Humility - Sacrificing Your Pride
Philippians 2:1-11
In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. This was a tragedy in and of itself, but the disaster was further darkened when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. It was not a technology problem such as a radar malfunction. There was not thick fog in the area. The cause was human selfishness. Each captain was well aware of the other ship’s presence nearby. Both could have steered clear with ease, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first, and by the time they came to their senses, it was too late.
I think that you will agree that this was a great tragedy amplified by the fact that it could have easily been prevented. After all, all they had to do was turn one of the ships. One turn of the steering wheel would have prevented the loss of hundreds of lives and millions of dollars of equipment. But, selfishness and pride reared its ugly head and clouded the judgment of these high ranking individuals. When this happened, they could not see beyond their own prestige.
As I look to this incident, I remember an important lesson that I learned in history class. You see, by looking at our past, we can learn invaluable lessons from the mistakes of those who have gone before us. As we look at this event, we should see that pride is an enemy of mankind, but have we learned from this mistake? I don’t think we have. Just last week, I watched the confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. In the most famous portion of the hearing, we didn’t learn anything about the qualifications of the judge. Instead, we saw two of our most famous and longstanding senators, Arlen Spector and Ted Kennedy, fighting to decide who had more power. For 10 minutes, they went back and forth with verbal assaults and power trips as one tried to gain a foothold over the other. Some called it a power trip. I call it the disease of pride. Neither would back down for fear that they would look inferior to the other.
As God’s holy church, we should be doing everything we can to make ourselves appealing to the outside world. This should include being a people void of this pride that is so distasteful, but the church has always had a problem in this area. It is so easy to fall into the trap of pride. This morning, I want to take a look at a great Scripture that deals with this issue. Let’s turn to Philippians 2:1-11.
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by becoming like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.
This Scripture takes a very thorough look at the topic of humility and pride. It shows us the problems of pride, the example of Jesus, and also provides some solutions to living a humble life. Before we get into these issues, let’s ask the Lord to bless our time.
The Problem of Pride
I want to start this section by looking at our passage in Philippians. Paul starts this passage with a plea to the church. He tells them that he wants them to make his “joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, becoming one in spirit and purpose.” He wants this church to be one in which everyone is on the same page. They all want the same things. They all love each other, and they are all heading in the same direction. Doesn’t that sound like a great church? In fact, when we look at the church in the United States, this type of church sounds like a pipe dream.
A pastor once shared with me a story about something that happened in their church. This church was a vibrant and growing church, and it seemed like everything was going well for them. As money came in, they decided to fix up parts of their building to make it more attractive. After all, their building was a converted school which was not in great shape to begin with. Their first task was to revamp the fellowship and welcome area. This consisted of a large area where they could have church dinners, a kitchen, and was the first place you saw as you came into the church. As the elder’s met, they were in agreement that the kitchen needed updated, the walls needed to be framed up with drywall and painted, and that the floor needed to be replaced. Everything was going well until it came to the point where they needed to decide on a color scheme for the floor. They were split three ways evenly. On faction wanted a type of tile flooring while the other two definitely wanted carpet. To make matters worse, those that wanted carpet had two different colors in mind. After two months, they had still not made a decision, so they created a committee to take over the design aspects. This committee sent a survey into the congregation asking for their input. Even more variations were seen. After dragging out the process for almost a year, the pastor stepped in and made the decision. One person would be responsible for the design, and their decision would stand. This church, which was normally very unified, was torn in different directions by their opinions on flooring type and color! They were definitely not likeminded or one in spirit and purpose even in this simple issue.
The pastor later admitted that this whole issue could have been avoided if they had just humbly submitted to each other and let one person they trusted make the decision. But, in pride, they all wanted their own way, so this simple issue that should have taken a few minutes lasted for over a year. The fact of the matter is this: Pride is the enemy of church unity. If we always want things exactly the way we want them, we will never be one. There are too many different age groups, styles, likes and dislikes, and preferences represented here for everyone to get their preferred way all the time. The following principle of Ben Franklin applies in the church as well. You can please some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.
So, what do we do when we don’t necessarily agree with something going on in the church? First of all, we must look to our purpose and stay unified to it. Our purpose as the Leatherwood Church is to lead others to Christ, to nurture people in the faith, and to deploy people into service. If something that goes on is helping people in these areas but doesn’t appeal to you, this is where we need to put our pride on the shelf and show humility. In these instances we must look to the interest of those who are benefiting from this type of ministry and resolve that we will put our own preferences off to the side for their sake. For example, let’s say that you prefer to sing praise choruses more than hymns or vice versa. As we sing the hymns, you must put your preference to the side because some people are truly worshipping in this time and being nurtured in the faith. And, as we go into praise and worship time, we must be humble enough to allow those who enjoy this more to worship and be nurtured as well. The goal is worship, so we must allow a way for all believers to experience it even if we do not like a certain method. The only way we can do this is to lay down our pride.
C.S. Lewis once said this about pride. “Pride is the mother hen under which all other sins are hatched.” Do you get what he is saying here? Once we allow pride to enter the picture, all other sins such as bitterness, jealousy, and the like are just down the road. After all, let’s look at the first sin. Why did Eve eat the apple? Everyone always puts the blame on the serpent, but the serpent had a plan. He appealed to her sense of pride and selfishness. Look at the promise of the serpent. He convinced Eve that the only reason God didn’t want her to eat it was because then her eyes would be opened and then should would be like God. Can you imagine what was running through Eve’s mind as she looked at the fruit and saw that it was good. Why is God withholding this from me? Haven’t I been good, and don’t I deserve everything here? Don’t I deserve to be like God knowing the difference between good and evil? Then, she took and ate, and all of sin entered the world. Because of her act of pride, all other sins came into being. It still happens this way today. When we allow pride in, all other sins are not far behind. Just like marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to other drug use, pride is the gateway sin that leads to all others and rends the church useless and unappealing to the world it is trying to save.
The Example of Jesus
As we look at the problem of pride, I am glad to know that God has the answer to it, and He provided the answer by providing an example to live by. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to show us the way of humility. Let’s look at his life to see what we can learn from his humility.
First of all, we must look at His coming to earth. Think about it. Jesus is Lord and God. He contains all the powers and abilities of God, and He is sitting next to the Father. Everyday, he experiences the glory of the Father and at the same time, He contains all of the same powers. Why would anyone give this up? Think about it just for a second. Why would anyone leave the right hand of the Father and come to earth knowing what he was going to have to endure. He gave up his position as God and came to earth as a frail human baby in a stable. He went from an all powerful God to someone who could not dress, feed or care for himself? What was he going to get out of this? It was a cruel and excruciating death on a cross. But, he knew that mankind needed a Savior, so he looked to our interests instead of His own and put pride on the shelf.
Then, when Jesus was on earth, He did not take the role of God. Our passage tells us that He didn’t even consider equality with God as something to be grasped while He was here in human form. He could have tried to exalt himself to the highest place. After all, who was more worthy of being in a place of power than He? Instead of putting Himself forward and demanding to be treated better than everybody else, he made himself into a servant. Jesus was a leader, but He served those He led. He served those who didn’t deserve to be served in the eyes of society. He washed the feet of his followers, something reserved for the lowest of servants, even though He knew they would desert Him. His life was one in which he emptied himself of all pride and put others interest above His own.
Then, He did something unimaginable. He hung half naked and beaten on a cross. He could have stopped it at any time. He could have put off death by any number of ways, but He chose to give up His life for others. This was the ultimate act of humility.
Can you imagine what would happen if the President of the United States would begin to show this kind of humility. Imagine him forsaking his right to live in the White House and instead taking an apartment in the ghetto of a major city. Imagine him forgoing the motorcade, Air Force One, and the like and instead traveling by foot and rowboat. Imagine him giving up his paycheck to help those around him. Imagine him washing the feet of his cabinet members and serving them. Now, imagine if there was a hostage situation involving terrorist and many Americans. Instead of waging a war or trying to plan an elaborate escape plan, the president turns his life over to the terrorists in exchange for the lives of all of the hostages. It is almost inconceivable to think that a person, let alone a president, would make that kind of sacrifice. Yet, if we could envision it happening, then we can start to see why Jesus was so special in His humility. He deserved all the pomp and circumstance that we give our president and more, and yet He gave it all up to serve others. He deserved all of the luxuries and riches that could be poured upon Him, and yet, He never demanded to be treated better than even the least of these. Jesus was and is absolutely the perfect model of humility.
Living A Life of Humility
Now, we know that pride causes many problems in the church, and we have seen the example of Jesus. We need to ask ourselves one thing. How do we get there? Paul, who writes this letter to the Philippians, had a rather humbling experience. Paul was a very religious man. He had grown up in the church, and he was familiar with all of the teachings. I think it is safe to say that he tithed, and he probably attended as many church functions as he could. He was in a position of leadership, and he took this position seriously. Paul did everything he thought possible for the church and considered himself a “Jew above all Jews”. He was a Pharisee and was proud of it. This pride led to several other sins in Paul’s life such as anger and murder, but He was blinded to it all. After all, he did it all in the name of the church. So, where did the change happen? When did Paul go from a regal leader in the church to the servant messenger of the gentile world? It happened when Paul met the Lord face to face on the road to Damascus. When God blinded Saul, Saul was humbled mightily. As he came into an intimate relationship with the Lord, there was less of Paul showing and more of the Lord. Galatians 2:20 states it best when Paul tells us, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Paul laid down his rights, privileges, preferences, amenities, and comforts in order to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even though Paul could have clung on to his pride through all the good he did, he knew humility was the only possible route after he saw God in his glory. I think some of us need to have a Paul experience this morning, for, after we see God for who He is, we will no longer cling to pride.
When we let pride go for good, people will notice you. You will do things such as let other people always go in front of you. You will give up the biggest or even the last piece of dessert for someone else. You will keep all of your promises, and you will always listen before you speak. Other people and their needs and desires will trump your own, and you will do all you can to meet their needs. Basically, you will be a servant even if you are a leader, and, just like our passage states, your attitude will be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
This morning, I want you to be honest with yourself. Are you where you need to be in the area of humility, or do you need a Paul experience this morning? Do you need to see God face to face in order to see how prideful you are? I am promising one thing this morning. If you come to the altar this morning and confess your pride to the Lord with a broken and sorrowful heart, the Lord will be gracious to forgive you, and He will meet you here. God loves a broken and a contrite heart. I encourage you this morning to take a step of faith and come meet God this morning. Bare your heart to Him. Ask him to see Him in His glory. Tell God you want more of Him and less of you. Ask God for humility – that is a request He will not deny. Surrender all you have to Him for the sake of this church. We are going to pray and I am going to play a song. If you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, come forward and meet Him here at the altar. No one will look down on you because that would be prideful. Humble yourself before the Lord this morning so He can lift you up. Let’s pray.
