The Art of Humility

Romans 12:3 ESV

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

As we continue in this series of sermons concerning what is required for us to truly live a godly life in Christ Jesus, we have already talked about figuring out how to live this godly life that God commands and being willing to live it, now for the rest of our series we are going to be talking about the accompanying virtues that come with this transformation.

Jesus once told His disciples that a tree is known by the fruit that it produces. If I want to know if a tree is an apple tree or a peach tree, all I have to do is look at the fruit that it produces. If a certain tree bears apples, then I know that it’s an apple tree. Or if a certain tree bears peaches, then I know that it’s a peach tree. I don’t need to ask any more questions because the fruit speaks for itself.

In telling this to His disciples, what Jesus was relaying to them is that if someone claims to follow Him and truly be one of His disciples, He will produce spiritual fruit in his life.

Now, thus far in this series of sermons, we have said that God commands us as believers to offer our entire selves to Him as a living sacrifice, and we said that we become willing to do this by being transformed through the renewing of our minds and actively pursuing the things of God.

And just as Jesus told His disciples that if they were truly His disciples they would bear fruit, so does Paul tell the Christians in Rome that if they have been legitimately transformed by the renewing of their minds in the things of God, they will have accompanying virtues; they will, bear fruit, especially among the body of believers. And this fruit will show that this transformation by the renewing of their minds has truly taken place.

And the first virtue that the legitimate renewing of our minds will accomplish is humility. In order for legitimate orthodox spirituality to be possessed, one must possess humility, first and foremost.

And the process of possessing and living out legitimate humility in the sight of God is described in our reading this morning in three progressive steps.

The first step is: Recognizing what you are not. The second step is: Recognizing Who God is. And the third step is: Humbly submitting to God in light of steps one and two, of what you are not, what you really are, and Who God is.

Now, in the first part of verse 3, we see this first step, recognizing what you are not, where it says:

Romans 12:3a ESV

3a For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,

Paul begins this verse by saying “for” which connects this verse with what comes before it, and as has been said, what comes before this is the command to be supernaturally transformed by the renewing of our minds.

So, when Paul says the word “for” to start this verse, he essentially says, “I command you to be transformed by the renewing of your minds because by the grace given to me…”

Now, let’s stop right there for just a minute. Paul says, “For by the grace given to me”. Now, grace is something that has to be given freely. In fact, you could describe grace as the unmerited favor of a superior to an inferior.

That word “unmerited” describes something being unearned. Thus, Paul says that what he commands the Christians in Rome to do in the first and second verses of this chapter and what he is about to command them to do here in this verse, he does not command on account of anything special residing within himself, but rather, he does so because God sovereignly chose and enabled him to do so.

And so, Paul says, “by the grace given to me” or, because God has called me to this, “I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think”.

And I believe that in the day in which we are currently living, this command needs to be proclaimed now more than ever before.

You see, our depravity, our natural condition, apart from Christ is so cunning that though it keeps us at enmity with God, it also convinces us to be so arrogantly proud that we feel as though we somehow have gained or will gain God’s approval through our own merits. And the culture in which we live today panders to this depraved mindset more than ever before.

Our current culture in the society in which we live tells us that all people deserve this or deserve that. Everyone gets a trophy, everyone wins. Furthermore, everyone gets his or her own special treatment in accordance with how they “identify”.

What our culture, I believe, pushes now more than ever is this idea that everyone is super special and if there is one who deserves to be worshipped, respected, and praised, it is the almighty ME.

But what’s strange is that though our society panders to this “you’re so special” agenda so much, though our society pushes this “you’re so worthy” agenda so much, still depression, feelings of worthlessness are more common today than they have ever been.

And you know, I must say that if I sincerely believed and was convinced that I was the end all be all, I would be pretty disappointed too.

That kind of mindset should never ever be found in a legitimate Christian. The Christian should never think that he is so great, so unique that he will go at it alone, that he doesn’t need God’s help. Because in reality, we always need God’s help.

Now, I know that that is not pleasing to our egos, but it’s not supposed to please our egos, inflate our egos. It’s the process of us recognizing and admitting that we are not what our depraved nature thinks we are. And it’s recognizing and embracing the fact that we are weak, in fact, powerless.

The next part of this verse stresses this when it says that the legitimate Christian is:

Romans 12:3b ESV

3b to think with sober judgment,

Now, like we said, the first step towards practicing legitimate humility is recognizing what we are not. Now, in this part of the verse, we move on to the second step, and that is recognizing Who God is.

Now, as was said, we are weak, utterly and absolutely powerless, having no good thing naturally dwelling within us. But God, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of what we are.

In God there is no weakness, in God there is no evil, He is good, He is holy, He is unlike any other and lacks nothing whatsoever.

Therefore, when we look at our weakness, our utter powerlessness and we compare it to the attributes of God, we see that it is logically and utterly necessary for us to flee to God and throw ourselves at His mercy.

That truly is the only chance that we have. It truly is the only possible refuge. To say that “I am absolutely evil, God is holy and thus perfectly good, therefore, I need to do the smart thing, and just need to beg for Him to be merciful to me.” That is our only hope.

Now, the legitimate Christian knows this, he knows that there is nothing good naturally dwelling within him, he knows that he was saved only because God not only had mercy upon him, but also because God extended His grace to him. And because the legitimate Christian knows this, he thinks with, he judges himself with sober judgment.

He knows that his salvation has been given to him, therefore he knows that whatever else he possesses from God has also been givento him not because of who we are, but in spite of who we are. He also recognizes that whatever any other Christian possesses has also been givento him or her.

And because we recognize that what we, who are powerless have, has been given to us by God Who is omnipotent, all powerful, we should then never ever be puffed up, acting like we are somehow special because we possess something that other Christians who regularly congregate with us don’t have.

There is nothing inherently special about any of us. Just as God unconditionally elected each one of us to salvation, so does He unconditionally give each one of us what we have, not because we impressed Him enough to give us what we have, but because it was His will and good pleasure to give us what we have.

We should never say, “God must love me more than He loves you, because I have this, and you only have that!” there could be nothing more ridiculous than to say or even think that. None of us brought or brings anything to the table, and to think that we do shows that God is going to have to humble us once again.

God loves unconditionally and God gives unconditionally. And what God gives us, He gives for the mutual edification of the entire church body.

That’s why Paul says at the end of this third verse that we as Christians are to think soberly:

Romans 12:3c ESV

3c each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

If we rightly recognize that we have what we have simply because it was God’s good pleasure to give us what we have, not because of who we are, but, in spite of who are, then we will not gloat over those who don’t have what we have.

Rather, we will humbly recognize that what we have has been given to us, that as the last part of our reading tells us here, that what we have has been assigned to us by God, not earned by us.

And because of this, we will humbly thank God for His good, gracious provision and utilize what He has freely given us for the good of the entire church. It is for this purpose, for the good of the entire church which then results in glory for God that we have been given what we have been given.

When Jesus was in the Upper Room with His disciples on the night in which He was betrayed, He took a towel, tied it around His waist, and began to wash the feet of His disciples, a task that was typically assigned to the lowest of servants in those days. After He had done this, He told His disciples, “A servant is not greater than his master.”

Now, Jesus done this by way of example for us, to show us that He, being the God-man, humbled Himself by serving His people.

Now, if Jesus, the God-man, Who being God Himself received nothing but had all at His disposal was willing to serve His elect people rather than lording His Godhood over them, which He justifiably could have done, then we, who have what we have because it was given to us by God have no justifiable reason to try to act like we are special or that we are more godly because we have what someone else does not have.

We have what we have because God wanted to give us what we have, and we do not have what we do not have because God did not want to give us what we do not have.

And what we have, God gave us for each other. And through giving ourselves to one another, we give back to He Who gave us what we have, for His glory.

Beloved, may we humbly love and serve God’s Church!

Amen?