Humility

[00:00:03] Let us pray. [00:00:06] O Lord of grace and mercy, teach us by your Holy Spirit to follow the example of your Son in true humility, that we may withstand the temptations of the devil and with pure hearts and minds avoid ungodly pride through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. [00:00:31] Amen. [00:00:37] That prayer contains the whole Christian life, the Christian struggle, and also all that God has done for us in Jesus. We started off saying, o Lord of grace and mercy, we're coming to God who gives grace and mercy gift. [00:00:55] Mercy being God, not giving us what we deserve. That's what I learned in confirmation, at least. [00:01:03] Mercy is when we deserve ill. And God gives us. Well, he doesn't give us that. He doesn't give us the punishment that we deserve for our sin. [00:01:14] And then grace. [00:01:17] Did you learn God's riches at Christ's expense? [00:01:21] Well, that's a nice acronym, but grace, God pouring out his gifts. So it's like he has mercy on us. He doesn't give us what we deserve, and then he does give us what we don't deserve, his mercy and grace. So we come to him because we know that God gives. [00:01:38] And then we ask him, teach us by your Holy Spirit to follow the example of your Son in true humility. [00:01:47] We ask God to teach us to follow Christ's example of humility because we can't. Apart from God's grace, apart from God giving us humility, we can't. [00:02:02] We can't do it. [00:02:04] See, it's humbling to say, teach us by your Holy Spirit. [00:02:09] It's to say that we don't know. [00:02:13] And that's all of us here this morning and all of humanity. Nobody can follow the example of Jesus. Humility by their own strength. [00:02:25] It's not something that we possess as human beings. Naturally, after sin, after that first great fall, I mean, you could call, I guess, the devil. The first fall, falling in pride, raising himself up, exalting himself, and then falling because of it, setting himself against God, and then being humbled against his will under God's mighty hand. [00:02:56] Well, then there's the second fall, Eve, going against God's word. God told him, adam and Eve don't do this. And then they say, well, but seems like a good idea to exalt ourselves, to get wisdom. [00:03:12] And in doing so, they fell. [00:03:17] And then, well, all in Adam sinned, all in Adam die. We all have inherited that sinful state and that inclination to pride. [00:03:30] And so we can say, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, we cannot follow the example of Christ's humility. [00:03:40] And so we say, teach us by your Holy Spirit. [00:03:44] That's the key. The key is not to think that we already can or already know the way. If we say, yeah, I'll follow Christ's humility, I'll follow his example and humble myself following him. [00:03:59] Then we've already, you know, apart from asking, apart from God's grace, then we've already stepped off the path. [00:04:09] There are many who would follow Jesus by their own strength or by a three step plan or by a certain way of living. [00:04:19] A while back, a few months ago, a couple of well meaning people came by the house. I was out, I think I was painting the house. [00:04:31] I was out painting the house and so I had other things to do. But here they come and they want to talk. [00:04:36] What do they want to do? They invited me to their church, which we should all, you know, take a. Well, take their example and say, well, if they're inviting people to church, we should invite people to church, you know, at. And you know, feel free to walk down the block and you just might find somebody painting their house or something like that. So strike up a conversation. All right, so that part was good. Appreciated their zeal. [00:04:59] Okay, but what were they, what were they telling me? Well, they had a pamphlet, maybe we should make pamphlets, we could follow their example there too. [00:05:10] But they were wanting me to come to their church and it's like, well, tell me about your church. [00:05:16] And they painted this picture of a church where people come and when they get there it's like, oh, you know, we know that they're not wearing what they should wear. [00:05:28] You know, some people are wearing crosses, you know, when they come first. But then they learn and things get kind of pared down. They learn the dress code and they learn the way that they should be talking to each other and, and you know, by six months, by the six month mark, they've completely changed their life around and they're living very differently. It's a place where there's this growth in purity and ascent to a certain kind of life. And it just sounded like a utopia, you know, except I didn't really understand the shape of life. It's like, wait, you can't wear a cross. You know, how does this work? [00:06:09] And we talked and talked, but what I didn't hear was, well, humility. [00:06:18] The humility of faith that says I am a poor miserable sinner and can do no good apart from Christ and apart from God's grace. [00:06:32] And I live by the Mercy of God, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. [00:06:38] There was instead a focus on outward living. And this outward ascent, outward improvement in life. [00:06:50] Teach us, O Lord of grace and mercy. Teach us by your Holy Spirit to follow the example of your Son in true humility. [00:07:02] Teach us in Proverbs 25. This reading, it starts off, it is the glory of God to conceal things. [00:07:15] Well, it's not very nice. [00:07:19] Conceal things. [00:07:23] Then it makes us ask, okay, God, by your grace, if it's your will, reveal this to me. [00:07:31] He conceals it so that we can't by our own strength discover it. [00:07:39] It's the glory of God to conceal things. But the glory of kings is to search things out. This was written by a king, King Solomon, it says in the verse before this, it says, and these were written by Solomon too. [00:07:54] But the glory of kings is to search things out. [00:07:57] Solomon wants to know it all, but they've been concealed by God. [00:08:04] And then we get this funny line, I think, as the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable. [00:08:15] So God conceals things. [00:08:17] Kings want to search them out, but the king's own heart is unsearchable. [00:08:24] The king wants to search everything out, but he can't even search his own heart out. His own heart is a mystery to him. [00:08:32] You see Solomon's humility there he's recognizing the impossibility of uncovering what God has concealed. [00:08:43] It's an uncomfortable place to be. [00:08:47] It's sealed, it's concealed, and we can't discover it. And so we're driven to prayer. [00:08:54] Teach me by your Holy Spirit. [00:08:57] After all, it is our hearts that are unsearchable. It's like I don't even know what I need. And in moments when I think that I'm doing great or that I'm wise, that I can search things out. In moments that I think that my life is getting better and better or. Or purity is growing in me, or something like that, well, then my heart has become unsearchable to me because I don't know my own heart. [00:09:24] I have an unrealistic view of myself. As soon as I leave that place of humility or of having been humbled by the Holy Spirit. Teach me by your Holy Spirit, to know myself, to know my sin. [00:09:41] As soon as I stray from that realistic view of my own heart as a sinful human being, reveal to me what's concealed to me. Reveal to me the depth of my sin so that I'm brought low again and I'm Ready to learn from you, ready to receive your grace. [00:10:00] That's our prayer. [00:10:02] Teach us by your holy Spirit to follow the example of your Son in true humility. [00:10:09] So what's the example of his Son? [00:10:15] It's humility. [00:10:17] What did Christ do? Well, he didn't look for a throne. [00:10:23] He didn't come and whip everybody into shape, have them lift him up and set him up to the place that he deserves. No, he, though he was in the form of God, certainly in the highest place. He humbled himself, took the form of a servant, became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Or as the reading in Hebrews puts it, he went outside the city. [00:10:52] The city is the clean place. It's like the place that's habitable. And it's made habitable because everybody's living together and they're working together to. [00:11:01] To get the unclean things out of the city. [00:11:04] The trash doesn't dump it in your front yard, you know, the garbage truck comes and takes your trash away outside the city. [00:11:15] And it was the same in the life of Israel. [00:11:19] The unclean things happened outside the city. [00:11:23] And so the. [00:11:27] Well, sacrifices started outside, right? The messy stuff and then were brought to the tabernacle. The blood was brought then to bring cleansing. But Christ, he died outside the city. The writer to the Hebrews says he didn't go to the clean place. He went outside to where the trash is. He humbled himself to the lowest place, took the form of a servant, became obedient to death. [00:12:00] Therefore God has highly exalted him. This is all from Philippians 2. [00:12:04] Given him the name that's above every name. [00:12:07] So there's exaltation, there's a being lifted up. But it comes by taking the lowest place. And by God's grace, that's what he does for us. [00:12:21] He does that for us as he humbles us through his word. So we start the service essentially after a hymn with confession and absolution. We come before God and we confess our sins that we are by nature sinful and unclean. In other words, this is how we are apart from your grace, by nature sinful and unclean. And we've sinned against him in thought, word and deed. [00:12:49] Covers it all. [00:12:51] By what we've done, by what we've left undone. [00:12:53] It's like we are seriously and in every way in need of your grace, God, for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ. See, we've come out of the city, we've come to the lowest place, which is where we find the highest thing. Christ who's humbled himself. [00:13:11] We come to the cross to receive his grace. For the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. [00:13:19] Don't give us what we deserve. [00:13:21] Have mercy on us. Forgive us. [00:13:24] Renew us and lead us so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways. There's a prayer again. Teach us. By your Holy Spirit, make us to delight in your will, like to want what you want and to walk in your ways, to follow you, to walk the path that you've laid out for us, rather than all those that we would choose for ourselves. By our own power, we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your Holy name. You see? The glory of your Holy name. Everything aiming toward God. [00:14:06] That our delighting in what he wants and walking in his ways would serve him and not ourselves. That it would give him glory and not ourselves. That's the way of humility. [00:14:18] About a year ago, somebody asked me, okay, so why do we confess our sins? [00:14:27] We humble ourselves, right? And then we're forgiven. [00:14:31] And then we go back and we say, lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. He just did, right? [00:14:38] So why are we doing it again? [00:14:41] But I think that's the whole point. [00:14:44] The point is that it's not that we were, like, doing fine and then we sinned. You know, we're on this purity ascent. We're getting better and better, but we've got these shortfalls, you know, these stumbles, right? So I stumbled, I backslid or something like that. But now forgiveness has got me back up to where I was. [00:15:05] That's not the way it is. [00:15:08] It's actually that. [00:15:11] Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Right? This low position and this posture toward God above to receive from him. And considering ourselves nothing, this is the proper place to be. [00:15:28] And when we've left that, we're ascending, we're in our minds. We've got this improper swelling with pride, which is what dropsy kind of is. Dropsy is edema. It's a swelling with water. And in the ancient world, seeing the swollen limbs, like, with too much water, it just kind of. [00:15:52] That's how they. I don't know, it represented something spiritual for them. [00:15:57] And Jesus heals them. So anyway, so the proper place, the proper position is, lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. And confession and absolution. It humbles us. It brings us down from the place where we were, where we were thinking we were doing pretty well, thinking we were fine. [00:16:16] And then we confess our sins. Oh, brings us down, we're forgiven, and we're in the lowest place, ready to receive. [00:16:24] Lord have mercy. We're reset. It's like a recalibration. [00:16:28] And the final place, the goal there is to be in a posture of faith, a receptive position, ready to receive from God whatever he has for us. [00:16:45] It's the wilderness that whoever exalts himself will be humbled. [00:16:56] Humbled. That's the same word as when John the Baptist is out there in the wilderness saying, every mountain shall be made low. That's the same word. Every mountain shall be humbled. It's this. [00:17:09] This making us low. [00:17:12] And that's okay. [00:17:13] We can be in the lowest place. [00:17:16] Why? [00:17:17] Because, well, Christ was in the lowest place and he was just fine with it. Well, why Christ? Why is he fine with it? [00:17:26] Because that's the proper place for a human being to be. [00:17:30] To take the lowest place in order to be exalted. [00:17:35] Just touch on the gospel reading. [00:17:37] Kind of have two things going on there. [00:17:41] Jesus is instructing those who have been invited not to take the high place because they're just going to be moved down, but to take the low place in order to be exalted. And this is what we've been. [00:17:53] This is what we've been talking about. [00:17:55] Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. But then he goes on, and instead of looking at it from the position of the one invited, now he's looking at it from the position of the one inviting. [00:18:11] You can think about it this way. [00:18:16] By taking the lowest place with Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, being conformed to Christ in his humility, you're exalted. [00:18:26] And so you're actually in both positions. You're in the lowest place, and you're in the highest place with Christ. [00:18:32] This is what Luther says when he says that we are, as Christians at the same time, servant of all the lowest and Lord of all, the highest. Because Christ is both. He's humbled himself and been exalted. So you by grace are also in the highest place. [00:18:56] Then the proper thing to do in the highest place is to give yourself. [00:19:02] It is not to exalt yourself at the expense of others or to use those below you for your own benefit, but to give yourself. [00:19:11] So the lowest receives and the highest gives. [00:19:16] You see Christ humbling himself and receiving everything for our sake, uniting us to himself in that. [00:19:24] And then you see, well, in his humbling himself, he's serving us, right? So the highest is serving the lowest. But this is you, too. You in your homes, wherever you have authority, wherever you're lifted up in a position to serve anyone else. Or you could just think of it as like everything that you have outwardly. Your physical strength and health, your possessions, everything that we have is to be spent in service of others, not for ourselves, right? [00:20:03] I didn't tell you what in the Gospel reading is saying that, right? [00:20:07] Or maybe I did. Oh, yeah. So Jesus says. [00:20:18] Jesus says to the man who had invited him, when you give a dinner or banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and be repaid. See, this is the movement of Jesus humbling himself for us. He didn't come for the healthy, but for the sick. [00:20:41] He came not for those who could benefit him or boost his position or status, but he came to boost theirs. He came to lift us up. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. [00:20:58] You will be repaid at the resurrection of the. Just remember that your payment is coming. [00:21:08] It's in the mail. [00:21:10] Came next. No, no. Your payment is coming, but you don't see it yet. [00:21:17] That's how we're to live in Jesus Christ. That's how the apostles lived in Jesus Christ. Going to their death for the sake of giving the riches of Jesus Christ to all nations. [00:21:31] They lost it all, knowing that they had it all. An inheritance kept in heaven for them, concealed from them by God. It's like, okay, it's hidden from me. I don't see the end of this. I don't see the, like, the happy ending coming. I don't see the inheritance. [00:21:49] Teach us by your Holy Spirit. [00:21:53] I have to read it.