The Joy of the Humble

Introduction

In light of our infant baptism and dedication, our advent passage for today is perfect. We are going to see that even before he was born, John the Baptism leapt for joy in his mother’s womb in reaction to the presence of Mary who was pregnant with Jesus at that time. This passage and other’s like it reveal that our children are more spiritually aware and sensitive than we realize and that they can have an encounter with God long before they can understand these these things consciously. Even at a young age, it is vitally important that you give your children every opportunity to be in the presence of Jesus. With that let’s turn to .

Luke 1:39–55 ESV

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Luke 1:46-5

Last week Pastor Andy did a wonderful job of showing us the birth of Christ through the eyes of Joseph. We saw that it took great faith on the part of Joseph to trust in God’s plan especially in regards to his relationship with Mary. Instead of quietly divorcing her, Joseph chose to believe that this baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He didn’t have to believe the angelic message that was given to him, I think a lot of people would have disregarded that dream as being a figment of the imagination and would have went through with the divorce. But Joseph had enough faith to believe that God works in mysterious ways. I think we would all agree that Joseph was pretty good guy. This morning to be completely fair, we are going to look the birth of our Savior through the eyes of his mother. If faith is the word that describes Joseph’s contribution to Christmas, then I would say that joy is the attitude that Mary exemplifies. There are three essential points I want to cover out of the life of Mary.

Joy comes through a journey of faith.

Joy is for the humble of heart.

Joy is found in true worship.

This morning to be completely fair, we are going to look the birth of our Savior through the eyes of his mother,

In the first chapter of Luke, we see that it requires a journey to get to a place of joy in our lives. Much of what we tend to experience is circumstantial happiness but the joy that God offers us becomes a part of us and it doesn’t waver from one life event to the next. Like Mary, our journey towards joy often begins with reluctance. When she first learns from the angel Gabriel that God has a plan to use her in a very significant way, she immediately responds with skepticism, fear, and a lack of faith. In fact, it seems like Mary is downright suspicious of God. We see this in her first reaction to the angel Gabriel who was sent by God to tell her what was about to happen to her. So this angel shows up and shares a general greeting and then a simply word of blessing for Mary. He essentially says, “Hello, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” This all seems innocent enough and no reason to worry but Mary knows God better than not. He doesn’t send His angels, let alone his chief angel, just to say “Hello, I love you.” (He is not like Stevie Wonder, He doesn’t call just to say I love you.” Mary’s reaction to Gabriel’s greeting is hilarious.

Luke 1:

Luke 1:29 ESV

But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

Clearly, Mary knows that God is up to something and she is troubled, fearful, and reluctant. To her credit, this is where many of the great men and women of faith begin their journey with God. Moses was reluctant, queen Ester was reluctant, the prophet Jeremiah was reluctant. If you are reluctant about following God’s plan today, you’re actually in great company. This is where many of us begin our journey but unfortunately this is where many of us get stuck. And we get stuck for obvious reasons, whatever God is asking you to do, whatever plan He is laying out before you is not only going to be difficult, it is going to seem impossible. Here as a young women from a poor family from the forgotten city of Nazareth (and Nazareth would be like Syracuse compared to New York City), the angel of God tells her, “You are going to have a Son, his name will be Jesus, and He is going to reestablish the throne of David and His kingdom will have no end.” Whatever, God is asking you to do, it pales in comparison to the mission that is placed before Mary, “Raise the Son of God so that He can save the world.” That is a high calling!

So in response to this revelation, Mary gives what seems to be a reasonable objection, far more reasonable that some of the excuses we make to reject the plans of God. Mary knows her biology, knows where babies come from, and let’s the angel Gabriel know just in case, he might be unaware of such things.

Luke 1:34 ESV

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

Ok, case closed! Let’s move on with the rest of our lives. Clearly God must have overlooked an important detail! How can someone have a baby if they are a virgin? To Mary’s objection and to all of our objections, Gabriel says something that is not well recieved by people like us in the Bay Area, “Nothing is impossible with God!” All of us are limited and often handcuffed by what we think is possible and we forget that we serve a God who performs the impossible. Our view of impossibilities is so narrow and so restrictive. (We look at a vegetarian patty that looks and tastes like meat and we call it the impossible burger.) No wonder the world stays stuck in all her troubles! The only limits to our faith is what we think God can or cannot. We know cognitively and intellectually that God can do the impossible but often we don’t take the next step in this our journey towards joy which is surrender to God. After the angel of God, reminds Mary that nothing is impossible with God, she says:

Luke 1:38 ESV

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:38

Knowing that she is not going to be able to talk God out of this plan, Mary then resigns herself to her fate. Like many women who have unwanted pregnancies, Mary is probably thinking that this is going to turn her life upside down. After all what is her family going to think? What is going to happen to her relationship with Joseph? But instead of being paralyzed by these questions or making a rash decision, Mary surrenders herself to the will of God. “I am the Lord’s servant, let it be to me according to his word.” Surrendering to the will of God is a necessary step in the right direction towards joy. The reason why it is necessary is that all of us have some level some of distrust about God. If I follow God’s plan, what’s going to happen to my career, to my family, to my financial security, what is going to happen to my plan for my life and my own idea of success. In today’s Christian climate, it’s fashionable to believe that God is my servant, He exists to do my will, to help me fulfill my plans. But until you reverse that fundamental orientation of your life, that you are God’s bond servant, you will not find the joy that you are looking for. And the reason for that is that without this act of surrender, you simply don’t have enough faith to experience the fullness of joy that comes from God and God alone. This is how Dallas Willard puts it:

“That is why God does not give us significantly more faith until we have come to terms to death to self. An individual can have only a very small amount of faith until he has come to a very clear resolution of the place of his desires, his glory, or his power to dominate. Until these are settled, he is not going to have much faith.”

You’re experience of God is directly tied to your surrender to God. Some of us think we have surrendered to God because of a few tears that were shed at a retreat. You don’t know surrender until your whole world is turned upside down and God threatens everything that you have ever wanted for yourself. It does not feel good to die to yourself but it is the only path to a life of joy. And the reason is, unless you are willing to kill of those areas of your life that are not a part of God’s will, you are not going to be able to receive the incredible plan that God has for you. Surrendering to the will of God is not the end goal but it is an important step that you cannot skip, if you want to receive the ultimate reward that God has for you. In the book of Hebrews, we are told to look to Jesus as an example of how to live out our faith and we are told that s:

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

In a parallel manner, Mary had to surrender her reputation, her family, her plans but she would soon come to realize that the joy of being the mother of the Son of God and being considered the most blessed among women, would make all of that sacrifice seem insignificant. God has so much more for you than you can possibly dream for yourself. Sometimes, it takes the encouragement of others to confirm that and to remind us of that fact. For Mary, this meeting with Elizabeth, was a confirmation of the plans that God had revealed to her and she was finally able to rejoice in all that God had for her. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to rejoice in the plans that God has for them because the path to joy is not an easy one. Surrendering your life to God, overcoming your reluctance, and becoming a servant of God doesn’t seem like the most direct route to joy but along that path you begin to deal with the main obstacle to joy which happens to be yourself. We can probably do an entire advent series on Mary’s song but what I want to highlight is the reason why Mary is able to move so quickly and readily from reluctance to surrender and then ultimately to joy. In her song, which is known as the Magnificat, we see her understanding of the difference in how God deals with the humble versus the way He deals with the proud. There is clear distinction in her mind that God gives grace to the humble, he blesses those who are poor in spirit, and he actively opposes those who don’t deal with their hubris. The apostle Peter gives us fair warning about the dangerous outcome of our pride and the benefits of humility.

1 Peter 5:5–6 ESV

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.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

The immeasurable and indescribable joy that comes from being exalted and lifted up by God is reserved solely for those with a humble nature. Anyone who is unwilling to deal with their pride stands in direct opposition to God. Now there is a lot of false humility in the world but in this passage we see what genuine humility looks like in the first stanza of Mary’s song, “My spirit rejoices because God has been mindful of my humble estate.” Unfortunately, pride is like bad breath, you are usually the last person to know and only after you have driven everyone away from you. Pride is hard to detect in an ideal situation but it is almost impossible to detect in our current culture. Our views on self-esteem and worth both inside and outside of the church makes it increasingly difficult to deal with issues of pride. For decades, social scientists have been telling us that all of our problems are due to a lack of self-esteem. And even though this is quite contrary to biblical truth along with significant research on this subject, we tend to believe that our unhappiness comes from our lack of self-esteem.

Now I know I'm being used That's okay because I like the abuse I know she's playing with me That's okay 'cause I've got no self-esteem

It doesn’t often dawn on us that it might be our pride that might be the real culprit for the general lack of joy in our lives. We have talked about self-esteem at nauseum for the the last 40 plus years and instead of having less people in therapy, we have record numbers of people in the counselor’s office. I have been thinking this for years but there is an interesting piece in the New York Times by a psychotherapist who believes that all of this emphasis on self-esteem is driven by the market rather than good research.

Perhaps, as these researchers are saying, pride really is dangerous, and too few of us know how to be humble. But that is most likely not the entire reason why we are ignoring flares that say, ''Look, sometimes self-esteem can be bad for your health.'' There are, as always, market forces, and they are formidable. The psychotherapy industry, for instance, would take a huge hit were self-esteem to be re-examined. After all, psychology and psychiatry are predicated upon the notion of the self, and its enhancement is the primary purpose of treatment.

If you went to a psychologist feeling bad about yourself and in turn they said, “You know what Chuck, I think you’re real problem is that you think too much of yourself, you need to bring your pride down a notch.” What are the chances are you are going to go back to that counselor? Probably very little. You don’t want to pay someone to humble you. Now, this is what makes it makes it so hard to get people to come to church. I have to get you to pay me to make you feel bad, sometimes, not all the time but most of the time. And I would like to believe, I do this because I know that humility is the only path to lasting joy.

There are a number of ways that pride robs us of our joy:

Pride gives us a false view of ourselves. The biblical understanding of pride is the human ego being puffed up but underneath the appearance of strength, there is no substance. When my kids were younger, I would occasionally watch Sponge Bob Square Pants with them. And there was an episode where Sponge Bob bought a suit that made him look muscular but it was nothing but air so when he tried to lift the smallest weight, his arms ended up falling off. I remember laughing hysterically with my kids but isn’t that exactly what we tend to do? We inflate our egos with things that have no substance like money, success, and reputation and we think we have strength but when we try to lift some of the regular burdens of life, we find that we are unable.

Pride makes us incredibly fragile and sensitive. To carry the analogy of the balloon a little further, the more inflated you are with pride, the easier it is for even the smallest disturbance to cause your ego to pop. This is why some people cannot take even the slightest bit of criticism because everything becomes a threat to your perfectly crafted view of yourself.

In the end pride leads us away from the presence of God because in our pride, we don’t see a real need for him. And perhaps that is the saddest consequence of pride. We wonder why we are so unhappy and lacking in joy and we fail to realize the truth of - In your presence there is fullness of joy. I love the way Tim Keller describes this pride that keeps us away from the joy, we can find in the presence of God.

Spiritual pride is the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives, achieve our own sense of self-worth and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life without God.

Conclusion

This is why worship, at least true worship, is so important for our happiness. Everyone has to derive their sense of identity and worth from something or someone. Usually, we look for those answers in the things that are most important to us. In other words, we get our identity and worth from the object of our worship. And you will either find your self-worth in the presence of God or you’ll settle for the many idols of this world but only one path can lead you to joy.

In his book Mere Christianity, CS Lewis gives us some remarkable insight on humility and how it should look. The genuinely humble person isn’t some self-loathing or self-deprecating individual. In fact, he says that if you meet an authentically humble person, you don’t leave thinking that he or she is humble, you leave the interaction feeling like you’ve been loved and heard. And the reason for this is that a humble person doesn’t simply think less of himself, he just think of himself less. A person with a healthy sense of ego no longer is focused on himself for the better or worse, he is more focused on others. In other words, their attention is drawn outwards and not inwards. They are aware of themselves but they are not consumed by themselves. The Christmas season is the perfect to grow in this type of humility, the type displayed by our Savior.