God Gives Grace to the Humble

On March 11, 2011, at 2.46 in the afternoon, Japan was struck with a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. It took place out in the Pacific Ocean, about 50 miles off the coast. This set a powerful tsunami in motion, and the waves reached about 133 feet in some places.

It was the largest earthquake ever recorded in the history of Japan, and it was the fourth largest earthquake recorded since 1990. No, 1900, sorry. The Fukushima nuclear power plant was in operation at the time.

Three of the reactors were operating of the six. As soon as the earthquake took place, an automatic process called SCRAM was initiated. That means, basically, they take these control rods, what's happening in nuclear is there's fission going on, and the atoms are splitting and creating more atoms to split, and it just keeps going.

They can stick the substance called boron into the control rods between them, and somehow the boron absorbs the neutrons, which are bouncing around, and stops, just completely stops, the nuclear reaction. This automatic process was started, and it came to a halt. Now, a while back, I preached a sermon here.

For those of you who have heard the sermon before, I'm sorry, but I'm re-preaching my sermon that I preached at a Bible school. A while back, I preached the sermon about grace, and we likened grace to nuclear fission. We held this little tablet up, this little pellet, and we said, what if I told you this little pellet could power your home for two and a half months, just this pellet here? That seems crazy, but in the nuclear process, this much uranium can power your house for two and a half months.

We liken that to the New Testament power of grace, and what wasn't available in the same way in the Old Testament. If you remember, in John, it says, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus.

So something very powerful and amazing happened in the New Testament. That's why all the authors seem to open the books with, grace and peace be multiplied to you, and end with the same greeting. So we talked about what grace was.

Maybe some of you can remember. I'm going to write it up here. Can anybody remember how we define grace? We actually went to the Bible last time, and we looked up verses to define grace.

Can anybody remember one thing that grace does? Should I let the Bible students? They're freshest. But maybe you do remember. It teaches.

The grace of God has appeared to all men, teaching us, which by the word, that word is translated other places, chastises, disciplines us. It teaches. So it's not just unmerited favor.

It teaches. It teaches us to live soberly and godly. It teaches us to deny worldly lusts and to live righteous.

Okay, what else does grace do for us? Anybody remember? Yes, it powers. I don't have this one as well memorized, but I wrote it down. When Paul was talking to God about the thorn of his flesh, God told him, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Then Paul goes on, Most gladly, therefore, I'd rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. My grace is sufficient. What else can we remember? What grace is for us? It labors.

Paul says, I've labored more abundantly than them all, yet not I, but the grace that was with me. Anyone else? It helps. It says in Hebrews, Let us go to the throne of grace and receive mercy and grace to help us in the time of need.

When we have a time of need, we can go there and receive grace to help. And the last one is our supply. God is able to make all grace, Paul said, abound toward you.

All grace abound toward you, that you always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. There's a lot of balls going on in that verse. And so we learned that grace was much more than just unmerited favor, which is the typical word we hear out there.

We also want to talk a little bit today about some of the quotes we read last time was, Is grace, somebody said it's irrevocable, it's unconditional. Is that true according to the scripture? Now, if I were to read you the Strong's definition of grace, just look it up in the Strong's. It reads like this, God's divine influence upon the heart and reflection in the life.

God's divine influence. You know, if I blew on this paper, I'm influencing the paper by my breath. And so God's divine influence upon our heart.

As we receive grace, it influences us. And then it says, not just your heart, but it reflects out into your life. So grace is like energy.

Wherever I put that little tablet, I don't know. But it's like the nuclear energy that God has provided in the New Covenant. The question now is, is there anything in our life that can be like boron that stops the nuclear process? Is there a condition for grace? Is it just unmerited? Is it unconditional? Or is there some kind of condition? So I want you all to turn to James chapter four in your Bibles.

We sang the songs this morning, and I was really enjoying them. 790, teach me, O Lord, thy way. I love the verse that said, give me a heart that loves thy will from discontent and envy free.

Who wants that heart this morning? Everybody's got their hand up. OK, if you don't have your heart up, why are you here? Give me a heart that loves thy will from discontent and envy free. Lord, change my heart.

Teach my heart. Empower my heart. We want that grace.

And then the other song George led. Ever let thy grace surround me. Strengthen me with power divine.

You know, we sing these songs. Lord, we want these things, right? And we do. But the question is, is there any condition you need to be in to receive them? Or do we just come here and sing them every Sunday and hope the Lord's going to do it? And yet we're not meeting the condition.

So what does it say in James chapter four? In James chapter four in verse six, it says this. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Pretty simple verse.

We've heard it before. It's repeated by both Peter and James. So it's a very important concept.

And it's repeated from the Old Testament out of Proverbs. I think it was Proverbs. It says God gives grace to the lowly in Proverbs.

So there is a condition as I read here. The condition is we need to be humble. Now, the title of the sermon is God gives grace to the humble.

Listen to that verse. It says God resists the proud. If you look up that Greek word for resist, here's the lexicon meaning.

To range in battle against. To post an adverse array. So when we are proud, when we have pride in our life, according to what this says, God ranges in battle against us.

He posts an adverse array. He sets up an army against us. That's a little intense for me to think about.

But God wants to allow us to be broken and come to a place where we need him. Where we become humble. So think about this.

God has two sides. I'm just going to write God here. And he has two sides to him.

One side is a resisting side. And the other side is a favor side. And you know what's amazing to me is you get to choose which side of God you get.

It's your choice if you want the resisting side of God or if you want the favor side of God. So as we've already found, I could stop here and say, well, is grace unconditional? Is grace unconditional? Well, I don't think it is. Because what I'm hearing here is we need to humble ourselves to receive grace.

Now I have a little illustration here. I have three $5 bills. I went cheaper.

At Bible school, I gave away $10 bills. So now only while supplies last. Who here is born? I'm giving $5 away while supplies last to whoever was born in 1999.

Raise your hand. First hand. One, two.

Anybody else here born in 1999? I have a third $5. Oh, Josh. Okay.

All right. This is your money. Spend it on something good like feeding the poor.

Benjamin? Benjamin and Meadow. Now here's the question. Did they earn that $5? Did they come work for me this week and earn it? No, they didn't earn it.

Was it free? Yes, it was free. But was there a condition on the $5? Yeah, they all had to be born in 1999. So can we say that God's grace is free? Yes.

Can we say it's unmerited? Did they earn it? No, they didn't earn it. It's unmerited. Yes.

Is it? Does it have conditions? So many times when you say grace has conditions, people come up and, wait a minute, that means it's not free. No, it is free. It is unmerited.

But God has decided to put a condition on it. And God's condition is we need to be humble. So we need to talk about what is pride.

If pride is something that is like boron that stops the nuclear reaction, that stops the amazing power of grace, then what is pride? And that's the goal of today. Here's the Webster's 1828 for the word pride. Inordinate, that's an old English word for excessive.

So excessive self-esteem. You think pretty high of yourself. An unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, accomplishments, rank of elevation in office, which benefits itself.

This is how you know you got it, in loftiers. Maybe it's the way you talk or the way you approach people. Distance.

You know, you're a little too low for me. Reserve and often in contempt of others. If you struggle with contempt towards others, then you might have pride in your life.

And the thing that's deceptive about pride is pride is usually pretty easy to detect in others, right? And not so easy to detect in ourselves, especially spiritual pride. But pride at the end of the day removes God from off the throne and places us in its spot. Pride is like an onion.

I heard a preacher say once, it's like an onion and there's just so many layers. And, you know, you just find another layer and another layer and another layer. And it's like the rest of your life.

It might be getting smaller. It might be getting smaller in size, but there's still pride here and there. You know, you can get to a place where, you know, just turning to a verse in your Bible with some other people and a thought comes into your mind of all the things and it's a proud thought.

And that happens even to somebody who seems so holy. I heard a preacher say once, there's three secrets to the Christian life. You ready for them? Three secrets.

Humility, humility, and humility. But there's many ways we can be proud. We can be proud how we look, how strong we are, how popular we are, how much, what our image is like, what money we make, what wisdom we have.

And another way we can be proud is just simply our will. Our stubborn will that doesn't want to be told what to do and doesn't want to be led around like God wants to lead us around. But for a spiritual Christian, not for a carnal Christian, but for a spiritual Christian, this has to be broken.

Here's a quote I read somewhere. Pride is first an attitude of independence from God. Before we even think about pride with man and, you know, are people seeing how good my volleyball move is and all of that, it's first an attitude of independence from God.

Here's another quote. Pride is a state of mind, a condition of heart in which a person has replaced the rule of God over his life with the rule of his own will. Replace the rule of God over his life and put himself as the ruler of his own will.

Instead of depending entirely on God, as was God's original design. Remember Adam and Eve, that was how God designed it. A proud heart now looks to itself to decide what is good and what is evil.

This was exactly the fall of Adam and Eve when they determined to disobey God, to become like God. Think about that story. Adam and Eve placed in the garden.

They were told they could eat any tree, including the tree of life that would keep them living forever, but just not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent questioned God's motives. He said, yea, hath God said.

Their eyes would be opened as God's if they would eat from this tree. And once they ate of the tree, their eyes were opened. And God said this, the man has become as one of us to know good and evil.

Something changed in them. That dependence on God to know good and evil had been severed. And now they were independent somehow of God.

And God had to block them from eating from the tree of life. They were like God in that they could distinguish right and wrong without him. And we see this was wrong.

We see what they did was wrong because God cut them off from the garden, from the tree. So pride is not just look at me, but it's also an attitude of independence from God. And that's why Peter says we need to be clothed with humility.

Every day when you wake up, you need to be thinking about, just like you think about what am I going to put on for clothes today, you need to be thinking about putting on humility. I have some, an illustration here. You know, the Greeks, I read about this.

They would go up into the mountains. Some of you have heard me say this before, but they'd go up in the mountains and they'd find these horses and they would round them up and bring them down and they would work with them for months to train them and to break them in. And after some time, after disciplining and training them, they would come up with categories.

Some of them were just not willing to be trained. They were stubborn. And so they would just say, discard these horses.

Some of them, they said, okay, these horses could be used for ordinary daily tasks, you know, carrying some water here or a load there. They're pretty obedient. But then the best of them that they could find were the war horses, the ones that could be sent into battle, the ones that could be trusted in a moment when all the noise and clashing and sound was going forth and they could trust that their horse was not going to run, but was going to stand still.

And so when that horse that was considered a war horse, that was considered power under authority, that his maker could sit and ride the horse wherever in the battle, when they would get him to that point, that horse would be considered the Greek word praus. That word is in your New Testament is the same word for meek. Amazingly.

It's somebody like Jesus who had all this power and authority and determination, but yet was under God yet said, I can have my own self do nothing, but only as my hear my father say. And so Jesus is our perfect example of all the strength. So I have two horses.

This is the war horse. This is the horse that has strength under control. This is the horse that is praus now and is meek.

But this horse is the horse that still has a lot of zip in him. He's ready to still have his own way. I remember when we lived in Belize, Timothy would take these horses to try to train them.

And I remember one vivid memory I have is he would take the horse and he would wrap its leg up. I don't think this could be done in the U.S., by the way. But anyway, he'd wrap the leg up like this, and then he would get the horse down onto the ground.

And it was all in a process of breaking these horses so that this horse, he got it to a place where it would listen to commands and it would be meek and it would be humble. But it had to be broken, and it was that horse's choice. When the horse learns it's no longer about him, when it's no longer about his will, but it's about his master's will, he's become useful.

He's become useful for going to war. And God says that he gives his grace to the prowess. He gives his grace to the lowly.

He gives his grace to the ones that are willing to be used of him. I want you all to think about something in the last week or two, some frustration, some temptation. If you have a pen and paper, maybe write it down.

If it's too embarrassing, then just keep it in your mind. But write something or think of something that you struggled with in the last couple of weeks. Maybe it was a temptation.

Maybe it was a hardship, a trial. Maybe it was something that frustrated you, or maybe it was some fear that came in your life, something that made you anxious, something you were stressed about. Think about that for just a bit here.

Was there something in your life that you needed grace for, that you needed help for? I want you to think about your daily life. What does it look like when you wake up? I'm sure you wake up and have your devotions, and you have your prayer time. But my question is this, when you step away from your devotions, and you go to work, and you spend the rest of the day, which horse are you more like? Which horse, is it more about your will and your way, or is it more about God's will and his way? You know, one of the ways to know which horse you're more like is how you react when things don't go right.

How you react when your day doesn't turn out like you hoped. How you react when things come against your will. Remember, Jesus said, I can of mine own self do nothing.

But then he said this, As I hear, I judge. And my judgment is just because I seek, not my own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me. Which horse, may I ask, was Jesus more like? I would say he was the one, if he's not seeking his own will, but only doing what he hears his Father.

He was this horse, and he wants us to look to him as an example of how to receive heavenly grace. You know, it says he emptied himself of all but love, right? The song says. He emptied himself of all.

He emptied himself of all of that power that he had access to. How can I say this? We have access to the same power that Jesus had, and he taught us that we could access that power, that grace, but we have to walk like he walked. Sometimes we may wonder, why are we not receiving power to overcome sin? And I would have to first ask, if you're not receiving this power, maybe there's a condition that's not being met.

Is it possible that you have something in your life like boron that's blocking the grace of God? In Matthew 11, you can turn there if you would. Matthew 11, Jesus was speaking about us. He gave a promise when we are struggling with things in our life, sin, frustrations, hardships, trials, stresses, fears, anxieties.

Matthew 11, 28. Jesus said this in verse 28, Matthew 11, 28. Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. So first of all, he promised us that if we are heavy laden, and by the way, that means loaded up or overloaded. If we are laboring, which means weary, tired, and exhausted, maybe by sin and temptation or trials.

He says to come to him. He says, come to me, and I will give you rest. And then he says this, take my yoke upon you.

You see that? That's a decision you have to make. It's not a decision he makes for you. We come and sing the song, Lord, as we sang this morning.

Teach me, give me a heart. But you have to make a decision. You have to make a decision to humble yourself to receive this yoke.

Take my yoke, he says, upon you. It's not forced. It's your decision in each moment.

Now think about what a yoke is. Somebody tell me what a yoke is. What is a yoke for? Why do I use a yoke? Why would I put a yoke on an ox? Or two ox? Oxen.

Okay, to connect them to a plow. So we're getting double the horsepower, right? Or ox power. What else? Why would Jesus say, hey, come take my yoke upon you? Why would he make this like... Why is this a good offering? Why is this a good opportunity? Okay.

So we're connected pretty close while we work. It connects us to the real power. He knows that we're weak.

We're not strong enough. We need to get a yoke with him because he's got the power to pull. He's got the help to help.

He's got the grace to do these things in our life. And so we take this yoke upon him. So it spreads out the effort and the task.

It distributes the weight. It makes the job easier for both. But there's a job to do, right? It's not like it's easy.

And he does say it is easy, but it's easier, I guess, than what we were doing. There's still a job to do. You put a yoke... A yoke isn't like sitting on the couch.

A yoke is for getting some work done. So there's still work to be done. And there's work to be done in his kingdom.

But it is the opposite to personal freedom. It's the opposite to pride. It's the opposite to having your own will.

It's being in yoke with him and his will. Where he goes, where he leads, I will follow. Then he goes on to say, learn of me.

So we're in school with Jesus. Timothy said we're really close. We're in school with Jesus.

We're learning something. And guess this, it's not more Bible knowledge. What did he say to learn of him? Learn of me what? Meekness and lowliness.

Humility. He's telling us, I'll just put it up right now, that... So the first condition to receiving this power is humility. We need to die.

We need to die to self. We need to take up our cross. We need to look at ourself a little bit here.

And next time I preach, I'll talk about the other condition. But we need to look at ourself a little bit here first and say, I can't. I'm not able.

The works of the law, no flesh can be justified. The law can't bring us to Christ. The law can't to righteousness and justification.

I need his power. I need his strength. I need to get in yoke with him.

Learn of me for I am meek and lowly. So the thing we have to learn is humility. The thing we have to learn is meekness.

See ourselves as nothing without him. And then he says, in heart. So it's not just this outward show we do on Sunday mornings.

It's something we do in our hearts. It's something we need to moment by moment realize. I am in need.

So maybe you wake up in the morning and things just aren't going so well. Maybe the tool breaks or your phone has an issue or you make a big mess. Have you ever had this happen? You're in the middle of plans.

You have your day planned out and somebody calls up and says, could you come over and help me? It's kind of like dying to your plans. Those are always fun. Or you're tempted.

Somebody give me an example. What did you write down or what did you think, if it's not too embarrassing? What did you think that in the last week or two, what did you write down? A rebellious student. Wow, you guys have peaceful lives, I must say.

What's that? So something made you frustrated to where you, or should I say something tempted you to be frustrated and you chose to get frustrated and speak unkindly. That would probably be the proper way to say it. What else? Thank you for being humble and admitting it.

Somebody else. What's that? Parts of the people that don't do their job. Parts of the people that don't do their job, yeah.

Okay. Right, and we all have these things happen in our life. We were on our way down to go to Bible school, and we got on the plane, and we had a 45-minute layover, 45 minutes.

So we're thinking, we've got to get there to Phoenix, and then we'll make it. Well, we got on the plane, and they came over the speakers. There's snow all over.

Why did it decide to snow right when we got to the airport? But there's snow all over the wings, and they say, oh, we're going to be second in line, but don't worry. Thirty minutes from now, we should be out of here. Two trucks later, they said, oh, sorry, now we're third in line, and I'm watching this time just whittle away.

I've got nine or ten students on board with me that I'm responsible for their very lives, and we're getting on a plane. Then they come over the thing. After like 45 minutes, they say, oh, sorry, now we're all de-iced, but now there's a plane in the runway, in our way, and so we missed our flight, and I knew there was an ice storm on the other end, right? So I'm thinking, we're going to miss this whole thing.

I'm supposed to preach for Bible school. Instead of thinking, hey, God, maybe we're all supposed to do some witness outreach in Phoenix. I'm not thinking like that.

I'm thinking about what I had planned, even though I hadn't had a plan, because God asked me to come preach there through somebody else, but I'd already taken it up as mine now, right? So I wasn't in the mode of trusting God in that very moment. I was watching my phone all the way as we were flying. Are we going to get it? Sure enough, we got there and missed the flight, right? But miraculously, they got all ten of us on board on the next flight two hours later, and it made such great time.

We were only an hour late, and all the rest of flights had been canceled after us that day coming from Phoenix Inn. So the Lord, he did it, but I was struggling with accepting what was happening because sometimes we struggle with this guy right here, right? He comes into our heart. We have to stop and ask ourselves, do we really believe God is in control, that God is working everything out according to the counsel of his will? And if we're really honest, a lot of times if you're like me, I tend to think I'm not thinking about the problem.

I'm not thinking about the temptation. I'm not thinking about the trial. Sorry, I'm not thinking about God.

I'm thinking about the temptation and the trial and the suffering, whatever it is, right? We're thinking about maybe you're being tempted to lust after things. You're not thinking about God in the moment you're thinking about your temptation. Or maybe you're tempted to be nervous or fearful.

You're not thinking about God. You're thinking about your fear. And so, anyway, we need to learn to have our minds, set our minds on things above.

We need in those moments to remember that God gives grace to the humble, to remind us. This is my love this verse for go-to, to remind myself I need to humble myself. I need to realize it's not about my will.

So the first step is to humble ourself and to see our need. As I said in Proverbs, it's Proverbs 3, 4, if you're taking notes, but he gives grace unto the lowly. The Hebrew word is lowly, poor, weak, needy.

Do we see ourselves as that? Do we see ourselves as needing God's grace? And, you know, we'll know we see ourselves as that if we're going to Him for it, you know? When I see myself not being able to do something very well, I call for help. If I'm in the middle of some crazy project on my truck and I can't figure out how to get to that sensor, I call my son, could you come help me? And he just puts his hand back in there and, you know, does it in 20 minutes, which would have taken me two hours to do. That shows you whether or not you really see yourself as needy or if you're still trying in your own way to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

You know, from the time we become a Christian, from the time we're converted, God is working on us to get us to see ourselves as a zero. Now, I have a little illustration here that I didn't come up with on my own. I saw somebody else do it, but I thought it was very powerful.

But it's very hard for us humans to become honest with this, that we need to see ourselves as a zero. I need seven volunteers, boy or girl, man or lady, seven of you who are brave enough to come up here and stand right here. I need seven of you.

No, no, you don't need any Bibles. Thank you. Here, just all stand right here.

Seven of you. Well, I'll start with the one. Okay, yeah, get a little more straight here.

Okay, just, yep, okay. So I need to be really careful how I pick these. Last time I picked them wrong.

Who was the one I gave to the wrong person? Oh, that's right. I almost gave the preacher to the girl. So we'll give that to Roger right now.

This is you. You're a preacher. You're a really great preacher.

Well, thank you. But all of your preaching is really zero without Christ. Without Christ, if it's just done in your own strength, Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing.

So all of Roger's preaching is zero without Christ, without Jesus empowering him, strengthening him, giving him wisdom. It's just going to reach the head. Trevor, you're a good-looking guy.

But honestly, without Christ, all of that, all of that good looks is nothing. I don't know how much money you have in your bank account, but all of your money and all of your wealth you amass is nothing. In God's sight, it's just zero.

Titus, you are a really good volleyball player. I mean, I can honestly say that. But it's really just all temporal.

It's nothing in God's sight. It's not worth anything. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing.

Now, Darrell, maybe you like to be kind of cool, have status. You know, all your friends, you want to be thought of as cool. But, you know, it's nothing to God.

In God's sight, it's just zero. Matthew, you're very smart. You need to flip it around.

And sorry to give you this one, Amanda. I mean, it doesn't really represent you. But all the other things of self is without Christ.

It doesn't represent you. All of the other things without Christ is just zero. It's nothing.

Now, the only thing that gives all of this value is when we put Jesus on the end. You see that? I'm not Jesus, by the way. I'm standing off a little bit.

But this is the only thing that gives it a value. You take this away, and it's just back to being a zero. It's back to being nothing worth anything in God's sight.

Now, Trevor, come over here. Now, just one person who's walking in this way, walking in a humble way of seeing his need for Christ, hold your sign up, is worth more than all of that. More power can happen than all of that.

Now, watch this. Abe, come over here. Now, we get two people fellowshipping, two people seeing themselves as zero with Christ as the leader.

Christ is the one. Now, Titus. And more.

Everyone just keep coming. The more the church is made up of people that see themselves as zero, the more that Christ can do. When the church loses that, when they decide, you know what, we're something now, we're back to nothing.

And so we need to see. Thank you for your help. We need to see that without Christ, we can do nothing.

Thank you. Sorry. Jeremiah says this.

Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Or that word glory is a modern-day word would be take pride. Let not the wise man.

You might have a lot of riches. Sorry, not riches, wisdom. Don't glory or take pride in your wisdom.

That's nothing to God. Let not the mighty man, the strong man, the volleyball player glory in his might. Let not the rich man take pride in his riches, but let him that takes pride, let him that glorieth take pride in this.

What do you think it says? That he understands and knows me. God is saying this. This is what we take pride on.

This is what we get excited about. Knowing God, walking with God, getting in yoke with God, experiencing God's grace. This is the thing that we're supposed to be excited about.

Jesus said the solution was to abide in the vine, so that his divine sap. Remember this is, I mean these are all different ways of saying the same thing. We abide in the vine.

We stay, we humble ourselves in every situation and we stay in the vine. And as we stay in the vine, as we die to self, as we take up our cross, his divine sap flows through us. So what is my burden for today? There are more conditions to receiving grace and I hope to preach that.

If the Lord wills, this is only some of the equation. This is the equation of you and what you look to yourself at. You look to yourself as nothing, as a zero, without me you can do nothing.

My burden is that you would realize the first step to receive God's power in your life, to get the truth of this song, give me a heart that loves thy will, from discontent and envy free. Or like this song, ever let thy grace surround me, strengthen me with power divine. That you would see that the first step to get that is to humble ourselves.

So in practical shoe leather, when you face a trial or a hardship and your will is strong and it is fighting, stop, humble yourself. Realize that God has allowed this. Be honest that you cannot in your own strength pass this test.

You need his grace. Realize that you are a zero and you need his help. Remember the three keys.

Not too hard, right? Three keys to the Christian life. Humility, humility, humility. You know there's a lot of talk about loving our enemies and denying ourself and all these great things.

You know we sing the songs and it's easy to get excited about on Sunday morning. But what about Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday? When things go wrong, a person speaks against you behind your back. What was that thing you wrote in your papers? What was that thing you needed help with? In that thing, when it comes, are you seeing yourself as a zero? Are you seeing yourself as I can do nothing without Christ? Back to the horses.

Which horse are you more like? You know, it'd be better to be honest and if you want the truth of the song, then admit where you're at. Admit it to the Lord. Listen to the song.

We know the song. It's day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here. Every passing moment, I'm somehow finding the strength to meet my trials.

I'm trusting in my Father's wise bestowment. Somehow I'm trusting God has allowed this. I've no cause for worry or for fear.

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day what he deems best. This song says God's sitting there saying, George, this is what your day is going to look like. This is what I think is best for your day even though you don't think it's best for what your day looks like.

Lovingly, it's part of pain and pleasure mingling toil with peace and rest. Toil, working alongside of Jesus in the yoke but with peace and rest. Help me then, Lord, in every tribulation so to trust thy promise, O Lord, that I don't lose faith's sweet consolation offered me within thy holy word.

Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting, error to take or help me to remember, Lord, to take it as from a father's hand, one by one, the days, the moments fleeting till I reach the promised land. This is the only way we're going to make it to eternal life. You know, it says without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.

We read this morning in Luke in the prophecy. It said he had come, Jesus come, to lead our way into holiness and righteousness. If we want to be a holy people that are filled with that grace, I think the first thing we need to learn to do is to learn to humble ourselves.

So God bless you, each one, for coming today and may the Lord make this a truth in our life.