Heartbeat - Christlike Humility

Pre-Introduction

This is Week 6 of my Heartbeat series, outlining my Core Ministry Priorities.

See my booklet. Request my doctrinal statement. Reach out to set up a time to get together.

Introduction

It feels like there are more “national days” than ever before.

Some of them make sense to me —

Today is National Coffee Day, for example.

National Ice Cream Day is July 20.

Beginning this year, with it falling on a Tuesday, National Taco Day will now fall on the first Tuesday of October each year, according to Taco Bell and a decree by Marlo Anderson, the founder of the National Day Calendar.

Others are bit wacky.

National Talk like Shakespeare Day is April 23

National Squirrel Appreciation Day is January 21

And National Call Your Doctor Day is the second Tuesday in June

Companies and non-profits can promote these “days” to generate interest or sales.

One writer thinks we all love these national days because we are so hopeless when we read the other news of the day that we instinctively fall back on something light and positive to give us a little bit of hope to get us through the day.

From time to time, though, some of these National “days” aren’t as much about a product or a cause, but a virtue.

One of these is “Be Humble Day” on February 22.

On the National Today website, another registry of these unofficial days, they explain that

On Be Humble Day people across the world, irrespective of their religion, culture, and philosophy come together and stress the importance of being humble. Many great personalities say that humility is the most difficult of all virtues to attain.

On Be Humble Day, you’re not allowed to boast, since bragging about your achievements, success, and abilities can lead to pride.

They say, “In this self-obsessed world where people are increasingly becoming narcissistic, obsessed with their appearance, and attention-seeking, not choosing to brag is much more difficult than one might think.”

They also add that “Being humble is more than not boasting, but it is all about listening to others, accepting our errors and weaknesses, and working on them to get better.”

Most of us intuitively know that Being Humble — Humility — is in fact a virtue, provided we define it correctly. It’s something good and right and in tune with the good life.

Whoever wrote up this description certainly thinks that people of lots of different religions, cultures, and philosophies can all come together and celebrate the importance of humility.

It seems self-evident.

Historical Background/Context of Humility

But historically, that has not always been true.

For the Greeks and the Romans at the height of their power and influence, humility, from the Latin word humilitas, wasn’t a virtue at all.

The Latin word humilitas literally means lowness, insignificance, or unimportance.

In the world of the Greeks and the Romans, Honor was the great prize. It was an honor-shame culture, in which social status was deeply connected to merit.

If you had merit or accomplishments, you deserved honor.

To not get honor for merit is, in the words of one historian, to “break the equation.”

Humilitas, lowness, then, was not morally virtuous, but contemptible and ugly and unjust and undesirable.

Those who were low were not worthy of honor.

Those who were worthy of honor were not low.

Illustration -

Beginning of the first century, AD (14 AD, the year Augustus dies):

the Res Gestae Divi Augusti [pronounce: “race guest-eye dee-vee ow-goost-eye”] (The Achievements of the Divine Augustus), written by the emperor himself and inscribed by his order onto bronze tablets set up in front of his monument. Copies of this were distributed throughout the empire, and it provided a catalogue of the emperor’s activities. However, more importantly, it provides a glimpse of a world-view so different than our own where a sense of boastfulness was accepted and associated with power.

Here at the beginning of the first century AD, Augustus is a model of this ancient classical ethic.

To be high and honored was the moral ideal. Good.

To be low and dishonored was the opposite of the moral ideal. Bad.

But then, by the end of the first century AD, there was a massive and dramatic change in the language.

All of sudden, lowness began to take a positive spin.

Now, in the words of one historian, the idea of “a willingness to forgo your status and honor for the good of others” was no longer seen as a vice, but as a virtue.

Now, to be low could actually be virtuous.

How could this happen? How can it be that at the height of Roman Imperial power, a concept that would have been morally offensive to the majority of people came to be a basic assumption of morality, even among those who would not consider themselves religious?

The answer, from a historical perspective, is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Post-Introduction

Let’s look at one of the source texts from the early 60s AD, most likely written from the city of Rome to recipients in another Roman colony, the city of Philippi.

This is Philippians 2:1-11.

Philippians 2:1–11 (ESV)

1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,

2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

10 so 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.

Christlike Humility

Listen to the writer’s argument here.

(1) You need to be humble (vv. 1-4) because

(2) Jesus was humble (vv. 5-8)

and (3) God exalted Jesus (vv. 9-11)

[which means you need to change your worldview]

This radically confronts and re-frames the honor-shame culture they’re living in.

It just turns it completely upside down.

In the Greco-Roman world, those who had status and honor didn’t do the work of a servant. The servants did the work of a servant because they were low. It wasn’t just what they did, it was who they were.

But here, the claim of this letter is the Jesus was God in the flesh, God coming down as a human being, and who therefore possessed all honor by divine right.

But he didn’t cling to his divine status or hold onto it as something to be grasped. He didn’t appeal to his divine position as an excuse for why he shouldn’t become a servant.

He willingly laid aside his privileges and embraced a life of lowly service, leading to the most shameful death imaginable — crucifixion.

Writing some some twenty or thirty years after Paul, the Apostle John recounts another key moment in Jesus’ life, when before he was betrayed, Jesus visually depicts his journey from heaven to earth, by washing his disciples’ feet, the task of a lowly household servant.

John 13:3–5 (ESV)

3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,

4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

John 13:12–17 (ESV)

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?

13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

It’s a stunning reversal, and Jesus says He’s the example.

If Jesus, the God of the Universe in Human Flesh, the one with all merit and deserving all honor would embrace the lowly task of washing feet, and embrace the ultimate shame by being crucified in the place of sinners, we can’t understand honor and shame the same way anymore.

This radically changed the equation.

It was a consistent theme throughout the New Testament.

Mary the Mother of Jesus would sing in Luke 1:51-53

Luke 1:51–53 (ESV)

51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate;

53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

Jesus himself regularly taught about this “great reversal.”

Matthew 5:5 (ESV)

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Matthew 23:12 (ESV)

12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

In addition to Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul would write in Ephesians 4:1-3

Ephesians 4:1–3 (ESV)

1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Colossians 3:12 (ESV)

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

James, the Half-brother of Jesus and the Apostle Peter both stressed the importance of humility, quoting from an Old Testament proverb.

James 4:6 (ESV)

6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

And Peter, vividly remembering the humility of Jesus when he washed their feet and died on the cross wrote:

1 Peter 5:5 (ESV)

5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

And again,

1 Peter 3:8 (ESV)

8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

Application

Christlike Humility.

What exactly is humility and why did I list it as my last Core Ministry Priority?

One poet writes:

“Humility, that low, sweet root

From which all heavenly virtues shoot."

(Thomas Moore)

Another says

“Humility is the soil in which everything good in the Christian life grows, and if that soil goes away, everything good withers.”

(John Piper)

Yet another says it this way:

Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others. Humble people are so focused on serving others, they don’t think of themselves.

(Rick Warren)

Humility is the byproduct of rightly apprehending God’s love and grace in the gospel.

Did you hear the gospel logic in Philippians 2?

Here’s the command, Phil 2:3-4

Philippians 2:3–4 (ESV)

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

That’s what humility should look like, not making your decisions from a posture of what you can get out of it, or from a posture of thinking of yourself as more important than the other people around you. Not looking only looking out for yourself, but looking out for others.

Here’s the reason for the command, Phil 2:5-8

Philippians 2:5–8 (ESV)

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Gospel logic!

Because of God’s grace in the Gospel, because Jesus deployed his status and his power and his resources for the good of others at great personal cost to save sinners like you and me, that’s how we should live, too.

Not holding onto our status. Not holding onto our positions or our honor or our resources for ourselves, but deploying them for the good of others.

The way we’ll know if the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really at the center of our church, is if we’re growing in humility.

If humility is the byproduct of our life together, that will be the sure mark that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really at the center and is really what we treasure and love and value.

What would it mean for us as a church to grow in humility?

What would it mean for you, or for me?

What would it mean for your family? Your marriage? Your job?

What would it mean for our community? Our neighborhood? Our town?

Application

One of the reasons this is so big on my awareness right now is because if God is calling me to step into this role as the next Lead Pastor at our church, then that means He’s also calling you to step up.

And as we walk into our next season as a church, its going to require a healthy dose humility if we’re going to be all that God is asking us to be for the cause of Christ.

Conclusion

[story about humility]