04 Humility Distinguishes the Believer.
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Last episode we talked about how humility is the foundation for righteousness, as it is the foundation of Christ and the one who ought to be our foundation for life on earth.
And that is exactly what I want to further talk about today. Jesus Christ ought to be the foundation for our life on earth. Why? Remember In John 15:5, which we talked about in the first episode, Jesus says apart from Him we can do nothing. Jesus is the reason we have life. He is the reason we took our last breath and the reason we will take our next. It is by His wounds we have been healed and by His grace that we live.
You ought to know as a follower of Jesus that we are called to take up our cross daily and follow him. And if we are to truly follow Jesus, we are to seek to resemble His character. And if, like we discussed last episode, we are to resemble Jesus, we ought to seek to resemble His humility.
Jesus’ humility is what stood out. That is what stood out from His character and from His life. Hear me when I say this: Jesus’ humility is our salvation.
Jesus Christ, fully God, descended from Heaven to take on the appearance of a man, and being found in appearance as a man, what did he do? Philippians 2 says that Jesus humbled himself, by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. So not only did Jesus descend from Heaven to earth, which is already an act of humility we cannot fathom, but Jesus then descended among men to be the lowest of them all, to die for all mankind.
His humility gave his death its value, because He was FULLY GOD, who became man, and was undeserving of the death he took.
It is in this gap of Jesus’ descent which I just described, that Charles Spurgeon says is our room for gratitude. That’s a gap so large you will NEVER EVER comprehend it.
Can you better see the humility of Jesus now? Jesus died for the people, you and me, who put Him on the cross. In what story do you see the hero die for the villain?
That’s what Jesus did for us!!!
Andrew Murray says “In heaven, where Jesus was with the Father, in His birth, in His life, in His death, in His sitting on the throne, it is all, it is nothing but humility.”
Why does Murray say this? Because Jesus had the power to save Himself on that cross, He had the power to take the throne of the earth while a man,… He had the power to do anything He wanted to because He was fully God. He had every right, power, and authority to exalt Himself. But yet Scripture says He made himself nothing. He made himself nothing so that God the Father might be all. He denied Himself and His will and His power to the Father’s will and let Him work through Him.
Murray comments further on the humility of Jesus by pointing out how often Jesus denies Himself. He says in John 5:30 that of his own self he can do nothing, but that His judgment is just because He seeks not His own will. He says on two separate occasions in John 7 that His teaching is not His and he has not come of Himself.
It truly is so beautiful, as I myself am reading through the book of John, to see how many times Jesus denies Himself. I’d encourage you to start in John 5 and read to see how often Jesus denies Himself, because it happens quite often.
Now I’ve said all this so that you would more easily recognize that Jesus’ life was marked by humility.
From His birth in a very small town in a lowly manger, not even the Inn, born to a woman of low stature, all the way to His death on a cross.
From beginning to end Jesus’ life was marked by humility.
And if humility be one of, if not the distinguishing mark of the One we seek and claim to follow, it should also be ours. This is why, as believers, humility should distinguish us from the world.
We talked last week about how Jesus chose to describe his heart as gentle and lowly. But before that, he said we should “Learn from me…” Jesus says “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart”. Jesus is inviting us to take after learning of his heart. To learn of his humility. This is what the world ought to see! Not some arrogant know it all telling people they are going to hell. Not some selfish man abusing the grace of God through sin or through shameful gain. We can’t live actively condemning people for their lack of relationship with Jesus! We can’t live claiming to have a relationship with Jesus, claiming to be led by Him, yet our lives resemble no humility. We’re not followers of Jesus if that is us, we’re hypocrites!
Take the focus off yourself now and look back at Jesus.
What did He do to the one who betrayed Him? What did he do to Judas?
He washed his feet (John 13:5). He served, fed, and cared for the one who would kill him.
Do we do that? I certainly have not in my life. And what is funny about Jesus’ washing of feet, is that as He was washing the disciples feet, in the very same evening, they were arguing about who was the greatest disciple (Luke 22)!!! Isn’t that crazy??
That should show you ONE, how prideful we are, and TWO, how blind we are to the importance of humility. Those disciples are sitting there while the Son of God is washing their feet arguing who is the greatest among them. O how prideful and self-absorbed we are!
In Luke 22:26, Jesus says ‘let the greatest become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves’. Two points of lowliness. Jesus emphasizes how the greatest of man, the greatest position of man, is not of kingship or authority, but of lowliness and servitude.
And that is what stands out to non-believers! THAT humility is what distinguishes us.
There is a passage in Luke 6 in which Jesus talks about how we should love our enemies. He says, starting in verse 27…we should
‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them’.
These verses are so convicting to me. How many of us truly love our enemies? Like love them to the point that we desperately want them to know Christ? Love them enough to wash their feet even if they were seeking to harm us? How many of us offer the other cheek when we receive a punch to one? How many of us give to the one who took from us? How many of us do not ask for the return of what is rightfully ours?
Certainly not me! And yet…these are all fruits of a humble heart. These are all actions that can be done when we abandon self and let God be all. These are all actions that cannot be done when God is not in control of your life, because everything in us wants justice and revenge.
I call it “My Inner Peter” because there is always something in me that wants revenge and justice, to the point where I’d cut off someone’s ear.
But we cannot live this way. We must resign our will and our life so that God may be all. And when we do this, we live in humility and these kinds of actions Jesus describes in Luke 6 are possible.
And what if we don’t live this way? Jesus says, going on in that same chapter (Luke 6), next verse..
‘If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount’.
Again, this is very convicting. Jesus is saying that if we don’t treat our enemies in a self-abandoning way, showing the virtues of love, grace, and mercy, all rooted in a heart of humility, how can we be different from those who don’t know Jesus?
What then, would distinguish our churches, our communities, our character’s if we do not live in this humility? Absolutely nothing!
I’d argue, granted now this is my personal opinion and not rooted in Scripture, but I’d argue that lack of humility in believers is the biggest reason most people choose to not have a relationship with Jesus. They can’t see Him, but they can see us, those who claim to follow Him. And what do they see? They see selfish people, after their own gain, obsessed with themselves, living for themselves, caring first and foremost for their own life and possession over another’s, thinking more about their life than the life of the lost.
In this I have been able to see the beauty of Jesus and the power of God, because despite our unfaithfulness, He has been faithful. He doesn’t need us to move in the hearts of the lost. But our pride, self-righteousness, and self consumed lives certainly don’t help. And I believe, truly, that I have been a leader of this charge! I have been a stumbling block to my sisters because I have been consumed with myself when I've been with them, not leading through lowliness and servanthood, but through pride and self-righteousness, and I’m trying to change that.
I’m saying all of this because when people see your humility, they are seeing Christ at work in your heart, because we cannot possess true humility without the abandonment of self so that God may be all. Because we are born of prideful flesh, we cannot obtain humility without heart transformation through the Holy Spirit of God in us.
“If humility be the first, the all-including grace of the life of Jesus…then it must be the first and chief thing that we seek after and ask of God” (Andrew Murray).
Humility is what distinguishes us.
I said in episode one of this series that we must realize we are nothing without God, and in realizing that, we should seek to make ourselves nothing so that God may be everything in our life.
The greatest piece of evidence showing your pursuit of humility before God is your humility before man.
The more you continually empty and humble yourself before God the easier it becomes to do it before man, in your words and actions.
And when you actively do this, humility distinguishes you from those who don’t know Christ, and it also correctly shows the heart of our Savior.
Like I said in the last episode, if you study the humility of Jesus, and you look to Him over and over again as a model and study His character, at some point you will realize that you are taking on His character. You are letting Him become more and your life, and you less. John 3:30…’He must increase, I must decrease’.
Next Monday we will continue this study of humility, but until then, to those reading, I love you all, and I hope this series is pushing you closer to Christ.
God bless!
