A Humble God
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Preamble
Preamble
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 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, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
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? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 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. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
Is our God Humble?
Is our God Humble?
In the beginning, a long time ago, God, the LORD, or YHWH, created all that we see, and a lot of stuff we do not see. He created humans, who are very much like Him, and placed them in a garden that He had plated, so that they may take care of it, multiply, and take care of the rest of the world. But something went wrong, and the creatures God created rebelled against Him, and chose to change the way things are done. Their hearts were fundamentally influenced to exalt themselves against God.
English Standard Version Chapter 3
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 3:5.
So began the struggle for man to exalt himself. He exalted Himself against God, and against his fellow man, causing incredible pain, suffering and betrayal. This needed to change. Man needed to know that God is not their equal. So, after a flood that wiped out a race of rebellious humans, God calls Abraham, and shows Himself to Him, and promises Him a new race of people who would walk according to His ways - the Israelites. As it goes, the Israelites were taken captive by the Egyptians, but God rescued them with a mighty hand from Pharaoh, and brought them to the land which He had given them many years ago. They chose to rebel against Him, so He tolerated them for 40 years:
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice:
“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
When your fathers tested Me;
They tried Me, though they saw My work.
For forty years I was grieved with that generation,
And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts,
And they do not know My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
Psalms 95:
So that generation was destroyed too. But a new generation entered the land of Canaan, and expelled other people who lived there, who had rebelled against God in a similar manner for a long time:
English Standard Version Chapter 15
And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Genesig
When they settled in their new land, they also rebelled. They forgot the God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They requested for a king to lead them, and their kings chose to follow foreign gods. This angered the LORD, and for a long time, He kept His peace, punishing them partially, and holding them accountable for their transgressions, but they would not heed. All through this, it seemed God was still willing to accept them back:
Now let me sing to my Well-beloved A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:
My Well-beloved has a vineyard
On a very fruitful hill.
He dug it up and cleared out its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
He built a tower in its midst,
And also made a winepress in it;
So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,
But it brought forth wild grapes.
“And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.
What more could have been done to My vineyard
That I have not done in it?
Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,
Did it bring forth wild grapes?
And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:
I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;
And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
I will lay it waste;
It shall not be pruned or dug,
But there shall come up briers and thorns.
I will also command the clouds
That they rain no rain on it.”
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.
He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;
For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.
Woe to those who join house to house;
They add field to field,
Till there is no place
Where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!
In my hearing the Lord of hosts said,
“Truly, many houses shall be desolate,
Great and beautiful ones, without inhabitant.
For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,
And a homer of seed shall yield one ephah.”
Woe to those who rise early in the morning,
That they may follow intoxicating drink;
Who continue until night, till wine inflames them!
The harp and the strings,
The tambourine and flute,
And wine are in their feasts;
But they do not regard the work of the Lord,
Nor consider the operation of His hands.
Therefore my people have gone into captivity,
Because they have no knowledge;
Their honorable men are famished,
And their multitude dried up with thirst.
Therefore Sheol has enlarged itself
And opened its mouth beyond measure;
Their glory and their multitude and their pomp,
And he who is jubilant, shall descend into it.
People shall be brought down,
Each man shall be humbled,
And the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled.
But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment,
And God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness.
Then the lambs shall feed in their pasture,
And in the waste places of the fat ones strangers shall eat.
Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity,
And sin as if with a cart rope;
That say, “Let Him make speed and hasten His work,
That we may see it;
And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come,
That we may know it.”
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!
Woe to men mighty at drinking wine,
Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink,
Who justify the wicked for a bribe,
And take away justice from the righteous man!
Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble,
And the flame consumes the chaff,
So their root will be as rottenness,
And their blossom will ascend like dust;
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,
And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people;
He has stretched out His hand against them
And stricken them,
And the hills trembled.
Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.
For all this His anger is not turned away,
But His hand is stretched out still.
In the end, the nation of Israel was destroyed, and a few people remained. Out of these few people came Jesus, who was sent by His Father, the LORD. His mission was to raise a final call to repentance to all men, asking them all to repent, turn, and quit rebelling against the Father. This message came with the incredible hope of salvation despite their many mistakes, it also came with consequences - those who would refuse this final path to being right with God would face a final destruction - no more chances, no more waiting, the Most High has been patient for far too long:
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
The servant of YHWH, Jesus, associated with people who are looked down on the society. His name was dragged through the mud, labeled a drunk and a friend of corrupt government officials:
NKJV
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Is our God Humble?
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
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.”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
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but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Phillipians 2:3
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
Humility demands that others are more important than you.
Humility is a heart posture, rather than a show and tell. A humble person will always be humble.
There is a problem with pride. A big problem.
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
Yes - Our God is Humble. He associates with the Humble. He is patient and kind to those who hate Him. He does not retaliate, but waits for repentance. He is a Humble God. What God do you worship?