Parts of this message were taken from Mark Driscoll’s sermon on the same topic.
This week is a very difficult sermon to preach. In the passage we will eventually look into this morning Paul will speak to us on the most difficult attribute for any human to possess, humility. I would just like to say that I do not preach this message from the belief that I myself have achieved humility. In fact I would say that if this message is for anyone in here this morning it is for me. As the leader of this church, elected by its members, I will admit pride and humility are always at war with each other in my life both personally and professionally. It is with great, for lack of a better word, humility that I stand up here and speak to you on a topic that I myself need much grace and forgiveness. I would say humility is not only difficult for one to obtain but it is impossible for anyone to fully achieve. Pastor C.J. Mahaney who wrote the book Humility: True Greatness, which is a wonderful book on this subject, says that none of us are ever able to become humble. Instead we are only able by the grace of God to pursue humility through out our whole lives. It is because we can never be fully humble that you ever hear anyone say, “I am proud to announce today that I have achieved humility.” Or “Now that I have achieved humility here are the 7 steps you can take to be humble like me.”
There is only one person who has ever embodied true and complete humility and that is Jesus Christ. Before I can go to the scriptures to speak of Christ humility and how we, by God’s grace, can know how to pursue humility and why we should pursue humility we need to look at humility’s greatest enemy and arguably our greatest sin, pride.
Pride (DEF)- Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God.
One of our early church fathers Augustine said that pride is, “The love of one’s own excellence.”
Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of Pride “excessive self-love is the cause of every sin (1,77) ... the root of pride is found to consist in man not being, in some way, subject to God and His rule."
British Pastor John Stott once said, “Pride is more than the first of the seven deadly sins; it is itself the essence of all sins.
The deeper pride is rooted in us the farther we will push God away from us. A person who is gripped with arrogance and pride will begin to take hold of a false sense of invincibility. They will look at all they have achieved in life and arrogantly declare, “Look at what I have done. It is because of my abilities and my hard work that I have all that I have.”
Look at the culture around us. Look at our rock stars, actors, athletes and politicians. Do they give God the glory? Do they fall humbly, prostrate before the cross? Do they recognize God as the true-life giver? Do they worship him and give him honor for giving them their talents, social status and financial position? No. When was the last time you saw a music video exude humility or an athlete on TV who radiated humility. I can only think of one, Kurt Warner. Who is a sinner just like us but who humbly and with great thanks gave glory to Jesus Christ for allowing him to be where he was and to achieve what he had.
You don’t see that type of humility in most of our athletes, actors and politicians. Instead you see people who arrogantly hold out for 30 million instead of 25 million. You see people who arrogantly force their political agenda and beliefs on others and who attack verbally those who oppose their beliefs. You see those who with great pride and arrogance think they have all the answers to your problems. It doesn’t matter whether they are republican, democrat or independent they all believe they are the change you can believe in.
Now, I need to be careful because we as believers are not immune to such arrogance and pride. The church is also filled with great pride because it’s filled with sinful people who see only the sin problem of others and not themselves. We also push our agenda on the world many times through anger, hate and legalism. We, with great pride, live with an attitude that we are right and everyone else is wrong. We, with great pride, believe that our denomination and doctrine is right and yours is wrong. It is our pride that says there is only one way to worship, one way to dress, one style of music to sing on Sundays. It is because of the sinful pride in us that we compare our church to another. It is our pride that makes us ask someone, “How many are you running?” It is our pride that loves to see a pastor of a big church fall. It is our pride that causes us to make jokes about Baptist and their love of lunch buffets. We arrogantly speak down to the very people who worship the same Jesus we do. We hold to dogmatic beliefs, rules and rituals that Jesus himself didn’t hold to or believe in. No, the church is not immune to pride we ourselves are also declared guilty and even more so than the unbeliever because we know the Truth. There are many here this morning, including myself who need to repent of pride, repent of our judgmental attitude, repent of our false beliefs and ideals, jealousy, bitterness, envy and our arrogance that we know it all and that we have all the answers. We need to come to this cross on our face and with all the humility we can muster as humans beg for God’s mercy on us the greatest of sinners.
It is also our pride that keeps us from ever asking for help or from admitting our sin problem to others. Whether it be a spiritual matter, marital matter, financial matter our pride and embarrassment keeps us from seeking the help we desperately need. (Pastor illustrations of pride- we wait till the house is burning before we admit our sin)
When pride controls us it only makes it that much easier for other sins to take over. Once we are focused solely on self then it will be that much easier for greed to come in. It’s that much easier for envy to come in. It becomes that much easier for anger to come in when we are offended. Negativity, jealousy, bitterness, impatience, hate, selfishness, anger, lust all stem from the pride in us.
I promise you, for every church split, for every divorce, and moral failure there was pride driving that person to believe they were right or that they could handle the situation or that they didn’t need help or that they knew better than others. From the fall of satan to today pride has been the root sin that has given birth to all sin. Jesus dealt with pride in his disciples. In Mark 9 we see these supposed great men of God arguing over which of them would be the greatest in the kingdom. Christ in his amazing love and patience tells them those who wish to be first must be last. In Mark 10 we see two of his disciples James and John arrogantly asking Jesus to allow them to sit at his right and left hand in heaven. The other disciples became angry with James and John probably because they were the ones who wanted that position and Jesus has to once again say to them in verses 42-45 of Mark 10, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant; 44and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Both places it is Jesus who teaches that it will always be the humble who are lifted up not the proud. In fact we know from other scriptures that God hates pride. Proverbs 18:12 says, “Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.” Proverbs 8:13 says, “All who fear the LORD will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech.” Proverbs 16:5, “The LORD detests the proud; they will surely be punished.” James 4:6 says, “But he gives us even more grace to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.” All through out scripture we have a clear calling to repent of pride and take on humility. It is in our humility of putting others before ourselves and serving God over us and coming to the cross that makes joy possible. Again Pastor John Stott says, “At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.
Humility is the only way to combat the pride that is in us from birth. Humility, by definition, is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness. Pastor Mehaney from his book says that pursuing greatness for those in the world is about individuals motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency pursuing selfish ambitions for the purpose of self-glorification. The biblical pursuit of greatness is completely counter cultural. The biblical pursuit of greatness says that those who serve others for the glory of God are the ones who will be lifted up. Those are the ones who will have joy. The last shall be first.
As I have already said the greatest example of humility there has ever been or ever will be is Jesus Christ himself. Paul gives us what I would consider the best-written example and description of humility in all of scripture in his letter to the Philippians. 2:1-11. This is not about imitating Christ. None of us have the ability on our own strength to imitate the savior of the world. This section of scripture is about the impartation of Christ in us. Without the impartation which is Christ dwelling, living, coming alive in and through us no form of humility can be attained in our lives. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that I can have the mind of Christ in me, which leads me to a life of humility and joy.
Right from the get go of this passage Paul urges the believers to be of one mind. He is warning them against pride. He is in prison and he is rejoicing but he would rejoice more if he knew that the gospel was coming alive to these believers. The first week of this series I said that this was probably the greatest church of all the NT churches. They had their share of problems. Later in this letter Paul addresses an issue with two ladies named Euodia and Syntyche but it is minor compared to the moral and pride problems of the other churches.
So he is urging them to be of one mind. Being humble and of one mind is absolutely critical for the survival of the church. Here’s why. Each one of us is different. We have different ideas, different opinions on how things should work, different personalities and different backgrounds and experiences. Some think the carpet should be pink and the walls green where another thinks it should all be white. Others think the church should be led by all men where others say men and women. Some argue hymns are best some say modern worship is best while still others say a mix is best. Some say it should be suits and ties and others say shorts and tee shirts. We are all different. In reality the church should be the organization that consistently fails more than any other organization in this world because it is led by so many different people with so many different thoughts, opinions, experiences, preferences, personalities and backgrounds. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can come together to be of one mind to do the work of the father by serving others and preaching the Gospel. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to humble ourselves, set our pride aside and put the glory of Christ and the mission of the church ahead of our own self interest and our own personal agenda. Without the Holy Spirit doing a work in us no church would survive. It would always be doomed to fail.
Being of one mind is so critical because it can take a church years to become unified, working together to do God’s work but only hours for one person, filled with pride and jealousy, bitterness and anger to destroy it. You know as well as I do that it is ALWAYS that small group of negative people who speak the loudest. We always hear the negative comments the loudest and we always bow down in fear to those who oppose us. It takes years to unify a church and only hours to destroy it. That is why it is so critical for us to practice a process of church discipline where we confront those attempting to stir up problems amongst the body, we attempt to lovingly correct them and reveal their sins to them and hope it leads to repentance but if not then we release them from our membership but only after we have made every attempt to help them and to lovingly and graciously restore them to right relationship with Christ. This might sound funny but I read a quote on twitter the other day that said this, “Typically the people who are intent on rowing the boat, are not the ones who find any time to rock the boat.”
That’s why Paul then goes on to say in verse 3 and 4, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interest, but take an interest in others, too.” That word others is very important. Why did Christ come here from heaven? It was for others. Why should we preach the Gospel? For others. To put others first IS having the mind of Christ. What do you think a church would look like if it was full of people who humbled themselves before the cross and always put others first? It would be the most unified body you have ever seen do God’s work, serving others and literally seeing people saved every single day. There would be no building big enough to that church. What do think your marriage would look like if you humbled yourself and put your spouse before your own self-interest? I have no doubt that divorce statistics would plummet and lingerie sales would increase 10 fold. Humility is about being last. Serving others, focusing on God’s mission for you not your mission for you. It’s about serving God to glorify Him its not about serving God in order to make a name for yourself or to gain power and prestige in the church or to be publicly recognized. I have no doubt that 99% of problems in marriage, problems in government, problems in the church, problems in your job would be solved if we would quit being selfish, humble ourselves and put the interest of others as top priority before our own.
To buttress this point Paul goes to the example of Christ. Verse 5, “You must have the same attitude that Jesus had.” What was that? Humility. Verse 6-8- I want you to fully grasp exactly what Jesus just did here. Jesus is God. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus has been and will always be. There is great debate amongst theologians that Christ gave up his deity in order to come to earth. But I believe scripture gives clear evidence that Jesus was in fact fully God and fully man. In theology it’s called the hypostatic union, one person with two natures. Christ was so humble and so filled with love for you and for me that He chose without hesitation to step down from his throne in heaven where he is worshipped by the angels and he took on flesh. He did not give up his deity he simply chose to humble himself and set aside certain divine attributes. While on the earth he was worshipped as God, claimed to be God and forgive sins as only God can do. The creator became creation. Spirit became flesh. The timeless entered into time. Omnipresent, everywhere enters into a place. Christ set aside his immutability so he could grow from a baby to a man. He set aside his omniscience, his all knowing so he could learn to read and write. The God of this universe who created all things chose to be born in a barn, be raised by human parents, live as a poor carpenter. He humbled himself below even his own creation and was ridiculed, mocked, betrayed and beaten by sinners. He even went so far as to be murdered in the most shameful of ways by being nailed to a cross. Paul is trying to tell us that this is the greatest act of humility there has ever been or ever will be in all of history. God became flesh by being born in the humblest of ways, lived the humblest of lives and died the humblest of deaths. And he never sinned he never lost his deity; he simply chose not to access it. Not only that but he died for my sins. He did all of that AND he died for me. Romans 5:8 says, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” Because Jesus was God he could have called down legions of angels, but he didn’t. He is so humble that he let us murder him. Christ loved us so much that he let us murder him and in our murdering him Christ was so humble to still take on ALL our sin. He willingly became cursed to the point where God the Father could not even look at him. He became cursed so that your curse of sin could be lifted and salvation could be given to each of you. There is no greater act in all of history. His death on the cross is called the great exchange. That in his death he takes my sin on him and lays his forgiveness on me. I lay my pride on him and he lays his humility on me. I lay my imperfections, anger, addictions, selfishness, greed, jealousy, wrath, and my self-righteousness on him and in exchange he lays his righteousness on me. He is so humble that he allows me to murder him and he still forgives me and gives me a new life. Do you see how the things we are so prideful about, the things that we argue about, the things that we think are so important whether in life or in the church are so incredibly petty compared to what Christ Jesus did for us?
Not only does he lay on me his righteousness but he lays on me the gift of the Holy Spirit that now walks with me, guides me, speaks to me, convicts me, corrects me, comforts me, loves me and gifts me with spiritual giftings that I can use to glorify God, edify the church and do good works in His name and for His name and for His glory. Even on top of all of that He gives me a place to go where I can worship him freely, build relationships with like minded people, use my gifts to edify the church and give my money to support the work of the church so the Gospel can continue to be preached. God has done so much for us, humbled himself for us, how are you treating him, how are you treating his church? Why did he do all of that? It goes back to the word others. “Don’t look out only for your own interest, but take an interest in others, too.” To finish this passage Paul moves from the humble incarnation of Christ to the glorious exaltation of Christ. Verse 9. Because of what Christ did God exalts him as the name above all the names. It is Christ who is to be glorified. It is Christ who is to be worshipped and sung about. It is Christ who is to be preached about, it is Christ who is to be boldly proclaimed. Without Christ humble act of death on the cross you and I become nothing, completely worthless.
It is Christ name that is above every name. That is why we do not take the lord’s name in vain, what you are taking in vain God is exalting above all names. I will not hesitate to warn you this morning, think before you speak. Think before you ever drag the name of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for you through the mud. Verse 10-11- Not only will the name of Christ be exalted above all names for all eternity but there will come a day where everyone in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth will bow in recognition of His Lordship. That means that one day even Hell itself will recognize the Lordship of Christ. Not only will they bow but they will verbally cry out and confess that Christ Jesus is Lord. Not Muhammad, not Joseph Smith, not Vishnu, not Buddha, not Ala or any human on this earth. But that Jesus is Lord. It doesn’t say every tongue will confess him as savior but that every tongue WILL confess him as lord.
I want to warn you again this morning to be careful to call Jesus your Lord if He is not really your Lord. Jesus says in Matthew 7 that many will call out to him Lord, Lord but he will say to them, I never knew you. I have no doubt there are some here who have a false sense of spiritual security. You better know him as your savior before you call him lord. If Christ is your savior this morning then you can joyfully become obedient to him as your lord. Christ is not our lord unless we obey him. Jesus says in John 15:14, “You are my friends IF you do what I command.” It is the proud that does not do what Christ commands and it is the humble who fall prostrate and worship his name repenting of their sins.
I ask you this morning to search your heart. If Christ is not your savior and lord repent and believe, put your trust in Jesus. All that I have told you is true. If you will repent of your sins, believe in Jesus and give him your life you will be saved. You will be forgiven through the blood of Jesus and now the Holy Spirit will enter into you and give you a new life. A regenerated life. It is so easy. It is a free gift. Freely given by a humble God. If pride has crept into your life; if jealousy, bitterness, anger, malice, revenge, hate, self-righteousness, self-centeredness, and personal agenda’s are controlling you this morning repent. If you are more worried about the color of the carpet and the songs that were sung and the clothes the pastor wore instead of whether or not you are saved or whether or not the person next to you is saved repent. Come to the cross, fall prostrate before our savior and seek his forgiveness. Then go and live for him. Walk with him, spend time with him, let the Spirit of God do a renewing work in you go and preach to others about his love and free gift of salvation and about what Christ Jesus did on the cross for you and for them.
