not preaching yet. Romans 13, we're told in verse 8, oh, no, verse 7, render to all what is due them. He says tax to whom tax is due. Well, that's going to be your government, right? And then he says custom to whom custom.

Fear to whom fear. Who do we owe fear to? God, right? He's not talking about the same person in each of these. And then he says honor to whom honor. And the misreading of that portion is to think that because it's in chapter 13, Paul's commanding people to honor governing authorities.

And it's not at all what he says. He says, render to each what is due them. And so you have governing authorities that are owed honor, but you also have other authorities that are owed honor, and you also have governing authorities who, in certain respects, are not owed honor. At least in that respect, it's outside their sphere of what they are allowed to talk about.

So now we're going to peruse through Proverbs. And we're actually going to go to Elijah's Proverb a little bit today too. But turn to Proverbs 10. When you're preaching through a book of the Bible like 1 Peter or Hebrews or any book I could preach through, it's very easy to know what to preach each week. Because I look at the verse I just preached, and then I start reading the next verse. and it makes a preacher's job very easy.

And when I'm preaching through the Ten Commandments, although I'm preaching Exodus 20 and then verse 11 and then verse 12 and next week I'll be in Exodus 20, 13, Lord willing, it's not like I'm focusing on 13 and then on to 14. I'm going to other passages and teaching concepts. So what you end up with is four or five topical sermons all relating to the one commandment.

And it's very awkward for me. I was trying to figure out, am I done with the fifth commandment? Now, I'm never going to be fully done with the commandments, of course, right? And thank God, I will be done preaching them at some point, I hope, because it's really difficult. But am I done with the fifth commandment? And what I thought was this.

I want to summarize it a little bit and give you some exhortations. And then what I want to key in on today is what I think would be the deepest root of the problem that you have with obeying it And it just so happens to coincide with the deepest root of the problem that our church I believe faced this week And so, those of you that are aware of things that are going on, hopefully you will learn more lessons about this than simply the lesson of your parents. But, first of all, I just want to point out Proverbs 10.1, the Proverbs of Solomon, A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother.

I just want to point that out to you. I want you to be able to think about that, especially you kids. You kids who might not understand some of the other things we talk about yet. I want you to think about that a foolish son is a grief to his mother. I'm going to take the liberty to say that a foolish daughter is also a grief to her mother. And I've seen that live here. not Alexandra, just you guys know her sorry, other daughter sorry everyone's looking at her now foolish daughters also grieve to his father a wise son would make a mother glad and a wise daughter also would make a father or mother glad so it's interchangeable here but the point is this, that parents spend a lot of time even parents that aren't really Christian or parents that maybe are Christian but they're not always the same as we are with some of the Christian stuff they work really hard to teach their kids their values and when kids grow up without following those values it's very hard for those parents it makes them very unhappy that's one of the reasons why it's such a tragedy when someone says they're an atheist and they have kids and they say they're going to just kind of let their kid decide what their kid wants well they're still going to influence their kid You know, they say that, but they're going to be pushing their kid one direction.

So, how do you make your father glad, your mother glad? Be wise. How do you be wise? You have to get wisdom. You get wisdom from the Word of God. So you kids need to study the Word of God.

You need to read it yourself. You need to ask questions about it. You literally are coming to a place every Sunday that your parents bring you where there's people who it's all they want to talk about. Like I've been rebuked by people because all I want to talk about is the Bible and Jesus, and I don't want to talk about all their secular worries and stuff as much as they like, okay?

And you come here, and every question you have about the Bible, we'll answer it, or we'll help look up the answer somewhere, or we'll tell you, hey, the secret things of God are His in that one. There's people that just want to teach you these things. There's people that want to pour into you all of the truth that we have learned and grown in wisdom over however many years we've been alive so that when you're some age that we once were, you're way smarter than we were and you don't make the same stupid mistakes that we made that we were probably warned about as well.

Literally every way to follow up your life has already been tried. You're not going to find a new way. So maybe just try the way that God has given and don't be foolish. Now, if you are going to follow up your life and you're going to follow in the footsteps of Adam, you're going to follow in the footsteps of Eve, you're going to commit the very same sin that Eve first committed in the garden, which was the sin of pride.

You're going to commit the same sin that the devil committed, the sin of pride. It's the root of all other sins that you're going to commit. Every single time you disobey God, some portion of you, whether you realize it or not, whether you're aware of it or not, and you probably deny it anyway most of the time because of it is actually disbelieving something God has said.

And to disbelieve something God has said, as Mr. Roberts just read, is the ultimate form of pride. God's word is to be believed and obeyed simply because it's from God. Not because it makes sense to you, not because it makes you feel good, not because it's something that made you think, oh, that's a good idea. It's to be obeyed because God said it. it's one of the reasons we need to study it so we actually know it but also so we don't misread verses because we don't actually dig into them and then we obey something it doesn't really say and so we have to be careful of that so what's the opposite of pride anybody? humility, humility is the opposite of pride so if you want to avoid the deepest darkest sin there is you have to have humility if you are exercising in humility and walking in humility you will not end up being prideful it's not something that you can muster up on your own strength you have to beg God for mercy in these areas you have to beg God to help you with these areas and I'll give you a warning shot just like if you pray to God for patience He will probably give you an opportunity to be patient that week if you pray that the Lord would give you humility you may have to be ready to have your pride that is deep down inside your Adamic nature exposed so that you might repent of it and it may hurt but thankfully you have men around you and ladies around here who are happy to help each other with it in fact I sat in a meeting this week where a man in this church told another man that he thought, hey, I think there's some pride going on here.

You know? That's how we help each other. So if you turn to Proverbs 6, we're going to pop through Proverbs briefly, which as you guys know, that's like the one word I don't know the definition of. But we're going to pop through Proverbs briefly, and then we're going to hit the New Testament. I'm going to try to give you guys some exhortations about humility.

I'm trying to wrap this all though under the heading of honoring those to whom honor is due and honoring your mother and father you not going to honor your father and mother if you not humble you not going to honor the proper authorities wives to husbands people to church authorities people to the church in general You not going to honor these things if you don have humility You'll never have perfect humility. So throw that idea out the window, but you can grow in humility, and I think you can actually notice it. I don't think that humility is the one virtue that God doesn't give you any way to figure out, am I actually improving here? you know, it's kind of a joke.

If you think you're humble, then you're not. I think it's okay for a person to self-assess and to start to notice growth in that area, just like any other area where we're trying to grow in Christlikeness. But don't become prideful about it. All right. Proverbs 6. That's right, 16.

Elijah just read this. There are six things which Yahweh hates, even seven which are an abomination to him. My version says haughty eyes. Elijah said a proud look same concept notice it doesn't say that God is okay with the way you look and he hates the pride in your heart he hates the proud look even I think we all know what that is some of us like to believe well as long as I don't say something that I shouldn't say I didn't do anything wrong but God notices even if you have haughty eyes or a proud look your countenance actually matters Mike Stockwell has a joke he's got a friend that said do you have the joy of the Lord in your heart he says yeah and he goes well maybe somebody should tell your face because some people walk around with a scowl all the time and it's like if you're happy and you know it your face will surely show it it's a corny song but think about it for a minute if you're happy usually you smile more and if you're humble you're not going to have proud looks on your face you know what it looks like when somebody has a proud look towards you and you also need to also recognize that in yourself.

The language here is extremely strong. There are six things that Yahweh hates. It's one of the earliest, hardest things to try to explain to people is yes, God hates. People think, oh, God is love. How could God hate? Well, God hates everything that's evil.

He certainly hates abominations, right? Why wouldn't he? He wouldn't be a good God if he didn't hate things that were evil. So there are six things that he hates. Seven which are an abomination to him. He's got haughty eyes, which sounds like, okay, that's not good.

And he hates it, but it doesn't sound that serious to me. Haughty eyes never really hurt anybody physically or anything, right? But look at the list of things that he groups together. When God groups things together in a list and calls them abominations, we should pay attention. And although to us, some of the other things in this list are way worse than just a proud look, in God's eyes, it's not.

And I would dare say that the other things in the list are only possible if you start with pride. So he says, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood. We just went from a proud look to murder pretty quick, didn't we? And to God, these are just all things he hates. it's not like degrees of things these are things that God equally in a sense hates all of them will send you to hell a heart that devises wicked thoughts feet that hasten to run to evil so you're quickly trying to get there he says a false witness who breathes out lies and then the last one one who spreads strife among brothers so the list of things that we would think well this one's really bad it deserves a $10 fine.

This one's so bad, you should go to jail for it. This one, I don't even know if we'd make a crime against it. God just sees them all as, hey, these are abominations to me. You have no presence with me with these. Third Proverbs 11, verse 2. He says, when arrogance comes, then comes disgrace.

He says, but with the meek is wisdom, or with the humble is wisdom. arrogance is going to preclude disgrace in your life you're going to see in a minute pride goes before destruction a haughty spirit before a fall thank God that he allows pride to actually bring us destruction that it may lead us to repent the worst thing that God can do to you is to leave you in your sin and allow you to seem like you feel successful in it. Because it's usually the destruction, the loss of family, the marriage being lost, the kid hating you, whatever happens in your life, getting fired from a job, losing all your money gambling, whatever happens, it's usually the bad thing that comes, that's the natural consequence to your bad behavior that drives you to start to question if you're doing something right or wrong and maybe repent. Proverbs 14, 12.

There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. He repeats that in Proverbs 16. The way that seems right to you is the way that leads to death. This is why we look at Proverbs 18, verse 1. And we try to obey this. He who separates himself seeks his own desire.

He breaks out in dispute against all sound wisdom. or he who isolates himself is basically a fool. What it's saying is if you're walking around making decisions and you don't seek counsel from others, you're basically being led by your own thinking, which God just said was a form of arrogance. You need to go to other people who can see the things you don't see.

It's how God built us. Even the best decision maker in the history of Christianity, God made that person, I'm not talking about Jesus, the best sinner. God made that person in such a way that he actually needed to not be isolated. the community, frankly, of the local church, which is the way God built us to grow in these areas. Proverbs 16, very scary verse to anyone here who's harboring pride in your heart.

To anyone here who somebody has said, wow, you just don't listen, or wow, maybe they've actually straight up said you're prideful or you lack humility, or maybe you just know yourself that you're the kind of person that doesn't take correction well, envious, you have bad motives. Look at verse 5. Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to Yahweh.

It's that second part that's really scary. Assuredly, he will not be unpunished. Now I'll tell you what, Jesus Christ paid for the sins of all his people perfectly. and I'd be willing to bet even though I just denounce gambling I'd be willing to bet that everybody in here when you die there will still be at least a shred of pride left in your heart so I'm not talking about perfection but wow is it scary to realize that you will not be unpunished pride goes before destruction a haughty spirit before stumbling that's verse 18 so now turn to the New Testament Colossians 3 I guess the New Testament is big I should be more specific Colossians chapter 3 so having established for you that pride is bad that humility is what comes before honor and even from the Proverbs explain these things briefly to you.

Let's see what the New Testament is telling us about a life led in Christ with humility. Verse 12 of Colossians 3, Paul tells the people, remember the context that I gave you earlier was honoring your father and your mother. Honoring the proper authorities. He says, so as the elect of God, holy and beloved, that he says, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

That's my version. He says, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving one another. Humility is going to result in your being patient with one another and bearing with one another and forgiving one another as the Lord graciously forgave you. And so we should want to be forgiving. Our desire should always be to forgive. But there is also a biblical concept that forgiveness cannot actually occur transactionally unless the person desires to receive it and repents.

So you can have the right heart. You can even not hold things against somebody if you like. But nothing really happens until they repent, just like you were not forgiven by God until the moment that you actually repented and trusted in Christ. he says above all these things put on love which is the perfect bond of unity let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and if you just skip down and get to verse 18 he says wives be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord he says husbands love your wives and do not be embittered against them or harsh with them and then children obey your parents in all things for this is pleasing to the Lord fathers do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart.

Slaves, in all things, obey those who are your masters according to the flesh. So he gives us this list of things that I've been talking about, our areas of submission in this life and our many variety of relations. And I would argue that it's all under the umbrella of putting on humility, putting on love. There's other things too, gentleness, patience.

But humility was certainly one of them. You can turn to James 4 now. So we're trying to figure out what is humility, how do we exercise humility. One of the things that you can't do is just decide to be humble. You need to beg God to help you be humble. And I think that one of the ways God helps you understand when you lack humility is by providing you situations where you're doing something that's in the list of stuff that prideful people do.

That's how it helps you. When you find yourself doing things in the list of prideful people, then you know what, you're being prideful. So, in James 4, James tells us in verse 6, but he gives greater grace. Therefore, it says, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Okay, true enough verse. He repeats it later.

Peter says it. And he says, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Oh, before they be subject, therefore, to God. He says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And we did this in family worship recently, that the opposite of resisting the devil and drawing near to God is drawing near to the devil and resisting God. And some of you need to make sure you're honest, that where am I resisting God?

I'm not saying that anyone in here is like walking around as a nonstop God-hater. Yeah, it can happen. People have done that and pretended to be Christians the whole time. but I'm saying that in each and every one of our lives I would be willing to say there's at least one area where you're blind to your own need for repentance you willfully blind to it because of your arrogance of heart I am too this is the sinful condition we in in our flesh So this is why we have brothers and sisters in the Lord that we meet with regularly It's why you submit to the church.

It's why when we finish the church service here, instead of turning on a football game, we're going to go over and we're going to have a meal together. And one of the goals is to actually interact with each other and talk about things. Hey, how was your week? Did you read the Bible every day this week? You told me you were going to. Did you do it?

How's your stewardship of the money God's given you going? Have you been doing what you set out to do? Or did you go and splurge on something that was unnecessary and then you realized, wow, that wasn't really what we planned to do? Husbands and wives all getting along just fine? Or is somebody quarreling or arguing? These are the kinds of questions we can ask each other because we all know these things happen.

That's the neat thing about Christianity. There's no perfect Christians. There was just the one, right? But he wasn't a little Christ. He was Christ himself. Christian just means little Christ, if you didn't know that.

That's why I said that. So we can all just help each other. It's not like we're going to the priest, and he's awesome, and he's going to tell us what's wrong, like in a Roman Catholic system or most other religions that have holy men. We're all just priests of God. He says, draw near to God, he'll draw near to you. Verse 8, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. be miserable and mourn and cry.

Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. He's just exhorting them to humility. He's not saying, and always be gloomy. He's not saying you should never laugh. He's telling them, in the situations that I'm writing to you about, you guys have laughter and joy, and you should actually be miserable about this going on among you. You should be sad that you're not dealing with these things the way God would have you.

And he says, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. and I just want to comment on that verse that the goal of humility is not necessarily that you might become popular. We see that verse and it's like, wait, I want to be popular. It says if I humble myself, he'll exalt me. So then I'll humble. The goal of humility is actually because you want to be like Christ.

Because you recognize that humility is the only natural result of a person who's as sinful as you are. that's actually the only thing that you should do so you don't even get you don't get praise for it you don't get credit for being humble it's like you're finally being honest about your condition if you act with even a little bit of it so we boast in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him only I believe a lot of times in the Bible when it talks about exaltation it's actually talking about being raised not necessarily raised so you'll be a popular preacher you'll have a big YouTube channel or whatever you're going to do, you know, a twitchy thing. I think it's about being resurrected on the last day. Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will raise you up to new life.

Not only will he raise you up to the resurrected life you have here, but one day you will have that new life that only Jesus offers. In verse 16, he calls him arrogant simply for planning the future without relation to giving God deference. this is why we say Lord willing. Lord willing isn't some catchphrase we tack on things. Lord willing isn't something that we say because we don't want to commit to things either.

We say this is what we're going to do, and we say Lord willing, because we know that God always has the preference to decide what we're really going to do. I would argue some people use Lord willing as an excuse not to make commitments too. And all of a sudden, you know, a hangnail means the Lord didn't will. Well, I think we need to push harder. If you go back a chapter to chapter 3, where James is dealing with these people, in verse 13, he says, Who among you is wise in understanding?

Let him show you by his good conduct his works in the gentleness of wisdom. He's relating wisdom to these things. And I don't have time to go through all of James, but he's relating all these things from 13 on to the humility that it culminates in at the end of chapter 4. And he says in 14, remember I told you earlier, I said if you wonder if you're prideful, if you wonder if you have humility, look and see if you do the things that prideful people do.

Well, listen, people who are prideful and lack wisdom will do this. They have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in their heart. I'll tell you what, if you're jealous and selfishly ambitious, I'll probably eventually see it and figure it out. But that could take months. It's going to take the right circumstances. You know how hard it is to go up to somebody who you suspect maybe has a little bit of sin going on in their heart that hasn't totally manifested?

How quickly defensive they can be about it? And how impossible it is to prove it to them because, well, the little evidence that actually has come out could mean anything. You need to be honest in your own heart if these things are going on. You know when another person gets a better job than you, or has a nicer car than you, or their kid lives and your kid was miscarried, or any number of things that happen where we have jealousy and selfish ambition.

You know in your heart how you feel about God basically blessing other people instead of you in that moment. You have to be honest. He says, do not be arrogant and lie against the truth. He says this wisdom is not coming down from above but is earthly natural and demonic Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist there is disorder in every evil practice And he moves into chapter 4 in the beginning.

He says, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? He's not asking them. It's rhetorical. He's making them think. And then he answers it. He says, Is not the source your pleasures that wage war with your members?

You lust and do not have, so you murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Then he goes right into the passage about humility. I'm telling you that I think that the Holy Spirit wants us to understand that our ultimate problem is our lack of humility and the preponderance of our pride in our life. The neat thing about pride is pride is so smart that pride actually is the thing that tricks you into thinking you don't have it.

If you're a thief, you're like, yeah, I'm a thief. I steal stuff. I plan it out. I think about it. My heart divides his wicked plans. Alright?

But pride, and I'd say maybe lying, are two of the sins that most often convince you that you're not committing it. In fact, pride most often in the church manifests itself in something called falsely believing. Where people say things that make them seem humble. People say things that sound self-deprecating, or like maybe they really don't want all the credit, and they don't want pats on the back. but in fact they're seeking the attention that comes from acting that way.

Another false form of humility is simply not talking or not interacting. A lot of people think a guy that just sits around and never says anything is actually really humble. Well, no, if God has commanded that we speak on certain topics, it would actually be a violation of what God said to not speak on that topic, and that's the opposite of humility.

So when you get up and you're a man and you stand up for something that's right, sometimes people will say, well, that's not very humble of you. So they try to go right to the thing that stings the most, right? And if you walk out of here and you're being honest, after today at least, you know there's still vestiges of pride in your life, and any time someone accuses you of it, some part of you should think, well, yeah, they're right.

I still have pride. But we have to be able to recognize in some situations, the pride would be not speaking up and having people maybe like us because we didn't confront evil in that situation it's not prideful to speak what God has said 1 Peter 3.8 thanks brother he says now to sum up in 1 Peter 3.8 after giving all the commands about wives to husbands and husbands to wives and some of these things about Jesus going to the cross he says all of you be like minded sympathetic sympathetic, brotherly, tenderhearted, and he says, and humble in spirit. The only way a church is going to survive is if each and every person is humble in spirit.

Again, that doesn't mean you just sit back and you never give your opinion. In fact, I basically pled for opinions this week. I want everyone to have opinions. I want everyone to be able to share them. I want your opinion to be able to maybe be abraded against if necessary. You may even be found to be sinful.

That's okay. But the humility is what helps us grow together. In 1 Peter 5.5, which you guys are all experts on 1 Peter, I'm sure. He says, you younger men, all right? Which is either everyone in here except me or it's just Elijah. So I don't know how we measure young and old in the church with this dynamic.

But he says, you younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders. I'd argue that that was one of the problems we've had recently by being subject to your elders you're being subject to the church as a whole you're showing that you submit to the local body that Christ has instituted to oversee your soul the elders are simply the appointed people by Christ to fulfill those types of commands that that church has a will for he says all of you though clothe yourselves with humility toward one another we should all be humble toward one another. What is humility?

Is humility just thinking, well, I'm a loser and everybody else is great? No, that's not what humility is. Turn to Philippians 2. If you want to know what something is, you don't go to Merriam-Webster. You look at what Jesus did. You want to know what humility is?

It's not reading pithy quotes on the internet that say, humility isn't thinking less of yourself, but it's thinking of yourself less. It's not these things that people have come up with philosophically. Some of them get at it. Some of them might be kind of helpful at times. If you want to know what a Christian virtue is, you go and look at what Jesus did and how He fulfilled it perfectly because He did everything perfectly.

And God doesn't command you to do anything that His Son didn't already do perfectly on your behalf. That's why you get to go to heaven. You don't go to heaven because Jesus just cleansed your sins. You go to heaven because He lived all the righteousness that you never lived. And you'll receive an infinite amount of rewards because of it. As if you had done the same thing.

So you want to know what humility is? Look at what Jesus did. Jesus who stood and he preached and he told people the truth and he warned people about hell. Perfectly humble the whole time. Verse 1. Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, he says, fulfill my joy that you think the same way by maintaining the same love Being united in spirit thinking on one purpose So that his command for us as a church Then he says doing nothing from selfish ambition or vainglory.

Same words we just read in James, right? Same concepts at least. He says, but with humility of mind. It all starts in your mind and your heart. With humility of mind, regarding one another is more important than yourselves. So if you just want a simple couple word definition of humility regarding others is more important than you.

Giving somebody else the first, you know, piece of soup. Bowl of soup, you know. When it gets to the bottom of the crock pot today and somebody else wants a little bit of that soup and you wanted some more, maybe you prefer that they have it. That's humility. Humility is boasting in Christ and not in yourself. And so Christ with humility of mind.

Paul says, regarding one another is more important than yourselves. He says, not merely looking out for your own personal interests. He doesn't say don't look out for your personal interests. By all means, pay your heating bill this winter, okay? Do that. I don't want all your money to go to an orphanage in Africa.

Pay your heating bill. Fix your furnace if you have to, right? I don't want your pipes to burst, okay? You've got to take care of yourself and your family, but it's not merely looking out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others. Now listen, have this way of thinking in yourselves which is also in Christ Jesus. You want the model of humility?

You want the model of anti-pride? You want the model of the one who knew how in every relation he had, how to properly be treating inferiors and superiors in the flesh, I mean. In the flesh, Jesus had superiors. You want that model? Look to what he did. Although Jesus Christ was existing in the form of God he didn't regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or held on to but he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave this is why I'm probably going to switch to the LSB someday because I think it gets to the point better by being made in the likeness of men Jesus God eternal no need of anything perfect love perfect fellowship Father and Holy Spirit no need of a creation to glorify him or exalt him or magnify him, no need he needed nothing, you don't understand that it's not like God was a little lonely so he created the world in the hopes that Michael Coughlin would come along and then things would be fine for him no need for any of it but Jesus Christ created emptied himself by taking the form of a slave being made in the likeness of men, entered his own creation in the ultimate act of humility, eventually humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

Even death on a cross. I mean, just the idea that he became a man was humiliating. Right? That was enough. He became obedient to the point of being bludgeoned on a cross, which is actually what you and I deserved. You and I deserved the most brutal and cruel death imaginable, and then eternal torment.

Listen to this, question 30. Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist? Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born. That alone is humility. And that in a low condition. wasn't born in a nice hospital, right? Made under the law, subject to the law.

God's not subject to the law. You need to understand that. It's not like God's up there, and then there's the law, and God has to follow it. The law comes from God's perfection. He made himself under the law. It says he underwent the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross. in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time.

Jesus Christ, who is life itself, right? He's the way, the truth, and the life. He actually was under the power of death for a short period of time. But to God, that's a lot. He should have never endured that. But he did it so that you could flee to him, so that you could try to beg him to shed me of my pride, that I could stop worrying what other people think of me because I can outwardly display something different than what I even know is in my heart.

And I would start just thinking about how God sees me and then ask other people to help me with it. And I would argue that if you won't do that, you will probably see a fate that is not good. Be assured he's arrogant. The heart will not go unpunished. But if you will do that, God promises to forgive you. He promises to continually cleanse you of your sins, and in fact, by the renewing of your mind, will grow you in these virtues that will actually help you enjoy your Christian life more, lead others better, be a more productive person as part of the church and your family, and then ultimately give you the assurance of salvation that one day you'll be taken to glory with Him, where there will be no boasting in anything but Jesus Christ.

We'll never even have the temptation to boast in ourselves again. And that is, that's the gospel. Christ resurrected so that you can boast in him.