Joy in humility

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By way of a secondary introduction something that I've been reflecting on and meditating on is to say hello everyone uh I am re and I come to you today um as nothing more than the chief of Sinners deserving of the death of the Despicable but I also come to you as nothing less than the child of God saved by his grace and the redeeming death and resurrection of Christ let's start with a reading from our verse today Philippians 11 uh uh sorry Philippians 2: 1-1 have to get very confused there um is there any encouragement from a belonging to Christ any comfort from his love any Fellowship together in the spirit are your hearts tender and compassionate then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other loving one another and working together with one mind and purpose don't be selfish do not try to impress others be humble thinking of others as better than yourselves don't look out only for your own interests but take an interest in others too you must have the same attitude that Christ had though he was God he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to instead he gave up his divine privileg he took the humble possession of a slave and was born as a human being when he appeared in human form he humbled himself in obedience to God and died for criminals death on a cross therefore God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and every tongue declare that Christ uh Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God uh so my lesson goals for today because I do like to bring those along uh I was recognizing the timeline's a little bit tricky here some of us have already done this study with our study group some of us might not have yet started I know my study group is doing it this week some of you might not be in a study group at all so my goals uh this week are mostly about experience hopefully if you've already done the study I can value ad uh for those uh who've already done it hopefully I can start some meditation and some conversation for those of you who are studying this week uh with your EFG groups and if you're not in a study at all hopefully it's still challenging and engaging for you as well so let's have a talk about humility and what humility is so I've got I've gone and I've found some definitions and so according to the dictionary humility is the quality of having a mod or low view of One's Own importance According to some Bible scholars uh humility is seeking to bring glory and honor to God looking out for the interests of others as I've been reflecting on this since writing the study um I think humility is a true and accurate view of oneself in the context of a Biblical worldview of understanding our true place in what uh in God's story um again that of being the chief of Sinners but also a child saved by God what uh isn't humility there's some obvious ones here obviously arrogance isn't humility arrogance comes from a place of anger and it comes from a place of stubbornness and sometimes it comes from a place of disgust it's a failure to recognize our failure we all of us fall short of the glory of God we do not particularly have a right to be arrogant and arrogance brings no joy selfishness is not humility comes from a place of greed comes from a place of self-centeredness it's a fa to recognize that we are called to discipleship as we talked about last week and we're called to community as I think I've talked about in previous messages as well that this is a deep calling on our lives to not Center ourselves but to Center Christ first and then our community timidity is also not humility being timed hiding Who We Are comes from Fear it does not come from Joy and it doesn't bring joy either we're told repeatedly throughout the Bible that we need to boldly pray that we need to boldly go forth that we need to not put our lamp under a cover that we need to shine bright so humility can't be timidity it can't be fear humility also isn't Living In Perpetual guilt about the sin that we have committed because we have committed it and I've certainly known times in my life where I've really struggled with what Paul struggles with in Romans of doing the things that I don't want to do and not doing the things that I know that I should but we can't just live and SP in on that because we are also forgiven and it's such an important thing to remember it's when we get into that spiral that that Christ comes to us and says yeah I know I know you did that I know you failed again I know you're forgiven Now respond yeah no I know you did the wrong thing I know that you wasted time I know that you were tempted you're forgiven Now respond it takes away our excuse because the Perpetual guilt is just the accuser tempting us to wallow in that when we should be considering the consuming mercy and forgiveness of Christ so where can we enact Community uh sorry where can we enact humility where can we take action on this uh we can take action in our community when we have the same love what love should we have well the verse told us we should have the comforting Love Of Christ that should be the love that we share it's not talking about romantic love it's talking about all having the one love that we all experience through Christ when we experience that through him we should be sharing that with each other when we're of one Spirit What Spirit should be should we all share it should be the Holy Spirit that's the spirit that we share when we're all of One mind it's not necessarily that we're a hive mind who all has the exact same thoughts every single day uh that we're all constantly in exact agreement and alignment with each other but it is is that we all see the same goal we all have the same vision for where we want to head and we're all aiming to achieve it and our thoughts are always aimed as Christ thoughts are towards tenderness and compassion for each other when we value others in our humility we want to make sure we do that not in a way that's self-deprecating we're not it's not that we're trying to make ourselves suffer although we know that we can find joy in hardship and we're not merely doing it to be polite to other people we're doing it because we need to find that Christ centered humility of centering ourselves exactly on the interests of others and valuing them Beyond ourselves and then ultimately we also have to be communally humble which can sometimes be tricky it's difficult I've talked about this before it's difficult some times to let other people help us but that is the idea of being in a church community that we are humble enough to be able to look to the needs of others and also humble enough to allow others to look to our needs so that everyone's needs amen we can also enact our humility when we're in conflict with each other the way we do that is by making sure that in whatever we're doing Christ's exaltation to the highest place is our main goal it always has to be that the center of our goal in Conflict must be the glorification of Christ it can't be I want to win I want to beat you I want to win this fight as um I Heard a speaker talk once about this idea of um Marriage Partners I'm not married so I I don't necessarily have this experience but when you have a disagreement or an argument as partners some of you may know this it is not something where you want one party to win and one party to lose you go into an argument hoping to beat or claim victory over your partner then one of you loses and then ultimately both of you lose whereas if the goal of the conflict is the greater good of the relationship where you both win then that's a much better outcome so when we have conflict over theology whether that's uh a particular interpretation of a verse whether that's people's places in Ministry whether that's uh the how we perform communion and the process that we go through it can't be about I need to be right and you need to be wrong and I need to win this it needs to be what's God's good and perfect will in this situation that's got to be what we're trying to find when we're in conflict over worldly issues again the verse tells us hey we need to reject selfishness reject ambition reject vanity reject conceit Embrace each other's interests and I think it can sometimes be tricky we we also read that when we're in some forms of conflict to turn the other cheek when someone commits violence against us or when someone takes something from us allow them to take something else um it we have to be careful I think not to allow ourselves to be abused in all these things but again find God's good and perfect will in these situations um something I was thinking about this week was uh when we aim to be a servant as Christ was a servant for us we have to remember that God's heart is for the orphan and for the Widow and for the underprivileged and so we have to aim to make ourselves the Servants of the orphan and the Widow and the the privileged if we make ourselves the Servants of the narcissistic and the rich and the oppressed or as opposed to the oppressed that then we're not really finding that right good Center place as Matthew 1016 says Christ is sending us out as sheep amongst wolves and so we have to be wise as wise as we are in we also have to find humility in the way that we Pres present ourselves I talk about in the study that a lot of the time in the Bible when we're looking for uh when we're looking at humility we're looking at ways of sort of negating Social and economic circumstance uh whether it's there's a there's an admonition in there about um uh uh when gathering together for a meal not putting the rich person in a particular place of honor and the poorer people at the feet of others whatever riches we have that's all going to rust it's all going to it's not going with us by any stretch of the imagination it has no importance in the long term but neither does the poverty that we experience now have anything in comparison to what we can can know and experience when we reach heaven it's similar with any other blessing whether we're in pain now pain now has nothing in comparison to the joy that we have coming the pain that Christ experienced on the cross was horrible he wanted to avoid it so much that he cried tears of blood in the garden in preparation please Lord can there be a another way and yet in obedience he went through knowing that there was something much better to come and that it was worth it for that outcome when we present ourselves we don't want to do that in a way where we are seeking equality with God that is the mindset that Adam and Eve had it's the mindset that got us into all the trouble that we're in now in the first place trying to find some level of equality with God it's not something that we need to grasp for we have to as Christ did have that mindset of a servant have the mindset of a slave and in the Jewish culture the mindset of the slave was one of um an in uh an indentured servant who had a debt to pay um and we are redeemed within Christ's salvation we have a debt we have a debt to God that has been paid for through Christ and so our servanthood then shifts to him when we're obedient we need to be obedient to the point of worldly penalty we can't we can't hold back simply because the world won't like what we do because it will never like what we do we live in a sinful world we live in a fallen World it does not want the humility that we need to bring to the table and so there'll be times when being obedient to God brings us ridicule brings us punishment brings us penalty but when it's undeserved as it often will be in this world that is of Christ that is US truly aligning ourselves with Christ in that humility we also want to be very humble in how we approached Outreach um why do we go on mission trips why do we share the gospel why do we preach why do I get up here and do this thing this very nerve-wracking thing to stand in front of you all uh my answer up until recently as I Was preparing this study has very much been oh it's really fun I I like how it stretches my brain in a different way um I'm you know I've been teaching some of the same courses for a while now uh and this just gets me to do something very different and I really like how that that gets me to do something different and that's you know that's not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination um and it's not a bad thing hopefully uh some of you have benefited from uh uh um uh the opportunity that I've had as well to get up here and preach but that can't be why I do it it can't be I can't do it specifically and just because you will all be benefited from hearing from me right it's nice that that happens but that's can't be my humble why the same thing with any mission trip that we do or any Outreach that we do you can't just do it because people will benefit from it we certainly don't want to do it so people don't benefit from it right we you know we people ask for fish we don't want to give them snakes as the Bible tells us right we do do actually want people to benefit from the fact that we are outreaching but that's not the humble one a lot of the times when people talk come back from mission trips uh or or Outreach they'll say oh my life was so much more impacted than the people that I did Outreach with it was so fantastic um just how much God impressed upon me and how much I got from that experience it was just great and that is excellent it is good that you also receive and are filled up from that experience that's not a bad thing at all but that's not the humble why either that's a good thing but it's not the why and I often find it a little bit tricky when trying to encourage people to go into Mission I was like oh you'll get so much out of it I don't want that necessarily to be your why our humble why has the be the glorification of God for anything and everything that we do our goal must be to help along the way that every knee bow that every tongue acknowledge Christ and for the glorification of the father when we Center ourselves on that's my why that's why I'm having a discussion that's why I'm Outreach preaching that's why I'm doing Mission it's in response to this to Christ and what he's done in my life and that he may be glorified rather than me or rather than others that's when we find that right place in hum so how do we find joy in that where does the joy come from here in all all this Christ Century I think it comes from well I think I think it comes from the lack of input from other emotional states we're no longer dealing with the anger and arrogance we're no longer dealing with fear and timidity if Joy is meant to be from a Biblical world view from a Christian World viw Joy is meant to be this experience that we have outside of emo and outside of uh the experiences we might be having in life at the moment that something that that God grants us outside of that humility is what clears that emotional space for us I am the chief of Sinners there's a line that I heard from uh a man in the Morton Bay Community Harry Harding a number of years ago and it really stuck with me this idea that I am nothing more more than the chief of Sinners I am the worst sinner you'll meet because I know God's word I know Salvation I know Redemption but I still commit sin that still happens I still waste time I'm still tempted and I still fall to Temptation I'm not better than anyone else but I'm also nothing less than a child of God and I can't forget that either we need to lose the anger of our arrogance we need to lose the fear in our timidity we need to lose greed and selfishness and we need to lose the guilt of The Unforgiven and that's when we find joy in that humble let me pray for dear Lord thank you so much for your joy thank you so much for uh raising us up beyond the Sinners that we were Lord I pray this morning for each and everyone here that you clear us of arrogance you clear us of timidity you clear us of selfishness clearest of greed and you help us to find the humble state that we can know in you to find joy in you in your Redemption and in your salvation and in your hope future. Amen.