The Absolute Necessity of Self Humbling

Father, I pray that You'd help us now, and I pray that You'd speak to us. In the name of the living Christ, we need to hear from our God. Speak, O Lord.

Amen. Okay, we are in James. And actually, as we were sitting there and Jeff was speaking, and we were singing, and I was thinking about the next time I speak, I think this today is going to be part one, and I believe I'm going to do a part two.

I actually believe that what I want to do is today in James, I was thinking, okay, the art of self-humbling. And I thought, art. What does art mean? And I thought, no, no, no.

The absolute necessity of self-humbling. And if there's been anything that I've read from God's Word in the last, I guess while I've been thinking on this subject and preaching this to you, which would be over the last two weeks, if there's anything that I have felt that's come from God's Word that I have found most humbling in my own soul, I'll tell you what it is. I sat at a Starbucks, which is sometimes my second office, and I went through Romans 9, 10, and 11.

And Romans 9 hit me with such... I mean, it's probably hit you like this at some point, but you know how it is. You can read across things, and you suddenly come, and it came with such, I would just say such self-humbling. Anyway, two weeks from today, I'm hoping just to basically park ourselves in Romans 9. See if God won't humble our own souls through that.

But today, look at James 4. I want to focus on v. 6 and v. 10. The absolute necessity of self-humbling. And you can see it there.

God, notice v. 6, He gives more grace, therefore it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. That's v. 6. V. 10, humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. What's a reflexive verb? You English students, what is it? Not Jeff.

Jeff knows the answer to everything. We don't want him. Yeah, you do it to yourself.

A reflexive verb means that you're the subject of the verb and the direct object of the verb. You perform the action of the verb on yourself. You must humble you.

That's what we have here. And here's the thing, when you do a survey of Scripture, you know what you find? You find something like this. You'll find a verse that says, Ahab humbled himself before the Lord, or the Lord humbled Judah.

You know what I find in Scripture? It's like the sands of the hourglass. You know, we sing this song, the sands of time are sinking. Have you ever watched the sands in an hourglass? And they're just going down.

And you're watching the little grains of sand up at the top, and they get caught. And they're caught in that thing, and there's no turning back. It's just they get sucked down and they go through.

Brethren, we are like that. The sands of time are sinking, and we're in there. And you know what? You've got to go through that narrow place.

That narrow place is the place of humbling. Every single person is headed towards humbling. Every person gets humbled.

And there's two paths. You have a path of self-humbling, or you have the path of God-humbling. You are going to be humbled.

You can do it to you, or you can resist, and God is going to do it to you. That is precisely what the Scripture speaks. You know, brethren, it's just an interesting study.

Josiah was penitent and humbled himself before the Lord. And you've got to like that, before the Lord. Because that's how James talks.

Humble yourselves before the Lord. You read, Josiah was penitent and humbled himself before the Lord. Rehoboam humbled himself.

Some men of Asher, Manasseh, Zebulun humbled themselves. Hezekiah humbled himself. Daniel humbled himself before his God.

Ezra proclaimed a fast that they might humble themselves before God. And of course, James just dealt with Manasseh, entreated the favor of the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And if you resist, Scripture is clear on this matter.

You know what Job said? He said, who has hardened himself against God and prevailed? Succeeded. You know, God identifying Himself. I don't know if you've ever come across this, Job 41.34. It's never really jumped out at me before.

God says that He is King over all the sons of pride. You ever caught that before? Isaiah. God says, My glory I will not give to another.

And see, this is the problem with pride. It takes God's glory. It seeks to steal it.

And God says, I'm not going to share it. I will not share My glory with another. You know, some years ago, there's been various times when I've stopped at Isaiah and I've thought, I'm going to study this more specifically.

There was one time when I read it through consecutively four times and I was looking for things. I was wanting God to show me repetition, show me the heart. What's the emphasis of the book? I'll tell you this, you know one thing that jumped out at me is how many times in the first 34 chapters something is said about people coming low, God humbling.

And listen to this, Isaiah 2. The haughty looks of man shall be brought low. The lofty pride of men shall be humbled. And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

For the Lord of hosts has a day, and we're all moving towards that day, against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low against all the cedars of Lebanon. Metaphor here. Proud people are seen as cedars, lofty and lifted up against the oaks of Bashan, against all the lofty mountains, against all the uplifted hills, against every high tower.

The haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. Listen to this in Isaiah 10. Behold, the Lord God of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power.

The boughs? What's He talking about? These tall trees. These boughs on these trees of proud men with terrifying power. Great in height will be hewn down.

The lofty will be brought low. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the majestic one. And Jesus comes along and in His ministry, He said this, He said, look, unless you turn as a child, unless you humble yourself like a child, He said, you won't inherit the kingdom.

He says this, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He said this in another place, whoever humbles himself. Again, these reflexive, humble yourself, humble yourself, humble yourself.

Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Peter, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you. And this often is quoted, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves.

You know what's interesting? He says, and turn. Turning is a picture of repentance. There's a turning.

This is the idea of humbling oneself. You turn. You forsake the proud way.

You turn away from that. Humble yourself or God will humble you. Listen, this doesn't mean just get religious.

It doesn't mean just go to church. That's not the issue. Humble self is something you do to yourself.

Now, let's just think about humility for a second. The idea of humble means low. Obviously, pride is high.

It's high opinions of self. Low. How low? Well, what we want to say is this, humility is a proper estimation of self.

But what I found in this, notice Isaiah, he tends to get a proper estimation of himself as a man of impure lips. When he starts to get a proper estimation of God, this is one of the reasons why in two weeks I want to go to Romans 9. Why? Because Romans 9 shows us a smallness in ourselves in the face of a sovereign God who is absolutely in control, absolutely chooses, absolutely elects, and you can't escape it. It's like God is big and I'm nothing.

And you're confronted by that. And brethren, this is the key. This is absolutely the key as to what's behind.

Proper estimation of God leading to proper estimation of self. You know what humility is? It's when I take the right attitude before God. Pride is when I have a wrong attitude before God.

And it typically involves this, I think more of myself than I ought to think. And the moment you think more of yourself than you ought to think, you think less of God than you ought to think. This is at the heart of all of this.

It's my sense of entire nothingness and God is everything. But let me tell you this, humility always aligns with truth. It sees things the way they really are.

And here's the thing, yes, I need to not think more highly of myself than I ought. But brethren, let me tell you this, you don't want to think less of yourselves than you ought. You say, oh no, what do I mean by that? I mean this.

Christian, you're no longer a slave like sin is on top of you just pressing your face down in the vomit of your unrighteousness where you have to go back and lick that stuff up. You know what? If God is your God, admit it. If you're a new man, admit it.

If you're a new creation in Christ and old things have passed away and all things have become new, admit it. If God has given great grace to you to not be who you were, admit it. If you now have power and authority over sin, admit it.

If the gates of hell won't prevail against us as a church, admit it. Listen, if God has given gifts to you, admit it. That is no noble thing to deny what God is to His people.

Don't come along and be some sniveling little weak thing that's so pathetic and can never have victory in the Christian life because you want to come across as humble. That is such a pitiful place in your mind of who God is. Do you remember in Isaiah where God comes along and He says to His people, who are you to fear men? I ask you this, who are you to fear men? Well, you know, I'm so pathetic and I'm weak and everything, so I'm just going to cower away from men.

You know what God says? He says, you better look at the God that you have. I created the heaven and the earth. Does that mean anything? Yes.

He's my God. You see, humility doesn't deny that reality. So, brethren, it never denies who your God is.

But this self-humbling, brethren, I'll tell you the path to it is to see God bigger and bigger and bigger. That is this self-humbling. Brethren, you've got to think because where this is going to happen is in your thoughts.

It's got to do with comprehension. You know, Vess was talking about the strength to comprehend. We need strength to comprehend a lot of things in the Christian life.

Something has to happen in our thinking so that we're comprehending now what we didn't comprehend before. And one of the things we need to be comprehending is my nothingness by myself. But, oh, brethren, it will give you some courage if you begin to see how big God is and the fact that He is your God.

This self-humbling thing, brethren, a lot of times it's just too little regarded. The importance of it is too little appreciated. Listen to this.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humbly give yourselves before the Lord. These are the two James passages we're looking at.

He will exalt you. Brethren, grace, exaltation... Brethren, I'll tell you this, fight for humility at all costs. Why? Because it's the air in which grace is given.

It's the air in which righteousness is found. It's the air in which the new man breathes. It's the good place.

Brethren, it's the soil in which everything good... I mean, think, without me you can do nothing. Brethren, but if we have Him, He exalts us, He gives us grace, we become fruitful. This is the soil in which this... We've got to make humility, it's just like the pursuit of the love of Christ.

Make this thing of the humility. It's something that we make the object of our special attention, we make the object of our prayer, our desire. Brethren, have you ever considered? I've thought about this.

How come seminaries don't have a class on the love of Christ or a class on self-humbling? In fact, seminaries tend to make guys proud. Why don't they have a class on humility? Brethren, you know what? We've got to just simply step back and study the character of Christ and all of His lowliness until our souls are just filled with an astonishment, a love, an admiration for who He is, watching Him wash the feet of His disciples. You know what the truth is? We regard preaching gifts and prophetic gifts and evangelistic gifts and leadership gifts and zeal, but humility oftentimes can be little regarded.

So we've got to honestly fix our hearts on seeking for this. And brethren, for good reason, because the thing is, you notice James 4.6. Do you see what it says there? God opposes the proud. You know what? He doesn't just leave the proud.

He opposes the proud. It's not just that you wake up one day and, oh, I've been pride and I've been proud. I can't find Him.

He's departed from me. No, what it's saying is God will be right there and He will be resisting you. To be opposed by God, I hope everybody recognizes right off, that is not a good thing.

Brethren, do you recognize what happens is God created the universe and He created it for mankind to find their all in Him. He's created this thing so that we can share in His blessedness. We can share in His perfection.

We can share in His glory. We can share in His gifts. But you see, He imparts Himself to us.

He gives those gifts to us. Never to take them and then turn away from them and run away and have this gift in and of ourselves, this ability in and of ourselves, this thing in and of ourselves. He has designed it to be ever-present, ever-active, ever-involved, ever-seen as the Father of lights from whom all these good and perfect gifts come down to be appreciated for all of it, thanked for all of it.

He means us to receive all of this with Him at the center. But what we do is we take the stuff that He gives us and thank You and then turn our back on Him and then we go along and we boast like the thing that we got, it's us. Like somehow we've derived this.

We've created this. We're responsible for this. And we go around and we boast and we've got this thing over here and that thing over there.

And we can talk about these things just separated from God. Like I've thought about this, you can take all sorts of things that you get involved with in life or even that are blessings in life and you can just start thinking about it and talking about it as though God's somehow out of the picture and you're getting the credit for it. Brethren, God has never designed us to possess things for ourselves apart from Him.

He always meant to be right there. We're creatures. He designed us to be dependent.

Not to forget Him. Not to act like we don't need Him or to act like we're something apart from Him. That we have some greatness or something.

God opposes that. God is against it. Who makes you differ from another? What do you have that you didn't receive? One of the apostles said.

If then you received it, why do you boast as if you didn't receive it? Of course, John the Baptist, a person cannot receive in one thing unless it's given him from heaven. Brethren, pride. Let's think about that for a second.

There are six Hebrew words that can be translated into pride. And all convey the idea of lifting up, of being haughty, highness, magnification, rebelliousness, of self. In Greek, there's basically two word categories here that describe pride.

One has to do with stretching the neck like you're lifting it up. The other one has to do with blindness. And that's one thing that's true about pride.

It is blind. Why? Why? Because its perception is wrong. It sees self wrong.

And so, Jonathan Edwards said, pride is much more difficult to discern than any other corruption because by nature, pride is a person having too high a thought of himself. Is it any surprise then that a person who has too high a thought of himself is unaware of it? He thinks the opinion he has of himself has just grounds and therefore is not too high. As a result, there is no other matter in which the heart is more deceitful and unsearchable.

So, blind. I mean, pride is itself blind to pride. It's having a high view of self.

It's blind to God's truth. It's blind to just simply what's real. So, here's the thing.

Pride. It's self-focus. It's self-worship.

It's believing that I deserve recognition. And what it will do is it will prevent me from going to God. It will prevent me from loving God supremely, loving others supremely, dealing with other people's sins in the right way, resolving conflict.

Brethren, pride is believing a lie. What's not true? And so, detecting it. The question isn't do we have it? The reality is where is it? Now, I'm going to just go through some things because sometimes there are very obvious demonstrations of pride and then sometimes there are not so obvious demonstrations of it.

And I'm not going to go through and explain how every one of these is exalting yourself, but I think a little bit of thought and you will recognize it is indeed that. And I warn you here, proud people are going to see others in this list because you're going to think you're okay. And I know it hurts.

You touch pride. I say this, take this personally. So you've got pride that's expressed from the mouth.

You know one of the great expressions of pride from the mouth? You talk too much. You consume conversations. You don't let other people talk.

Why? Because you think you are more important and what you have to say is more important. You talk too much. Words are many, transgression not lacking.

You give your opinion when you're not asked. Now, there are times to get involved in situations when you're not asked. I understand.

I always think you're right. I mean, the way of the fool is right in his own eyes. They always interrupt.

Or you answer roughly. Remember the rich answer the poor roughly. That's a form of you can get away with it.

Why do poor people not tend to act so roughly? You answer sarcastically. You answer with superiority. Always talking about self.

Boasting. Bragging. The Proverbs says, let another declare your good things.

You get defensive. You get blame shifting. Selfish prayer.

You just pray about yourself. Even when we're all gathered together, your prayers are just you. These are ways that we express this with our mouth.

Endless talking about your own problems. I mean, I know we have some people, we tend to get people in the church that do have problems that rise over and above others. And you know what's amazing sometimes is when people have massive problems and they ask you how you're doing.

There's a self-forgetfulness there. I'm sure people have been in the church before. There's that person.

It's like here they come. And you already know. They're going to take the next 20 minutes and they're going to tell you all about their problems.

And you don't want to be that person. Count others more significant than self, somebody said. Slander, critical, ridicule others.

Because it's always a superiority thing. Pass judgment on others, you condemn yourself. But we do pass judgment on others.

And yet we're guilty of the same stuff. Demeaning, degrading, you're hurtful. You remember rash words are like sword thrusts, some wise man said.

And complaining. Do all things without grumbling is what Scripture says. The complainer, why? Because he thinks he deserves better.

What pride does not do with the mouth, they're thankless. There's a lack of gratitude in general. There's a deserving attitude.

Don't ask for forgiveness. Lack of admitting when wrong. Or not much prayer.

Why? Because not very needy. I don't see myself as needing to pray. I mean, folks, the decisions that go into your thought process that cause you to not come to prayer meetings, be careful.

You know what? What is that? That may demonstrate as much as anything an attitude, I don't really need God that bad. Well, I can pray somewhere else. But there's promises in Scripture about corporate prayer.

Desperate people are going to use opportunities to cry out to the Lord. So, what else? There's a psalm that says, in the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek God. It can also come out in not much praise.

And I'm not talking because you come here and the words get put up on the wall and you kind of join in singing with everybody. I'm talking heartfelt, spontaneous. Are there times when you just, Lord, thank You.

Because you just recognize, man, I get dealt with so far above what I deserve. And some other manifestations of pride. Outbursts.

Or you sulk. You withdraw. Frustration.

Moodiness. Impatience. Irritability.

You know, everything is okay as long as it's going your way. Devastated by criticism. Oh, when somebody says something, you are so thin-skinned.

You are unteachable. Not interested in counsel. And you know, one of the ways, and this will hit you right between the eyes when we look at Romans 9, but you know, there's a lot of pride behind God-centered theology.

The people that hate that, why do people hate a strong God-centered message? Because they want to exalt themselves. They want to think man has some point of eminence in all of this thing. And so, other ways.

How about put off by the righteousness of others? Other people excel you and uses attention-getting tactics. Maybe the way you dress or you flaunt your muscles or people wanting to put themselves on display. They view God at their beck and call.

God should serve you. A low view of God's Word. Anxiety.

We're supposed to humble ourselves and cast all our cares. You see what anxiety says? I can't trust God. I've got to worry about this myself.

It's putting you again in the higher place. Difficult to ask others for help. Easily insulted.

Working with others is difficult. Lack of service. Distrustful of others.

Distrustful of God. Why? You don't trust others because the posture of trusting others is just too weak. It's beneath you.

Expecting God to... You know, there's a lot of people that are there to get their minds made up about what they want to do and they want God to bless that, bless their venture, rather than to humble themselves under Him. Then you've got the category of pride of ability. The things you do well or where you've been benefited or blessed in your life or things that you have success in.

And you know what? We do. Undoubtedly, every one of you has areas in your life where you excel, where you've been blessed, where you've got some sort of ability. But where pride breaks out is when there's jealousy.

You don't like what somebody else has. Envy. You have a hard time being glad for other people's success.

You cannot tolerate other people's applause. You cover up your own lack of ability. You try to make it seem like you have more ability or you have more than what you actually have.

You cover up sin. You cover up faults. You cover up mistakes.

Minimize your own sin shortcomings. Maximize sin of others. Legalism is a form.

Why? Because it says, well, my list of rules is superior and I want to force it on other people and I think I'm preeminent in all of this. You make the less important more important like the Pharisees did. You don't like duties unless you're noticed.

Giving to be seen. Always think you get the raw deal like the guy that always doesn't get enough pay and he doesn't get enough recognition and he didn't get the right project at work and he didn't get the right kids and she didn't get the right spouse. Just life is unfair.

Flaunting vehicles and home and degrees. You just think over much of your own ability. Self-absorbed with a sense of failure.

That's a way. That is not humility. Might speak openly about faults of your own, but don't dare let someone else say what you say about yourself.

Self-pity majorly put out by other people's pride. Leadership goes to your head. You want to quit if you can't have your own way.

In certain pride in relationships, you use other people. Remember the golden rule. We're supposed to do to others what we want them to do.

Few close relationship, you resist authority. Disrespectful. Consumed with what others think.

Fear of man. It's a snare. You seek independence.

You seek control. You don't like to be bothered. You see yourself as better.

You're always on top looking down at others. Assumes ulterior motives in others. Brethren, these are just some.

Obviously, you could think, there's probably pride behind every single sin. Just like there's unbelief behind every single sin. Brethren, what we want to do if we're going to self-humble, when you've got to design, you've got to be mentally deliberate and thinking about how you're going to kill pride.

How are we going to get to this? And the thing is, how are you going to kill pride so that you're not proud that you're killing pride? Because seriously, the moment you want to try to be humble and humble yourself, there's something about humbling self, if it's done wrong, that it produces pride. It produces you thinking more highly of yourself somehow. And so, brethren, the thing about pride too, it's not the kind of thing, oh yeah, I did that.

Brethren, this is a daily thing. You've got to die daily. You've got to fight this daily.

Pride has to be... We've got to declare war here. Pride's a lie. So one of the things you've got to do, obviously, is saturate it with truth.

Brethren, don't tell me you're serious about this battle if you're not in this book every day. Because this is truth. And you don't know that anything else is.

You don't know that it's coming from Washington or from the media. You don't know that that's truth. But you know that what's in here is truth.

And brethren, if you're going to really seek to kill pride, you've got to saturate with truth. And this is truth. We've got to be in the Word.

Brethren, the thing is, some fight better. I mean, every Christian must fight against the passions that wage war against the soul. All have to fight pride.

All who would see eternal life must put the deeds of the body to death, including the prideful deeds that are produced. We've got to be there. But practically, some do it better than others.

Brethren, that can't even be debated. So why is that? Practically, what makes the difference? Because here's the thing, if you put to death haughty tones in your voice, you do it. And if you do that better than I do, then you do that better than I do.

It's because you do it. Oh, definitely you do it in the strength of Christ, but the reality is you do it. And if you fail, it's your fault.

It's your problem. It's your failure. Humble yourselves.

And brethren, humble people come from somewhere. I've had two different families who used to be in the church here and they've left. Now they didn't really tell me that their new church was more humble than their old church.

But they definitely gave some comment on some of the humility that they saw where they had gone. Now brethren, we just need to be honest. The truth is there are churches out there that collectively have an aroma of humility greater than ours.

And that comes from somewhere. It's not by magic. If they've out-distanced us in this category, let me tell you something, churches like that come from somewhere.

It doesn't happen by accident. And you've got to think it comes from the fires of warfare where they've really battled. Sometimes God has brought things in.

God has brought persecution. God has brought in this chastening. God has brought in these different things into our life.

Undoubtedly, the Lord is in the midst of producing circumstances, but why do some flounder? It just seems like some don't have as much success. What is it? Well, there's probably a lack of wisdom, a lack of skill, a lack of perseverance, a mistake in regard to what must be done. Oftentimes, it's not really done with specific aim and specific purpose.

And you know what we like to do? Oftentimes when we like to make corrections in our life, we come up with lists. You know, these lists of things. It's kind of like the Colossian thing.

Do not touch. Don't taste. We like to come up with these rules about how we're going to do it.

But you know what? That doesn't kill the flesh. Coming up with our list of rules and stuff like that, that tends to only create more pride. So what are we going to do? Well, one thing, you've got to be proactive.

You don't want to just be reactionary in all of this. So what I was thinking about is this. I'm thinking about the Lord.

Brethren, I'll tell you if there's one way to make you desire humility, it is how God responds to it. We saw He gives grace. He exalts you.

But you know what's interesting? When the rule of Rehoboam, just think about these things. Rehoboam was the son of who? Solomon. And he went off.

When the rule of Rehoboam was established and he was strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord and all Israel with him. But then you know what happens in a few verses? Well, difficulty comes. Shyshak from Egypt comes.

You know what happens? The princes of Israel and King Rehoboam humbled themselves and said, The Lord is righteous. Now this is what I want you to see. When the Lord saw they humbled themselves, He said, I will not destroy them.

I will grant them some deliverance. When Rehoboam humbled himself, the wrath of the Lord turned from him. The next two kings, James dealt with one.

These two guys are scoundrels among the kings of Israel and Judah. Ahab and Manasseh. And yet both men humbled themselves.

And just watch. Their wickedness was beyond the others. Their wickedness brought the judgment of God.

And you know what? Even after Manasseh humbled himself, his sins were so bad, God still brought His fury upon Judah. And God says so, that one of the primary reasons why Nebuchadnezzar came in and leveled that whole place, took all the people away, killed so many of them, was specifically because of Manasseh's sins. God says, Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself? There it is.

Humbled himself. Before Me. That's always the issue.

Before Him. Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring disaster to him. He was going to bring it to his son.

Manasseh. When Manasseh was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord as God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to Him and God was moved.

You see, brethren, I'll tell you this. There's a place where Jesus various times quotes Isaiah and says God's going to come in and blind the eyes, harden the heart, lest... It's almost like God is saying these guys have to have their eyes blinded, their hearts hardened, because if they see anything in all of this and have any kind of understanding and they turn, He says, I'll heal them. You turn, God will heal you.

And I'll tell you this, all these people that contact the church, including people that come into the church and they say, well, I'm calling on the Lord and He's not saving me. I'm trying to repent and He's not saving me. You know what the real issue is? It's right here.

It's always right here. Brethren, do you realize humility is not you bringing something to present to God. That's the position of pride.

I've done this, now God owes me. That is a position of superiority that you're putting yourself into. And then I often see it, these people get bent out of shape.

They want to judge God. They want to find fault with God. God's not responding to me the way that I believe God should.

But you see what these men did? It's like they're declaring the Lord is righteous. Let me tell you this, God brought chastening. Don't despise that.

Don't say, well, that doesn't count. Self-humbling doesn't count if God steps in and brings difficult situation into your life. You know what? Scripture never talks that way.

If any difficulty comes into your life, take that as a means to humble yourself. And I would say this, even rejoice in it. You want to be able to rejoice in the things that God brings into your life that humble you.

That's what Paul did. Paul said, you know what? See, Paul spoke according to truth. It was not proud for Paul to say, you know what, let me tell you, I've had some visions and some revelations.

To say otherwise wouldn't have been true. Because he did. But he said, God was going to keep me in my place.

And so a thorn in the flesh. And you know what he said? He said, I'm going to boast in that. Because if my weakness keeps me in that place, we need to be able to boast in that kind of thing.

Brethren, we've got to really humble. Not just any proud imitation. It all has to do with our attitude towards God.

Him small or me small. Him ever-increasing. Brethren, one of the things is confession.

If we're going to get into a position, we've got to be honest. Does anybody have any idea about the word confession in Greek? Homo. We all know what.

What does homo mean? Same. And then the logos is what? Word. That's basically your word.

It's a compound word. Homo logios. The same word.

Do you know, again, humility has to do with assessing things according to truth. So if confession is saying the same word, what does that convey to you? You say the same thing about your sin that God says about it. That's what confession is.

You're being honest with God. Confession. Submission to His Word.

Now, we're going to deal more with this, but you see this. James 4.6, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore.

We already heard about it. Therefore. You see, if God is giving us through this truth that God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble, therefore, submit yourselves to God.

Lack of submission. Brethren, one of the things that we have to do is be honest. We have to be able to do some inventory of our life and be honest before the Lord.

Where is it that we're not submitting to Him? Where is it that we're not totally surrendered to Him? Brethren, on the way, they argued with one another about who was the greatest. Jesus said if anybody would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. You know what? Jesus never discouraged true greatness.

Nor does He discourage being first in the kingdom and greatest in the kingdom. He just simply shows us the path to it. The path to exaltation.

It's not pride and self-absorption. It's self-sacrifice and humility. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time, He may exalt you.

I hope you truly want to be exalted. That's a good thing to desire. Brethren, one of the things I would say in this as well is let each of us please his neighbor for his own good to build him up.

For Christ did not please Himself. Brethren, we need to fight to be a serving people. Serving people.

Loving others. Thinking about others. Counting others more important.

You know one of the things we heard at the elder deacon meeting is that there seems to be that maybe sometimes the participation of the men who really ought to be taking a lead, the participation of the men in the church in helping clean up. The building needs to be cleaned up after every single service. And I would venture to say there are some men here who have never cleaned in this building.

You come here. You take. And then once you've gotten what you've taken, you leave.

Brethren, we need to be people that are fighting to serve. I would hope that the deacons would get to the place where they actually had to turn some people away, but I don't think they would because the more people you have, the faster it's going to get done. Brethren, we just need to be people of the serving mindset.

That's what Jesus did. Christ did not please Himself. We have to fight our selfish tendencies.

And every one of us have them. I just don't feel like it. Today's not a convenient time.

I've got a headache. I'm hungry. Let's go.

But we've got to fill our minds with Christ, constantly seeing Him and hearing Him and asking yourself, how would He have responded? How would He do this? How would He act? How would He speak? And follow that humble pattern because He told us, learn of Me. Why? Because He's that humble guy. He's that pattern.

He's gentle, lowly. You find rest for your souls. We've got to study that character.

I say it again, we've got to study the character of Christ until something happens. Your soul is filled with just a love of His beauty and an admiration of His self and His giving. Brethren, I hope you think about that.

The wrath of God fell on Him. He hung naked on that cross. You just think.

I was thinking when Jeff was talking, what if I knew that was before me today? What if I was going to be taken out that door and I was going to be scourged? And after scourging, have to walk to my place of crucifixion. Actually, have those spikes hammered through me, be thrust up on that thing and be hanging there. And Jesus willingly did this.

He could have called down the 12 legions. He didn't do it. We've got to learn of Him.

Brethren, one of the things is there's so little meekness of Christ, a lack of love, indifference to the needs and the feelings of others, sharp comments and rash judgments and they were tempers and touchiness and we've thin-skinned people. What is thin-skinned? It just means that you can't take things. You can't take correction.

You can't take when people find fault with you. You can't take counsel and instruction. You're just so stuck on yourself.

Or people that run around in the church and they're bitter. They always got some grudge against somebody because they're not being treated exactly like they think they need to be treated. Well, you know what that person is not doing? They're not living their life among the people of God with a serving mindset.

How can I help them? What can I do for them? It's that person that always is taken and they don't get what they think they ought to be getting and so they get bitter. And you know, they excuse it because it's always everybody else's fault. What would be the effect if we were all guided by the humility of Christ? Of course, there's that child-likeness.

What did the children? Children don't worry. I mean, the thing about it is humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that in due time He might exalt you. Casting all your cares on Him.

I watch my grandson back there. Because I live in the same house, I watch him. He is not concerned about where the next half gallon of milk is coming from in the refrigerator.

It's like when he is ready for milk, it typically is there. He wants to eat. It's there.

It's time to sleep. There's a bed there. I have seen no anxiety in him.

He doesn't run around just worrying and wringing his hands. That's what children do. Brethren, do you have a Father in heaven or not? You know what? Just being able to throw your anxieties on Him and not run around worrying and full of all sorts of fretting.

Brethren, that is a picture of humility. It's like, you know what? I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know where that's going to come from.

I do not know. I'm weakness. I can't make this happen, but I have a Father in heaven that loves me.

Christ, the love, can begin to fathom the depths of that. Brethren, my last point here is this. Listen, if this humility thing has to do with me low and God high, I'll tell you this, you've got to demand worship in the midst of all of this.

Let me tell you something. Humility is low. But I also find that worship in Scripture, we don't sing it much here, but when we were out at CBC, we sang this, Oh, come let us worship and what? Isn't that interesting? In Scripture, humility is bowed down.

In Scripture, worship is bowed down. Brethren, hear me here, because I am ending with this, but hear me. Worship, demand, worth, Skype, Old English, the worth of God.

That is what worship is all about. It is me praising and proclaiming and seeing and viewing and registering. God is big.

There are ways that we can tend to evaluate humility. We look at somebody and well, they're rather passive. They're rather laid back.

They're rather quiet. You get somebody else over here, well, this guy has this personality and it's all out there and he's bombastic. Let me tell you something.

We can look at that and we kind of say, well, based on the personality that God has given them, we can kind of say, well, this guy's humble, this guy's not. There may not be anything to that. It's like when I come to church, well, that guy has this certain personality that's likable.

He's got a smile on his face. And so you say, well, he's humble. Brethren, it may be the guy that's got that bombastic personality and it may be, listen, brethren, you know what the church needs? If we're going to have high views of God, if we're going to have big views, if we're going to really be after worship and exalted views, you know what? You need men in the church like Jonathan who I don't know what his voice was like.

I don't know what the look on his face was like. But he said, you know what? We're going to take that hill. We need men in the church like David who say, you know what? Somebody's got to go over there and shut the mouth of that monster.

We need people like that. Why? Because there's a God in Israel. You know what? Passivity and limp-wristed, limp-kneed, cowering away.

Listen, fear and cowardice is not a picture of humility. In the church, we need to have a big view of God. Hey, we're nothing, but God is with us.

We can do this. Not because of anything innately in us. Anything that we have, any resources we have, any gifts that Christ has bestowed upon the church, they've all come from Him.

But you know what? He's with us. We've got the God of Israel. And we can say the gates of hell are not going to prevail.

And that is not presumption. That is not pride. Brethren, it becomes pride when it's I can't believe God.

I can't take Him at His Word. Why? Because what I think is right and my way is right. And even though God says, trust Me and step out there on that limb and go see what I'll do.

You know what God said in Malachi? He said, where is the man who's going to shut the door? You know what that was all about? You had a bunch of these Jews that were offering this pathetic religion to God. They were bringing their maims and their defective and their blind sacrifices. And God says, where's the man that's going to shut the door? Is that proud? No, that's when you see God is big and somebody says, you know what? Enough of this dead religion.

Enough of this false religion. Shut the door. Brethren, God doesn't want weak people.

You know what? You've got Romans 14. Paul comes along and he says, God wants you to have conviction. God wants you to be people who actually believe something.

Brethren, we need people that rise up and say we're sick of our God being dishonored. We are going to live for the honor and glory of our God and for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ. We need somebody once in a while to stand up and say that the lamb who is slain is going to receive the reward of his suffering.

We're heading out there. We're going out there. You say, well, that's pride.

That's arrogance. That's presumption. No, it's not.

We've got this big view of God and He's our God and He's told us to go. Because not going is just sheer disobedience. It's unbelief and it's pride.

So we've got to be really clear on what self-humbling is. And brethren, it's got to do with worship. If there's anything that's got to be true of this church, it's that if somebody comes in here, they recognize, wow, those people have a big view of God.

And the bigger our view of God is, the smaller we'll be in our own eyes in light of Him. And brethren, we don't know how big He is. He is so much bigger than our comprehension level.

So this thing is a proper estimation of self. And I would just say a growing approximation of our perception of who God is. Brethren, we need to see how fearful and holy, mighty, compassionate.

Oh, brethren, if there's anything that jumps out at me, it is when you take a guy like Ahab or Rehoboam or Manasseh and there's humility. It's like this God, He's moved upon by humility. He will exalt.

He will give grace. He takes notice. It's like His eyes are moving back and forth.

You say, even after what Manasseh did? Yeah, even there. It's like you can take the most wretched characters in Scripture, but you have them humble themselves. And God said, hey, did you see this? And He talks that way in Scripture.

Do you notice that? Do you notice how He humbled Himself? Like that gets God's attention. Brethren, we humble ourselves and we can plead with Him. Plead with Him.

Lord, we want to be everything that we're supposed to be. We want to have our right position. We want to have a right perspective of who we are and who You are.

And Father, I pray that You'd help us. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.