Harmony Through Humility Series

Humility is Self-effacing and it is Modest. It is quiet, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, and doesn’t believe it’s own press clippings. Humility is essential if you are a follower of Christ. Today’s Big Idea: Be Humble if You Want God to Work for You.

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 5:5b-11).

1. Clothe Yourself with Humility

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:5b-7)

Peter writes to motivate you to be humble. First, he says that God opposes the proud. Nothing could be worse news for the arrogant. That a powerful and holy God opposes you. Second, God gives grace to the humble. This is wonderful news. Humility draws the gaze of our Sovereign God. “All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). Humility acts like a magnet to capture God’s attention. There is something you can do to attract more of God’s grace. There is something you can do to attract more of God’s underserved, supernatural strength and assistance. Nothing could be better than to have an infinitely powerful and wise God treat us graciously. He does that to the humble. The reason is not that humility is a performance of virtue that earns grace but that humility is a confession of emptiness that receives grace: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:11-14). Christian humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less, as C. S. Lewis so memorably said. It is to be no longer always noticing yourself and how you are doing and how you are being treated. It is “blessed self-forgetfulness.”

WHY SHOULD YOU BE HUMBLE? Because God will Work You. By the way, that’s the message of the Cross. God works for you. Explain the cross.

HOW CAN YOU ACHIEVE HUMILITY? BY CONTINUALLY CASTING YOU CARES UPON GOD.

Dr. May of the Mayo Clinic has said that “Tension is one of the most urgent problems of our day. Anxiety is the official emotion of our age. Casting your cares on God is an expression of humility. Notice again 1 Peter 5:6-7: “Humble yourselves … casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7).

Casting your cares on God is trusting God with your future. It is trusting His promise that He cares for you and has both the power and wisdom to work for you. Trust is the opposite of pride. Trust is the essence of humility

1.1. Be Worried about Worry

And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold” (Mark 4:18-20).

Worry calls God a liar. It says to God, “I am not sure You can do what You promised.”