Grace for the Humble - Sermon for CATM - June 12, 2005
A pastor in Toronto who I deeply admired, Dr. Winston Nunes, was once praised for his humility. He looked up at his admirer and said, “I’m not humble, I’m accurate”. A lot of the Bible, God’s Word, is dedicated to helping us see things as they are, to see the truth about ourselves, to understand the truth about God as it is revealed in Scripture.
We’ve been studying the book of James for a few weeks now. We’ve looked at faith and works and seen that faith and works are not separate things, but really two legs of the same animal. We’ve looked at taming the tongue, harder than taming the wildest animal and yet something that makes us continue to reach for God’s grace, the tongue reminds us of our weakness. Today, James takes us on journey of a different sort. It is to a place of humility.
James outlines for us the way of humility, the steps we need to take to come into right relationship with God for he writes, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
1. Submit to God (vs. 7)
The first is to submit to God. The word submission raises red flags for many of us. I’m pretty sure that you’ve known someone in a position of authority who has abused their authority. You may have trusted, you may have submitted before, and it turned out badly, because you had to submit to someone who was not worthy of being submitted to. Fair enough.
Part of the healing God brings us through is in disentangling the baggage we carry - and we all
carry it - that confuses God’s character with mankind’s behaviour. If this is a real struggle for
you, don’t just leave it like that. You need healing prayer. You need to pray to understand who God really is, and you may need others to pray with you to support you and ask for God’s grace to enable you to understand that God alone is completely worthy and that we are completely safe in giving our lives to him.
2. Resist the devil (vs. 7)
Sometimes we get the first part, submitting to God, but then we act as though we don’t have an enemy of our souls. Sometimes I’ve said that we don’t need there to be a devil. We mess things up enough on our own. Jeremiah says in chapter 17:9 that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
But, there is a being who is the very substance of evil. Peter says in chapter 5 of his first letter “8
“...Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith...”
Satan comes to us in the form of temptation. James says earlier in chapter 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 4 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
How do we resist the devil? Well, Satan is the author of deception, or lies. He thrives on them. Deceit and untruth are like food to our enemy. He even uses Scripture with us, as he did with Jesus at His temptation.
Remember? Satan said to Jesus, who was weakened after fasting for 40 days "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, "It is written: ’Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "’He will
command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not
strike your foot against a stone.’"
7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: ’Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’"
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the
world and their splendor.
9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ’Worship the Lord your God, and
serve him only.’"
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
As in all things, Jesus is the One we look to when we need to know what to do. What did Jesus do? He knew the Scriptures, He countered Satan’s distortions of Scripture which were twisted to puff Jesus up, with the truth of Scripture which exalted God...put Him first.
And then, very importantly, Jesus commanded Satan to leave. We resist the devil by knowing the Word of God, by submitting to God and by, when necessary, actively commanding, in Jesus name, to leave us.
3. Draw near to God (vs. 8)
The third thing we need to do is draw near to God. Someone said to me recently that when he really didn’t want to be close to God, he avoided church. When we gather each week we do some very important things. We intentionally put ourselves in a place where God is honoured.
When we come together as the body of Christ, we have the opportunity to encounter God as his body. The more we prepare to come into God’s presence here, the better our experience of God. We draw near to God when we communicate with him in prayer, when we confess our sins to him, when we carve out space during our week to spend time with him. We draw near to God when we reach out with God’s love to others, offering our love and our caring in Christ’s name.
4. Cleanse your hands (vs. 8). Then James says: “Cleanse your hands”. What is it that is keeping you from God? Where are you of two minds - to serve God and to serve yourself at the same time, as though that were possible? Where do you find yourself conflicted? What gets your spiritual hands dirty? What sins do you seem to keep returning to?
God calls us to cleanse our hands, and that suggests to avoid the places we go to or the persons we are with when we stumble. And then God calls us to do something with the time we might otherwise spend sinning. He calls us to do good, to be aware of the things that are right to do and then do them. James says in v, 17:Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
Psalm 24:3-5 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? [4]
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn
deceitfully. [5] He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of
his salvation.
And finally we have our key verse, v. 10. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up”. Here is a challenge and a promise. Someone has said, “They that know God will be humble, and they that know themselves cannot be proud.”
The challenge each of us face is to know who we are and to know who God is. We’re called to not think too highly of ourselves nor to be too harsh on ourselves. God wisely designed the human body so that we can neither pat our own backs nor kick ourselves too easily.
Of course, the call to humility can still seem so vague, so much talk. Can we ever really know what humility is? Are there any true examples out there for us to learn from.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than
yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of
others. 5 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.
Our Saviour is the perfect example of humility. From His example it should be obvious that humility is not weakness. It is power under control. Humility is not demeaning or dignity-robbing. It is the path to godliness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Let’s pray. Father God, we thank you that you give grace to the humble. We thank you that in Jesus Christ we have the opportunity to learn what humility is and the fruit that it bears in a life. Will you grant us a humble spirit God, so that we may clearly and accurately see who we are, and so that we will always relate to you as you are...the King of Glory, the friend of sinners, the Lover of our soul. This we pray is Jesus matchless name. Amen.
