Humble Servant
Luke 2:1-7
We’re starting a series today called “Born Identity,” where we will consider the identity of the Christ child as he entered the world. Today’s message on humility may be the most difficult message. I’ve had to do a lot of research for this sermon and two of the books I’ve drawn from are, "Humility and How I Attained It" and "The Ten Most Humble People in the World and How I Chose The Other Nine." Humility, it’s hard to grasp and even harder to master. That’s like the pastor who was given an award for humility. A week later, the congregation took the award back because the pastor displayed it in his office! During the days when Mohammed Ali was a great boxer, he was known for saying, "He was the greatest." Humility was never his strong suit. One day, he was on an airplane which was ready to take off and the flight attendant had repeatedly told him to put on his seat belt. He finally told her, "I’m superman and superman don’t need no seatbelt." The flight attendant didn’t hesitate and shot back with, "Superman don’t need no airplane either, now buckle up." Humility is not something we can put on and take off. Humility is more than an attitude; it is a matter of the heart. Sometimes humility comes from within; other times in thrust upon us.
Most of us look at Christmas through a rose-colored lens. I can imagine that first Christmas was more of a “messy” Christmas than a “merry” Christmas. The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, was born in a horse stable. Can you just smell the stench? And baby Jesus lay in a cold, hard stone trough. Can’t you feel the cold? Sometimes, we forget the humble circumstances in which Jesus was born. The birth of Christ was more humiliating than exhilarating.
It seems in the birth of Christ that God took humility to a whole other level. From the outset, God seems to be saying humility is more than an attitude; it is a way of life. One of the first identities we find in the birth of Christ is ultimate humility. Jesus, the one who had all power and all knowledge, who had angels singing and praising him every moment, who had every need met as he sat on the throne of God, came to earth stripped of everything to become human. Today’s passage in the book of Luke illustrates to us that Christ not only came to liberate us from the bondage of sin, but Christ came to show us the humility of a servant. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. The coming of the Christ is an invitation for all who participate in God’s plan of salvation to become humble servants for Christ. That started with Mary and Joseph.
So what does that mean to be humble like Christ? Have “the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Philippians 2:2-8 says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 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!”
As we celebrate this holiday season, God isn’t interested in how many gifts you purchase or how many lights you hang up or the holiday outfits you wear. God is looking for humble hearts to serve him. We find that in the persons of Mary and Joseph. There are several things we discover about a lifestyle of humility from today’s Scripture.
The first is a lifestyle of inconvenience. When you go through life being a humble servant for Christ, you can expect some unexpected things along this journey. Verses 4-5. Even though Mary and Joseph were expecting a child any day now, they had to deal with a lifestyle of inconvenience. They had to travel over 80 miles to register for the census. Now Mary didn’t ride in their Dodge Caravan, she rode a donkey. Their trip is like going from here to Baton Rouge, except that it was hilly and rocky and uncomfortable. But here’s the thing: it’s one thing to be inconvenienced by life itself but quite another to be inconvenienced because you have chosen to participate in God’s work. Most of us believe, if not hope, that when we sign on for the work of God, things will get easier in life, especially when we’re doing his work. Yet the life of Mary and Joseph and even Jesus prove otherwise. When they committed to participate in God’s plan of salvation, they experienced a lifestyle of inconvenience. Things got harder rather than easier.
Joseph and Mary were faced with a baby born out of wedlock, the gossip and ridicule of her small town were so great she had to go live with her cousin Elizabeth. She had a hard journey in her last days of pregnancy, no place for them to stay and if that wasn’t bad enough, the baby was born in a barn. Despite all of this, Joseph and Mary remained committed to the greater purpose of God. When was the last time you were inconvenienced because you responded to the call and work of God? How did you respond? Did you want to quit, saying, "God, I just can’t do it!"? When those inconveniences come, they call for a greater commitment to Christ. For many of us when things get rough, we just throw in the towel. As a matter of fact, society has made everything so easy to quit that over 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. People are so quick to quit. Whatever happened to "until death do us part"? Mary and Joseph must have been faced with questions about their marriage and relationship too. They were faced with the ultimate inconvenience, but they hung in there because humility was a matter of the heart.
Second, the key is to thrive in humble places. Humility isn’t about avoiding inconveniences but embracing them. Humility will also cause us to thrive in humble places. Humility brings us to a place where our success, happiness and effectiveness are not dependent on our circumstances but rather our attitude. Even though Joseph and Mary were expecting great things from God as they gave birth to and raised the Savior of the world to become a man, they first had to learn how to thrive in humble places. Now Nazareth was a pretty humble place. It was a relatively isolated town of less than 200 people and occupied only an acre of land. In fact, it was so inconsequential that it didn’t even appear on the maps of Jesus day. If that wasn’t humbling enough, “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. There is Bethlehem, away from the comfort of home and apart from the friends and family to help with the birth. You must understand, "there" is always a place of inconvenience. "There" is not a comfortable place. It was far from perfect circumstances. In fact, it was anything but. Yet she had the baby right “there". She didn’t give complain, get down or make excuses or back out.
How often have we missed out on great blessings from God because we looked for the “right” time and the “right” place to do something great for God? How often do we miss our blessings because we quit when the circumstances change? Humility realizes that God always knows what’s best for us, even though it doesn’t look good right now. Isaiah said, "For my thoughts aren’t your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways." Humility also realizes that God is bigger than any circumstances. I guess that is why God chose to use a place like Bethlehem. But why not Bethlehem? God specializes in doing extraordinary things in ordinary places and with ordinary people. You would think that when Christ was born, it would be in a city with a great medical center, a city that had three professional sports teams, Fortune 500 companies, and a place like the UN where the world’s leaders would gather and could be influenced by what God was doing. But God chose for his son to be born in a humble setting, not to just demonstrate Jesus’ humanness, but to identify him with the poor and marginalized.
Look where you are right now, in a city half rebuilt and ¾ the size it was before Katrina, a congregation that lost 1/3 of its membership and budget. Think about how God can use little ole you and me in these circumstances to do extraordinary things for God! What better time and place than right now to humble ourselves before God, to give God our best and do something for Him which will change the course of our city and region.
Third, humility makes room at the Inn. "She wrapped him in cloths and she placed him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn." As Joseph and Mary searched and searched for a place to stay to care for their newborn, all they saw were signs that read "No Vacancy." Today for Jesus, nothing much has changed. Too many people refuse to open their lives to Jesus and allow him to come stay in their midst. And yet, that is the invitation of Advent to receive the Christ child anew and make room for him in your heart and life. In Jesus, God is saying, "I want to dwell within you." Too often people try to add Jesus into their lives and yet eventually, he always gets crowded out by the other things in life. The invitation isn’t to add Jesus into your life. It’s to make him your life. And that’s where humility comes in because you have to give up the things of this world which it says is what makes you what you are: money, power, position, influence and possessions.
Humility is our willingness to submit to God’s greatness and the strength which comes from that. This Advent, Jesus wants to come dwell within us. Jesus is currently searching for a humble heart to dwell in, someone who is willing to give up everything to follow him and to find that our true purpose and identity are in God. Yet too often all He sees are signs on our heart that say "No Vacancy." Our culture is constantly crowding Jesus out. The reasons are numerous: from self-sufficiency to money to materialism to other relationships. For many of us, Jesus can’t come in because there are various events and other leisure activities, other than the Kingdom. We make everything a priority over Jesus. We will leave church early to go to a soccer game, but nobody wants to get up early to do devotions. Many of us place "No Vacancy" signs on our heart due to greed. But today we are reminded that humility always make room in the inn.
Sometimes, in order to make room, you have to get up early and sometimes stay up late. Sometimes you have to lay things aside for God and still others have to take on more. Sometimes you have to stay out of the Mall and Sam’s for God to have room in the inn. In order to make room in the inn, sometimes you have to say “no” to some things so you can say yes to God. Sometimes you have to turn off the 100 channels on cable and go to the 66 books of the Bible. This is what it means to make room in the inn. At the end of the day when Christ comes back, when he sees hearts filled with humility, when he sees folks who can be alright with inconvenience, when he sees people who can thrive in the midst of humble places, then God will say, "Now I know I can find room in the inn. These things that you do for me, for Christ, are the only things that last.”
As we celebrate this Advent season, I encourage you to remember that the first identity of Christ was humility. I want you to hear the call of God to humble service. If you humble yourselves to him, God will then be able to use you and accomplish great things with you.
Once upon a time, in the heart of an ancient Kingdom, there was a beautiful garden. And there, in the cool of the day, the Master of the garden would walk. Of all the plants of the garden, the most beautiful and beloved was a gracious and noble bamboo. Year after year, bamboo grew yet more noble and gracious, conscious of his Master’s love and watchful delight. And often when the wind came to revel in the garden, Bamboo would dance and play, tossing and swaying and leaping and bowing in joyous abandon, leading the Great Dance of the garden, which most delighted the Master’s heart. One day, the Master himself drew near to contemplate his Bamboo with eyes of curious expectancy. And Bamboo, in a passion of adoration, bowed his great head to the ground in loving greeting. The Master spoke: "Bamboo, I would use you." Bamboo flung his head to the sky in utter delight. The day of days had come, the day for which he had been made, the day to which he had been growing hour by hour, the day in which he would find his completion and his destiny. His voice came low: "Master, I’m ready. Use me as you wish." "Bamboo, I would have to take you and cut you down" A trembling of great horror shook Bamboo…"Cut …me… down ? Me.. whom you, Master, has made the most beautiful in all your Garden…cut me down Oh, not that. Not that. Use me for the joy, use me for the glory, oh master, but do not cut me down" "Beloved Bamboo," The Master’s voice grew graver still "If I do not cut you down, I cannot use you." The garden grew still. Wind held his breath. Bamboo slowly bent his proud and glorious head. There was a whisper: "Master, if you cannot use me other than to cut me down, then do your will and cut". "Bamboo, beloved Bamboo, I would also cut your leaves and branches from you". "Master, spare me. Cut me down and lay my beauty in the dust; but would you also have to take from me my leaves and branches too?" "Bamboo, if I do not cut them away, I cannot use you." The Sun hid his face. A listening butterfly glided fearfully away. And Bamboo shivered in terrible expectancy, whispering low: "Master, cut away" "Bamboo, Bamboo, I would yet… split you in two and cut out your heart, for if I cut not so, I cannot use you." Then Bamboo bowed to the ground: "Master, Master… then cut and split." So did the Master of the garden took Bamboo…and cut him down…and hacked off his branches…and stripped off his leaves…and split him in two…and cut out his heart. And lifting him gently, the Master carried Bamboo to where there was a spring of fresh sparkling water in the midst of his dry fields. Then putting one end of the broken Bamboo in the spring and the other end into the water channel in the field, the Master gently laid down his beloved Bamboo… And the spring sang welcome, and the clear sparkling waters raced joyously down the channel of bamboo’s torn body into the waiting fields. Then the rice was planted, and the days went by, and the shoots grew and the harvest came. In that day Bamboo, once so glorious in his stately beauty, was yet more glorious in his brokenness and humility. For in his beauty he was life abundant, but in his brokenness and humility he became a channel of abundant life to his Master’s world.
