Introduction: Today we are continuing our series of messages on the importance of love and unity in the Church. When we began two weeks ago we saw that the key to unity within the Body of Christ is love. That is why Paul said in Colossians 3:14—“Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity.” The key truth that is guiding our study is:
Love and Unity go “hand-in-hand” without Love there will be no Unity.
Today we are going to build on that theme, and our catch phrase which we put out on the marquee this week is: Upgrade to First Class!
How many of you have ever flown “first class” on an airline? Well, I’ve never flown “first class” but I have flown “business class” which on an International flight is just about as close to “first class” as you can get.
I was returning from the preparation meetings for an evangelistic mission project in Spain, and when we got to the airport we found out that there was an earlier flight leaving for the U.S. and decided to try and get on. One of our associates who traveled all the time said that if the flight didn’t have room, to ask if there was room in “business.” To make a long story short, we got on the flight, got bumped up to “business” and from my perspective, got treated like royalty on that 10 hour flight.
The thought that occurred to me this week is that we as believers are often satisfied flying “coach” when our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died and rose again to offer us a “first class” ticket. Just as it wouldn’t make any sense to sit in the middle seat between two loud obnoxious people in “coach” when you have a “first class” ticket—it is equally silly to settle for “coach” or “second-class” living when we have a “first class” Savior.
Today I want to address to another of the “first class” qualities from this list of unity builders that Paul gave to the Colossian believers. Before we do, let’s take a quick look at the qualities we’ve already addressed. Paul listed 8 important qualities that should be displayed in the lives of those who are followers of Jesus Christ, and so far we’ve looked at: LOVE, COMPASSION, & KINDNESS.
It all begins with LOVE which is the perfect bond on unity. We have identified LOVE with the expression: Give of Yourself like Jesus Gives. And our application challenge is: BE LIKE CHRIST.
The second quality we looked at was COMPASSION. And we saw that COMPASSSION requires us to Feel like Jesus Feels. The application point we made was that we need to: BE SENSITIVE.
The third quality that will build unity in the Church is KINDNESS. To make that a reality we have to Treat Others like Jesus Treats Us. This is where things started getting a little tougher, but we applied this principle to God’s Word: BE NICE!
Today we are going to focus on three more qualities that I believe can build unity within the Church, and can help us move up from a “coach” congregation to a “first class” body of believers sold out to serve our Savior Jesus Christ.
Text: Colossians 3:12-14
Christ-like Qualities that Can Bring Unity in the Church
HUMILITY
When I consider the challenge of HUMILITY within the Church the first thing that comes to my mind is that we all need a PERSPECTIVE check. How we “see” something greatly influences our attitude towards it. Let’s use work as an example. If we look at a job as menial, hard, thankless, and low-paying then our attitude about that job will reflect that. The result would probably be that we would consider that job “beneath” us, or not “representative” of our ability. Which means we think somebody else ought to carry the shovel and scoop up the horse poop after the parade because we’re better than that!
There are thousands of highly educated, expertly trained individuals who remain unemployed because they have an inflated image of their own self-worth. I’m not saying that a person shouldn’t look for a job that fits their qualifications, but to go without, even to the point of causing their families to suffer and you and I to foot the bill simply because they’re “too good” for certain jobs is wrong! That is a HUMILITY issue.
It would be great if the only place we had to worry about that was in the workplace, but its not. The same issue is present within the Christ’s workplace—the Church. To use the same illustration, there is some “horse poop” that needs to be shoveled around here. If you aren’t actively serving here in the Church you need to ask yourself: why? Is it a HUMILITY issue?
A couple of weeks ago I remember people were clapping because the Pastor boldly stated that we would have Sunday School classes for everyone from the moment they were born till the day Jesus called them home. Then last week when that same Pastor mentions work to be done to get ready for that you could have heard crickets in the sanctuary. Is it a HUMILITY issue? Are there jobs around here that are “beneath” you or me? Even if we don’t say that, if we think it then we need a PERSPECTIVE check and that is exactly what HUMILITY will do.
Here’s the expression that I want you to consider as we look at HUMILITY:
See Ourselves & Others as God Sees Us
How a person sees themselves is an important component in how they see others. To be HUMBLE is to “not think too much of oneself.” But it is more than that. There are many people who have very “low” opinions of themselves but aren’t HUMBLE. In fact, many times people with very low self-esteem relish the attention they get by talking themselves down. Humility isn’t to think “badly” of yourself, humility is to think “rightly” of yourself.
Let me offer this 4 step process for true humility:
See God for who He is.
See Ourselves for who we are.
See Ourselves as God sees us.
See Others as God sees them.
Isaiah’s vision and call from God is a good illustration of these steps. What did Isaiah see?
Saw God as Holy—the angels cried out before the throne: “holy, holy, holy”
Saw himself as a sinner—he cried out: “woe is me”
Saw himself as forgiven by God—“touched by fire—forgiven by God”
Saw others as needing a Savior—God asked “who will go?”
Isaiah was HUMBLED before the Lord so that He could be lifted up to serve the Lord. He had to see God and himself rightly before he could see others from God’s perspective. But before we get into seeing others, we need to see how Jesus is the perfect example of HUMILITY.
By His own words we see Jesus HUMILITY:
Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. Matthew 11:28-29 (HCSB)
Jesus has given us this offer—“What you can’t do on your own, give to Me and let me help you.”
I remember as a kid going fishing with my Dad. Invariably I would manage to get my line all tangled up on my reel. Now my Dad had taken to time on many occasions to show me how to cast and reel, and all the things that I needed to do, but I’d get distracted or in a hurry and not do it the way I was taught, and then I’d have a mess.
What do you think my Dad did in those situations? Yell at me; tell I was a terrible fisherman and that he wished he’d left me home? Rip the reel from my hand and tell me to go sit in the car? Ignore me so that he wouldn’t have to deal with it and could keep fishing himself? No, he didn’t do any of those things. I’ll tell you what he did, he watched and waited, and then at a time that he seemed to know was right he’d say: “Blake, do you me to help you?”
He knew the answer—yes! I need help! But he also knew that I needed to admit that I needed help. He knew how to fix my fishing pole, but he wanted me to know that he knew how to fix my fishing pole.
My Dad is one of the humblest men I have ever known. He was an example of Christ to me in so many ways. Because of the lessons I learned from my Dad while fishing, I’ve learned that I can turn over the important things in life to Jesus Christ who knows “how to fix” the tangled up mess that I often create. He’s not going to come and yank it away from you, He wants you to admit that you need His help—Jesus is truly the picture on HUMILITY.
But Jesus didn’t just “say it” He lived it—He showed us what true HUMILITY looks like in the Upper Room on the night He was betrayed. When none of the other disciples was willing to perform the lowly task of washing one another’s feet, Jesus took the basin Himself and bowed down before them and washed their feet. That’s HUMILITY! The Holy Son of God caring enough about us to do the most menial of all tasks, a task reserved for the lowest of servants, to teach us about having a “right perspective” about God, ourselves, and others.
So let’s turn our attention to applying HUMILITY to our lives as believers, and specifically within our Church. Listen to what Paul says in the 2nd chapter of Philippians:
Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out no only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4 (HCSB)
How many times have Church struggled to find UNITY but can’t because of the “rivalry” between different groups. Young versus Old. Hymns versus Choruses. KJV versus NIV. Pews versus Chairs. I could go on and on and on…but you know what I mean! When was the last time you genuinely looked at the interests of others instead of just focusing on what you wanted? How can God be glorified when there is such a lack of HUMILITY within the Body of Christ?
Paul put it this way in his letter to the Church at Rome:
For by the grace give to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Romans 12:3-5 (HCSB)
Can you see how UNITY and HUMILITY work together? If its all about “me” and what “I” want then we will never come together and make it about “Christ” and what “He” wants! Whether we like it our not, if you are saved, you are a “part” of the Body of Christ; a “part” not the whole. You and I each have different “parts” to play within God’s plan for this Church, and if we are not willing to work together in HUMILITY then we will never be able to accomplish what Jesus wants us to do.
Paul went on to say in the 16th verse of Romans 12:
Be in agreement with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in you own estimation. Romans 12:16 (HCSB)
I got a kick out of how The Message paraphrases Romans 12:16—
Get along with each other; don’t be stuck up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
How do we do that? It certainly doesn’t come naturally! We need to submit ourselves to Christ so that we can learn to submit to one another in Christ. That is exactly what Peter says in the 5th chapter of his 1st letter:
…all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand o f God, so that He may exalt you I due time, casting your care on Him, because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:5-7 (HCSB)
I realize that with everything we have talked about this morning that my application point is going to sound pretty simplistic, but the reality is what we need to be challenged to do is to:
BE HUMBLE
Invitation: So how do you need to apply God’s Word to your life today? Are there areas in your life where it has been all about “you” when it should have been about Jesus? How about times where you should of thought of “others” and couldn’t think of anyone but yourself?
As I have said the last three weeks—if we want UNITY to become reality here at FBC we are going to have to learn how to LOVE one another. One of the greatest expressions of LOVE is HUMILITY. What does God want you to do with His Word today?
