Introduction:
A. The story is told of a teenager who regularly babysat for her minister’s 5 year-old daughter.
1. One of their favorite things to do when she babysat was to play the card game “Go Fish.”
2. One evening, after winning several games, the little 5 year-old kept bragging about how good she was at the card game.
3. Jokingly, the teenager said, “I’m going to have to teach you a little humility.”
4. Immediately, the 5 year-old asked, “How do you play that game?”
B. Humility is not a game to be played, but is an aspect of love and life that we need to learn.
1. As you know, we are in a series where we are trying to learn how to make love a way of life.
2. We are trying to embrace the love that God has for us and then give that same kind of love to others.
3. We are learning that love is more than a feeling, and an attitude, love is actually what we do.
4. So far we have discovered that love must be kind, and patient and forgiving, for it to be love.
5. Today we want to explore the relationship between love and humility.
6. We want to learn what it means to have a love that is humble, a love that is not proud.
I. What the Bible Says about A Love that is Humble.
A. As we have done throughout the series, let’s begin with 1 Corinthians 13:
1. The Bible says: “Love…does not boast, it is not proud” (NIV, 1 Cor. 13:4b).
2. Other translations read like this:
a. ESV – “Love does not boast; it is not arrogant.”
b. NET – “Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.”
c. The Message – “Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head.”
3. So from this short simple verse, we understand that love doesn’t show-off or parade itself, it not pompous and does not sing its own praises.
4. Love does not put on airs and love does not over-estimate tis own importance.
B. There is a basic biblical principle that is echoed throughout the Bible that we must never forget: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Prov. 3:34; James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5).
1. If we want to walk with God and be helped and blessed by Him, then being humble must be our goal.
C. Several of the passages we have been looking at in this study of love also include humility as an important characteristic of a loving person.
1. For instance, Ephesians 4:2 says: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
a. Being completely humble is quite a goal, wouldn’t you say?!
2. Another passage we have looked at repeatedly is Colossians 3:12, which says: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
a. Just as we have discussed the need to be enveloped in kindness, and patience, we also need to be enveloped in humility.
b. This is our calling as followers of Jesus.
D. And just as we have seen in our other lessons about the characteristics of love, God also possesses this characteristic: Jesus is humble.
1. Jesus displayed a love that is kind, patient and forgiving, and He also displayed a humble love.
2. Jesus described Himself with these words: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:29).
a. Isn’t that amazing, the God of the universe, our Savior and Lord is humble in heart!
3. In Philippians 2, when Paul wanted to challenge us to be humble, he used Jesus as an example.
a. Paul wrote: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! (Phil. 2:5-8)
b. How about that: Jesus, who is God in His very nature and equal with God in every way, He was willing to humble Himself, and take the nature of a servant, and be obedient in death.
c. As we will learn today, humble love causes us to put the needs of others ahead of our own needs – that is what Jesus did.
4. Another great example of Jesus’ humble love was the time when He washed His disciples’ feet.
a. The Creator and Lord of the universe, got down on His hands and knees and washed the dirt off the feet of His disciples (that story is found in John 13).
b. Jesus washed His disciples’ feet to teach them that love is not proud, and that love serves.
II. How Pride Destroys Relationships
A. Let’s spend a few minutes thinking about the way that pride harms relationships.
B. First of all, pride harms relationships when someone demands the center of attention.
1. Unless it is all about them and what they want and need, then life is not good. Do you know anyone like that?
2. That person usually thinks and acts like they are superior to everyone.
3. I think it is obvious how love and relationships are harmed by that kind of pride.
C. Second, relationships are harmed through prideful speech.
1. How can we recognize when our speech is prideful?
2. Ask yourself, “Do I dominate conversation? Do I talk all the time?”
a. A love that is humble says, “I want to hear what others have to say.”
b. A prideful heart says, “I know more than others and am much more interesting than others, so I should do most of the talking.”
3. Prideful speech also reveals itself in the content of our speech.
a. Do I spend most of my time talking about myself?
b. Do I have to tell everyone about my accomplishments and how good I am at things?
c. Do I have to boast about what I have – what I drive, where I live, how big my TV is?
d. Do I criticize others a lot, and try to make myself look good by putting others down?
e. The worst kind of prideful boasting has to do with showing off my good Christian works.
4. It is hard to build relationships and love others effectively with prideful speech, wouldn’t you agree?
D. Third, relationships are harmed when pride reveals itself in defensiveness and stubbornness.
1. Pride is harmful to relationships when we never admit we are wrong.
2. Pride is harmful to relationships when we refuse to compromise or give in.
3. Pride is harmful to relationships when we sulk and make sure that if we are not happy, no one will be allowed to be happy.
4. Pride is harmful to relationships when we refuse to admit that we need help and refuse to allow others to help us.
5. It has been said, “To err is human; to admit it is superhuman.”
6. Cliff Barrows, who worked with Billy Graham for many years, says that there are 4 short sentences that are absolutely essential for a good marriage.
a. They are: “I was wrong,” “I am sorry,” “Please forgive me,” and “I love you.”
b. How good are you at saying those words?
E. So let me ask you: did you see yourself in any of those descriptions of destructive pride?
1. I see myself clearly in some of them.
2. Both combating pride and cultivating a humble love have been a big focus of my Christian life and development.
3. I’m not nearly where I need to be, but I’m not where I used to be! Praise God!
III. How to Cultivate a Love that is Humble
A. So the most important question for us is how can we cultivate a love that is humble?
1. How can we keep pride in check and develop humility so that our relationships can flourish?
B. I believe the key to humility is learning to rightly value ourselves and rightly value others.
1. Humble people with humble love recognize their own value as well as the value of others.
2. Let’s tackle each of those two things consecutively.
C. First, what does it mean to rightly value ourselves?
1. Humble people are secure in who they are.
2. Humble people have a clear and accurate view of themselves.
3. God’s Word encourages us to think rightly about ourselves.
a. Romans 12:3 says: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
4. When striving for a clear and accurate view of ourselves, we can err in two directions.
a. We can think of ourselves more highly than we ought.
b. Or we can think of ourselves more lowly than we ought.
5. One successful man said that his grandmother, who raised him, used to tell him, “Just remember, no one is better than you. And just remember, no one is worse than you.”
a. It takes humility to live as no better and no worse than you are.
b. That means recognizing that we are just as valuable, and just as weak, as the people we are called to love.
6. If we are truly humble, then we will not inflate ourselves, nor deflate ourselves (remember the basketball illustration I used several weeks ago in the sermon on love yourself?)
a. Just as love calls us to recognize the value of others, it also calls us to affirm our own value.
7. As an example of an inflated view of ourselves, I heard a story about a time when Muhammed Ali, the heavyweight boxing champion was waiting for the airplane to take off.
a. The flight attendant asked Ali to fasten his seat belt.
b. Ali objected, “Superman don’t need no seat belt!”
c. The flight attendant quickly retorted, “Yeah, and Superman don’t need no airplane either!”
d. Ali promptly buckled up.
8. A young American student once visited the Beethoven museum in Bonn, Germany.
a. The student, a piano player herself, became fascinated by the piano on which Beethoven had composed some of his greatest works.
b. She asked the museum guard if she might play a few bars on that historic piano.
c. To help persuade the guard, she slipped him a lavish tip.
d. The guard agreed and the girl went to the piano and tinkled out the opening of the Moonlight Sonata.
e. As she was leaving, she said to the guard, “I suppose all the great pianists who come here want to play on that piano.”
f. The guard shook his head and said, “Paderewski, the famed Polish pianist, was here a few years ago, and he said he wasn’t worthy to touch it.”
g. Pride causes us to think more highly of ourselves than we should.
9. The famous preacher Phillips Brooks said, “The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.”
10. Coorie ten Boom, the famous Dutch Christian who was imprisoned along with her family for helping many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust, was once asked if it was difficult for her to remain humble after all the notoriety and attention she had received.
a. Her reply was simple: “When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the back of a donkey, and everyone was waving palm branches and throwing garments on the road, singing praises, do you think that for one moment it ever entered the head of that donkey that any of that was for him?”
b. She continued, “If I can be that donkey on which Jesus Christ rides in glory, I give Him all the praise and honor.”
11. If we are going to be humble and have a humble love, then we have to have a right view of ourselves.
a. That right view includes our great value in God’s eyes, but also includes the right understanding that we would be nothing without God.
b. Accepting these three realities is a key to living out true humility:
1. I have nothing that I have not received.
2. My knowledge of the universe is limited.
3. I am utterly dependent on someone other than myself for life.
c. Consider how embracing those truths would keep us humble.
12. Alex Haley, the late author of Roots, had a special picture in his office.
a. Framed on his wall was a picture of a turtle sitting on top of a fence post.
b. Haley prized the picture because it was a reminder of the lesson he had learned long ago.
c. “If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know he had some help.”
13. Here’s another good illustration of how we should think about ourselves.
a. “The axe cannot boast of the trees it has cut down. It could do nothing but for the woodsman. He made it, he sharpened it, and he used it. The moment he throws it aside, it becomes only old iron.”
14. So humility begins and continues as we rightly view and rightly value ourselves.
D. Second, humility is also dependent on the right view of others.
1. When we are secure in ourselves, knowing our God-given value, then we can stand aside in order to affirm the value of others.
a. A definition of humility I like is: Humility is stepping down so someone else can step up.
2. This is what Paul was getting at in Philippians 2:3-4: 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.
3. When we have a love that is humble, we are able to recognize that the needs of others are just as important as our own needs, and then we are able to put others first, even if that means making a sacrifice.
4. A love that is humble is sensitive to what actions would be most helpful to others.
5. Today we think of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as equals in their extraordinary endeavor that mapped much of the Western United States in the early 19th century.
a. What most people don’t know, is that if it hadn’t been for an act of loving sacrifice on the part of Captain Lewis, the trip might have gone down in history as the Lewis Expedition instead of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
b. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson commissioned his valued assistant Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition.
c. Lewis in turn immediately wrote to his good friend Clark to describe the expedition in the making.
d. Lewis went on to make a most extraordinary offer: If Clark would come, Lewis promised him a captain’s commission and co-command of the expedition.
e. Lewis had talked to the president and had obtained Jefferson’s permission to add another officer.
f. But Jefferson thought Lewis had in mind a lieutenant as second-in-command, and certainly had not authorized Lewis to offer a captain’s commission.
g. Clark accepted the offer Lewis wasn’t authorized to make.
h. Several weeks later Lewis learned that the War Department had commissioned Clark as a lieutenant.
i. The easiest course at that point would have been for Lewis to apologize to his friend for the mix-up and ask Clark to accept second place in their command of the expedition.
j. Despite his strong desire to be a captain, Clark probably would have agreed to being his friend’s second-in-command, but that wasn’t Lewis’ plan.
k. He wrote to Clark and said, “I think it will be best to let none of our party or any other persons know any thing about the grade.”
l. Clark gratefully accepted this offer, and so, while officially a lieutenant, both men referred to him as Captain, as did the unsuspecting members of their expedition.
m. Lewis could have pulled rank on Clark during the dangerous four thousand mile wilderness journey, but he never did.
n. In this way, Meriwether Lewis gave up his chance for sole command and greater glory in the annals of history.
o. Their names have come down to us, linked forever, as Captain Lewis and Captain Clark, co-commanders of the greatest exploratory trek in American History and as an example of one of the truest recorded friendships in history.
6. This is the joy of true humility: loving others so much that our desire for their well-being and their accomplishment is greater than any selfish ambition we might have.
Conclusion:
A. Humility is a great Christian characteristic, but it is one that is often illusive and hard to maintain.
1. Bernard Meltzer, former radio host said, “Humility is a most strange thing. The moment you think you have acquired it is just the moment you have lost it.”
2. Paul Powell, retired Dean of Baylor University’s Theological Seminary, once observed: “Pride is so subtle that if we aren’t careful we’ll be proud of our humility. When this happens our goodness becomes badness. Our virtues become vices. We can easily become like the Sunday School teacher who, having told the story of the Pharisee and the publican, said, ‘Children, let’s bow our heads and thank God we are not like the Pharisee!’ ”
3. Peter Marshall, former Chaplain of the U.S. Senate prayed, “Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change. And when we are right, make us easy to live with.” That’s humility!
B. Here are some things we can work on this week:
1. Work on thinking rightly about yourself: Think long and hard about what God has done in your life and where you would be without him. Consider your value in God’s sight.
2. Work on thinking rightly about others: Consider how valuable others are in God’s sight.
3. Consider how you can put the needs of others ahead of your own needs: at home, at work, at school, and at church.
C. May God help us to have a love that does not boast, and is not proud!
Resources:
Love as a Way of Life, by Gary Chapman, Part 2, Chapter 6, Humility, Doubleday 2008.
The Expressions of Love, Sermon by Lowell Johnson, www.bivosmallchurch.net
Love Does Not Boast, Sermon by Melvin Newland, SermonCentral.com
Love is Not Proud, www.gracebaptist.ws/sermons
