A Call to Humbleness
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08-02-2020
A Call to Humbleness
Welcome
Intro
If you remember we said last week that the storm would come, I didn’t mean the actually storm but that the rain would fall on the just and the unjust
And boy did the rain fall
This morning I want to give som precursors up front so you don’t get the wrong message
This mornings sermon will not be a message that if you come to Jesus He will fix all your problems and you won’t have any problems if you come to Him today
The truth of that matter is this morning if you come to know Jesus through a personal relationship you will encounter trials and you will be persecuted but Jesus promises to walk through it with you and as you go through life
This is not a fix it sermon
Rather I believe this is the beginning of a call to return to our priority
To make the main thing the main thing
This morning it is my prayer that over the next few weeks these messages are a call to you, to the church
This is a call to prayer
A call to humble ourselves
A call to seek Jesus
And a call to repent
This morning we will begin our series in
13 “If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, 14 and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
This is Gods word to King Solomon
See King Solomon had just finished sacrificing to God and heard a word from God
Some of you might say this is the Old Testament and it has nothing to do with the New Testament Church
To that I would say you are flat wrong
Jesus said that He did not come to abolish the Law the Old Testament but to Fulfill it
Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament
Also it would do us a great deal of good to take the wisdom found in the Old Testament and begin to apply it
This morning it will not be a check list type of sermon
I will not stand up here and say that if you complete these 4 things then God will heal you and I and our land
This morning this verse I believe is a call to each and every believer and to the church to make the main thing the main thing
I think that God did not bring about this virus or the calamity we are currently in but I do believe that God will use this current situation to bring about His glory and will use the church to do that
This is one of those opportunities for the church and the individual to see where God is at and go there
This morning we will not create a checklist for you to take home and put in your Bible or put on the refrigerator or on your prayer wall
In hopes to force Gods hand into a blessing or healing
Rather this morning is a call to return to the main thing
If you notice in vs 14
God sort of gives requirements to be heard
He gives 4 things
Humble yourself
Pray
Seek God
Turn from Sin
So this week we will look at what it is to humble yourself
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
We are to humble ourselves in the presence of God
What does it mean to humble yourself
To humble means to
Having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance
We are to have a low estimate of our own importance
THe problem with a that is that the world says the exact opposite
See the world will tell you that you need to promote yourself and show people all of your accomplishments
We are to stop thinking of ourselves so highly
We are to stop thinking we have it all together
We are to stop thinking that you and I can handle things on our own
Be honest with yourself this morning
Stop thinking of yourself so highly
Stop thinking of yourself as a god either Big G or little g
4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
When we humble ourselves we put ourselves in the right perspective of who we are
I think often times we think of ourselves better than we are and that causes us not be humble people
But when we read the Word of God and when we spend time with God it puts us in our place
That’s what its about putting ourselves in the right place
When we are in the right position of who we are and humbled then we are in the position to be most used by God
But its only in that humbled position that God will use us
As I read My Bible
I am reading through the Bible through in 6 months and right now I am a few days behind
But as I read that story of the nation coming out of Egypt
The nation had to be humbled
See they thought to much of themselves
17 When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up there into the Negev; then go up into the hill country.
See God had called them into the the promise land
The nation had sent in 12 spies
The Spies went in and they came back to give a report about what they had seen
25 When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days, 26 they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 Thus they told him, and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 “Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 “Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”
They give an honest report
You know the rest of the story
Caleb shares the true about God’s word
But the people, the nation thought so much of themselves that they believed they could not do it themselves
They were so focused on their numbers in their army
So what does God do?
God humbles them
God will only use those who are humbled before the Lord
The nation brought to the doorsteps of the promise land were not in a humbled position before the Lord and the Lord did not and will not use them
So He sends them out into the promise land
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
Right now is the time
This is prime time to humble ourselves because if we are not humble we are going to be swept away with the world
If we won’t humble ourselves and be in a position to be used by God
Then we won’t be prepared to fight off Satan who the Bible says is out there to take you and I out
They way we get ready for that fight is to humble ourselves
Right now is the opportune time for you and I as a people to humble ourselves before the Lord
To stop thinking so much of our own ability
Right now church is the right time for us to be as a church as a body of believers to humble ourselves
To stop thinking so much of what our church can do
To understand that without God this is absolutely nothing
And church then when we humble ourselves and when we begin to think of our selves in the right position
When we are humbled before the Lord then we are prepared to be used by God
And church right now is the time for us to be used by God
This is a call for us as believers and for us a church to get back to our first Love to get back to the main thing
CLOSING
As we move into this time of invitation
The band will come up
The invitation is this
Maybe you are here today and you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus we want to invite to come up and someone will show you through scripture how Jesus died for your sin and how Jesus calls you to repent from your sin and believe in Him
Or maybe you are here today the call today is to humble yourself before the Lord
The altar is open