The Humbled Christian

I began by showing a video clip from the Christian movie Flywheel. The scene features a used-car salesman who used to enjoy ripping people off while selling them used cars, but who has recently rededicated his life to Christ. Feeling conviction over his former ways, he decides to go give refunds to those he had ripped off. Initially, the people he meets are very appreciative, even overjoyed, and are so happy to see the money they don’t really care about the fact that he had ripped them off in the past. He talks to his wife about how easy this is, and says that he was worried about eating crow, but instead is eating cake. His wife warns him about being prideful, and he denies it. The next lady he visits, however, really takes him to task. Here is their conversation:

“You what? You cheated me?!”

“Well, I mean I just wasn’t very honest about it…”

“You think you can waltz right in with a $1200 check and expect me to accept what you’ve done?”

“Well, I’m sorry for what I did…”

“You better be sorry! You know how hard it is to make it in this world today? The last thing we need is a dishonest person taking advantage of old ladies!”

“Ma’am, I…”

“Don’t you interrupt me! I’ve been working forty long years for every penny I got! Then a scam artist like you tries to take it away! You better give me an apology!”

“Well, that’s why I…”

“Don’t you talk back to me! I’m tired of the lying, the deceit, the confections (sic) and everything else…”

“The confections?”

“Don’t you sass me! You keep your mouth shut until I tell you to open it! Now say you’re sorry!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Now get out of here and go get right with God before I get you right with Him!”

Our topic is the humbled Christian. We all probably have some stories where God uses circumstances to humble us. I have several, but one of my most memorable was when in my first year as a professor at Clemson. Our Dept. Chair decided to have a marathon meeting in the president’s box in the football stadium. Many faculty complained and thought it ridiculous, and I thought so too. The meeting was going way past the dinner hour, and I decided to leave the meeting early. I really felt this meeting was a waste of time, especially for a brand new Assistant Professor. Well, I snuck out without the Chair noticing, and rushed back to my office to get something to work on at home. Now, I have several university keys for various rooms. Perhaps in my hurry, or, more likely, because God thought it was a really good time to humble me, I stuck the wrong key in my door lock. It went in, but the door didn’t open, and the key wouldn’t come out! I pulled and pulled on it, but it wouldn’t budge. I went around looking for help, but of course all the other faculty members were at the meeting, and the staff had long since gone home. Finally, about half an hour later, I heard someone coming. Who do you think it was? The Chair! I don’t remember what he said, but he knew I had left early. Anyway, I explained my situation to him, and he said he would try to pull on the key. As I was telling him it was no use, he pulled and of course the key came right out. Truly a humbling moment!

As bad as humbling moments are, they really don’t compare to long-term periods of being humbled. In some ways I am experiencing this at my work at the university these days. It is difficult to bear, I think especially for us men. We tend to tie so much of our identity into what we do. Being fired, or being told that you are not meeting expectations on the job is an incredibly difficult thing to go through.

Today I want to explore what God’s Word has to say about being humbled and about being humble. Of course, these topics are closely related. My first point today is that God will humble us if we need to be humbled. Consider this passage from Deuteronomy:

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. – Deut. 8:2-5

For the Israelites, forty straight years of humbling circumstances! I tend to think of those forty years more like a prison sentence, but this passage is clear that it was much more than that. Moses here is talking to the survivors of those forty years, the younger generation. We talked about them a few weeks ago. Some of them were just children when they were freed from Egypt, and others were not even born yet. The forty years in the desert was not just to give the ultimate punishment to the older generation. There were certainly other ways God could have used if that was His only goal. His goal was equally to give a whole new generation of Israelites a forty-year practical lesson in what it means to follow after God. They literally followed Him each day and night – when the cloud (by day) or the fire (by night) moved, they moved after it.

What did they learn in those forty years? I am sure they learned many things. They learned to depend on God. If they did not follow Him every single day, they would be truly lost and without hope in the desert. The passage says one purpose was to test them in order to know what was in their hearts. Did God not know what was in their hearts? Of course not! The passage doesn’t actually say that it was so that God would know; the “object” of the sentence is not given. But surely the Israelites themselves would learn what was in their hearts, and God wanted them to learn this. Being humbled is an opportunity to learn what is in your heart.

We don’t always learn from a humbling experience right away – in fact, we can block the lesson out and refuse to look inside ourselves. But if we do look, we will learn what is in our hearts. That day 15 years ago I learned about my pride, my sense of “you have no right to do that.” It is like deep in me there is this “inner god” who says if provoked, “You will respect me! I don’t have to take this! Don’t you know who I am?” The humbling experience with my keys offered me a grand view of my “inner god.”

In the passage it also says that God caused them to hunger. Do you realize that God can cause us to hunger? It’s not a particularly pleasant thought. He can make us hunger physically, hunger emotionally, and hunger spiritually. For the Israelites, after he made them hunger, he provided them with something to fill their hunger that was so strange that it was literally called “What is it?” Pass me some more “what is it,” please.

Why did God do this? Why did God cause them to hunger, and then fill their hunger with this strange food never seen before or since? The passage says why: to teach them that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. This is one of those passages you may have heard many times, but what does it mean? Before I answer it, let me point out that Jesus repeats it in His encounter with Satan. By the way, do you notice the parallels? Where is Jesus? In the desert. What is He doing? Fasting, meaning that He is getting very hungry. Why is He doing this? He is following the Lord.

So what does it mean to live not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God? I think it means to follow God, to do what He says to do, even if it means going hungry. How was going hungry a test? Because it gave the Israelites a chance to say, “How dare you do this to me! Don’t you know who I am?” It tested them by seeing if they would give way to their “inner god” or if they would pay no attention to it. Jesus’ temptation was essentially the same. It seems that He was fasting there in the wilderness because that is where God had led Him and that was what God wanted Him to do. When Satan invited Jesus to turn the stones into bread, he was inviting Him, in essence, to tell God, “I don’t like Your plan! I don’t want to be hungry any more. Don’t You know who I am?” So God humbles us to teach us to rely solely on Him.

But despite the hunger, there was manna. Despite 40 years of wandering, there were clothes that miraculously never wore out. And despite walking thousands of miles, their feet didn’t swell. What does this say about God? As the passage says, it shows that God was working on them the way a man disciplines his son; in other words, it was done out of love. God humbles us because He loves us.

How different this is from what the false “prosperity gospel” teaches. Teachers of the prosperity gospel teach that God gives us wealth because He loves us. It’s a pretty big difference!

And this humbling, this testing, what does it produce? It produces a people who want to live 100% for God. This humbling lets us see the evil in us so that we can repent of it and ask God to change us, to be more like Him. It produces a brokenness in us, and this brokenness is the place we need to be if we really want God to change us. It is only Him that can kill the “inner god” in us. All of this starts with being able to see who we really are inside, and being humbled is God’s way of doing this. I like what C.S. Lewis says on this topic: “When a man is getting better, he understands more clearly the evil that is still in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.” God humbles us because He loves us. We should embrace His humbling program because it comes from Him and we can trust Him to do what is best.

There were many instances in the gospels where Jesus humbled people, even His own disciples. I am especially struck by this one:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a little child and had him stand among them. And He said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. – Matt. 18:1-4

The message at the end here is quite direct: We need to humble ourselves. But it is fascinating to me to see how we come to this statement. You have to love the disciples’ question. “Hey, Jesus! Who’s the greatest in heaven?” Who were they thinking of when they asked it? Maybe Jesus, Moses, and Elijah – after all, it is just in the previous chapter that all three were seen together in the miraculous transfiguration on the mountain. Or perhaps some of them were thinking of Peter, James, and John, since they were only three disciples to go with Jesus on certain trips, including the trip to the mountain where the transfiguration took place. Perhaps they were bickering before the question was asked – perhaps some of them were jealous of the others – we don’t know. We do know this was a hot topic at other points in the disciples’ lives. One time even their mothers got involved!

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. "What is it you want?" He asked. She said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom." – Matt. 20:20-21

But I have to tell you the answer I would expect. It is a phrase I use from time to time around my house. “Stop acting like little children!” Actually, I have little children, so it might come out as “Stop acting like babies!” Anyway, Jesus’ response is the exact opposite: “Start acting like little children!” Isn’t it an astonishing response?

It is also an extremely harsh response. Unless you start acting like little children, not only will you not be among the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, you won’t even enter! He is telling them they need to change and become like little children. And before we even have time to wonder what He means by that, He goes on to say that whoever humbles himself like this little child will be greatest in heaven.

This of course gives the answer. At the time of Jesus, children had to act like servants, quiet, doing what they were told. This child that Jesus asked to come to Him quietly and simply obeyed Jesus when He called him. “You, over there – come to Me.” And he did. “Stand right here.” And he stood. Simple obedience. This is what Jesus had to mean. There is no “Who do you think you are? You can’t boss me around! Don’t you know who I am?” Instead, there is a realization in the child that when an adult speaks he is to be obeyed. If anything is said, it is “Yes, sir.”

Of course, Jesus is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And He sets an example for us in humility. Listen to Paul’s plea in Philippians:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. – Phil. 2:1-4

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! – Phil. 2:5-8

If anyone had the right to say, “Don’t you know who I am?” it is Jesus! He was God Himself! And yet He did not exert His rightful authority. Why? Because even He was willing to serve the Father completely, even as the Father said “Let them do this to You,” even to the point of submitting Himself to death! The Eternal died! And not just any death, but the most brutal, the most painful, the most humiliating death possible. The death saved for murderers and only the vilest sinners. He endured mockery, and shame, and even, as hard as it is for us to understand, separation and temporary rejection from the Father. He allowed His Father to humble Him more than anyone has ever been humbled, and more than anyone will ever be humbled again.

Paul says that we should have Christ’s attitude in this. What does this mean? It goes back to what Jesus said. We should act like little, obedient children. “Yes, sir.” Better yet, “Yes, Father.” We should humble ourselves.

How do we do this? Paul gives one answer in the first part of the passage. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. In other words, we should be servants to all, masters to none. Now I hope you know I am not saying we are to be doormats. Notice the words “not only” in verse 4. We should not forgo our own needs or “interests,” but we should pay equal attention to those of others. I would summarize it this way: We should always think of others.

When I think about scriptures on humility, I am drawn to Proverbs 3:34:

[The Lord] mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble. – Prov. 3:34

Another way of saying this is that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Sound familiar? It appears in James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5. Including the Proverbs reference, three times God tells us this message.

Pride is the opposite of humility. C.S. Lewis has an entire chapter on pride in his book, Mere Christianity. Here is one of my favorite quotes: “According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through pride that the devil became the devil: pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind….it is pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.” And one more quote: “If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited, indeed.”

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Also, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. – Matt. 23:1-4

"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.' – Matt. 23:5-7

"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and He is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. – Matt 23:8-12

(By the way, the phylacteries are the boxes of scripture verses worn on the arm and forehead, in Hebrew known as tefillin. We talked about these two weeks ago.)

When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. – Luke 14:8-11

And to finish the passage from last week:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' – Luke 18:9-12

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." – Luke 18:13-14

Three times in Scripture Jesus says the same thing: Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Three times Scripture says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. We have a simple choice before us: be humble or be humbled. God will complete His work in us, one way or the other. I, for one, would rather strive to be humble than to find myself opposed by God and humbled in His mighty hand. And, either way, I am glad that God is working in my life now to make me humble (or humbled). As C.S. Lewis puts it, “One thing is certain: much better to begin (at least) learning humility at this side of the grave than to have it all as a fresh problem on the other.” Praise God that it will be taken care of on this side! As the Psalmist says,

Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let them praise His name with dancing and make music to Him with tambourine and harp. For the Lord takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with salvation. – Psalm 149:1-4