I Choose Humility

Thank you, happy New Year's to all of you. And congratulations, you're starting the new year in church. That's pretty cool. You know, yeah. In fact, take your hand like this, stretch it up like that. Okay, now come back down around your back. Now just pat yourself, there you go. You deserve that this morning. And welcome to all of you that are joining us on our live stream as well. We are so glad that you're with us.

And if you recall, Kyle reminded us that this morning we have the privilege of sharing in communion together. So I hope you got your communion elements on your way into the auditorium or at home. You've taken the opportunity to grab some juice or water and some bread or crackers so that when we do share, you're ready to do that.

Well, I want to invite you to think back to this moment a year ago. Remember that? You remember how excited we were that 2020 was in the rear view window? Remember that? It's like, yes, finally, it's over. And then 2021 came with its own surprises, didn't it? Well, good news for you. 2022 will as well. Now that's not to say there aren't going to be some wonderful things to look forward to, things that are going to be better this year than last year.

For example, in a matter of days, weeks, the Warriors who are already good are about to get even better because Clay Thompson is going to join the starting lineup. So I mean, come on. That's something to look forward to. And for me, I don't know if you did a great Christmas, I hope you did. I did, and one of the things that Santa put into my stocking this year was a big new package of face masks and they come in different colors according to my mood. So that's nice. And yeah, I guess that's about it. I'm just kidding.

There are plenty of things to look forward to, blessings that are yet to unfold in our lives in this year to come, but there will also be circumstances you didn't anticipate and don't like. You will experience some personal setbacks. You will be frustrated by friends and family and government and business because there will be times when COVID will yet again probably throw us a few more curve balls. But in all of this, we have agency. We still will have the power to choose how we will respond in each and every situation.

And so this year we're kicking off a brand new series called Choosing a Good Year. And this morning, I hope that you will join me, that you will affirm that I choose humility. Now, you may have noticed that humility doesn't get a whole lot of press these days. It's pretty rare among people in leadership or the limelight, but you know, it wasn't always quite that way. Humility had a higher place in our culture in years past.

In fact, when Ben Franklin was in his mid 20s, he was known to be somewhat of a know-it-all, well, because he kind of was. And with a quick mind and a sharp tongue, he could just dominate an argument. So much so that one of his friends one day kind of pulled him aside and said, you know, in so many words, I just got to tell you that in conversation, you can be an overbearing jerk. Well, Ben Franklin took that to heart. And for the rest of his life, he made it his desire to become a more humble person.

Even so, at the age of 78, he's writing his autobiography and this is what he has to say about his progress. He says, you will see pride perhaps often in this history for even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I would probably be proud of my humility. Honest words.

Winston Churchill also had a very quick mind and was such a gifted speaker, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his excellence as a communicator, one of the greatest orators in history. And yet one time somebody asked him, doesn't it thrill you to know that every time you make a speech, the hall is packed to overflowing? And to that, Churchill replied, it's quite flattering, but whenever I feel that way, I always remember that if instead of making a political speech, I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.

Now, can you imagine hearing a politician talk like that today? Or not to mention the rest of us in our culture. I mean, think with me here. I wonder how much of what is dividing us as a culture, dividing communities, dividing churches, dividing families, friends, how much of it comes down to a lack of humility? And what happens when everyone thinks they're smarter than everyone else? I think we may be living it right now.

And it's easy to think that pride is a problem, you know, a unique problem in fact, for the rich and famous or people who have, you know, better jobs and bigger cars or bigger houses that, you know, I'm sure that they struggle with pride so much more than I do, right? Wrong. Now, it comes as no surprise that God is not a big fan of pride and that is an understatement. There's over a hundred verses in the Bible about pride, speaking of it negatively.

And a summary of that comes in Proverbs 3:34, where it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." I find it interesting, and I put the references here that both James and Peter will quote this exact verse in their own New Testament letters. And Jesus is going to take it even a step farther. He's going to tell a story about it, but this is really the sermon in a nutshell right there.

But as to that story that Jesus told, we're going to look at that today. It's found in Luke 18:9–14. I want to invite you, if you have a Bible or you want to take one of those Bibles in the seat back in front of you, look up Luke 18. The verses are also going to be in the notes and on screen today. And it begins like this. It says, "To some who are confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else," because they always go together, "Jesus told this parable."

Now, let me ask, do we have any perfectly humble people with us in church today? Like you're 100% humble. Okay, then this applies to all of us, right? And if you don't think it applies to you, it's just proof that it does. So here we go. And listen, not only will pride bring out your worst, pride will actually turn you away from God. So this is serious business. Pride is a cancer, a spiritual and moral cancer. And so we just gently ask us all to just decide, we're not going to play church today. Let's open our hearts to what God's word and God's spirit says to us in the story that was told by our own Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

It says starting at verse 10, "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector." Now, most of us are church people and so we have to hit the pause button here because when we hear the word Pharisee, it immediately comes up negative, right? If you've read the gospels, you know that the Pharisees are almost always on the wrong side of Jesus. But to the people listening to Jesus in this moment, it was exactly the opposite. The Pharisees were the good guys.

They respected the Pharisees because of their commitment to God and His commandments. They admired their devotion to remaining pure in a corrupt Roman society around them. And so when it came to living upstanding lives, the Pharisees, they just taught everyone. And on the other hand, way, way, way down on the other side of the curve were the tax collectors. Most of you know that tax collectors were actually Jewish men who sold out to the Romans collecting taxes on Rome's behalf from their fellow Jews.

And once they had given Rome its cut, they were free to take as much as they possibly could, as much as their market could bear. And so they were hated. They were traitors. They were crooks. And for that reason, the only people they could really hang out with were other people that were at the bottom of the ladder in their society, and prostitutes, and thieves, and all sorts of other people of poor repute.

So think of it this way. If a Pharisee, if you're in this time and place that this story is told, if a Pharisee is dating your sister, you're thrilled. If it's a tax collector, you are plotting his untimely demise. That's how we have to enter into this story. Both of these guys go up to the temple, and it says, "The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'" Oh, you notice all the personal pronouns there? I, I, I, I, in the Greek, it's five times. He refers to himself in the first person singular. I am so awesome. "God, thank you for me," is basically what he has to say.

Now, the tradition at this time for men to pray would be to stand in the temple court with their hands lifted up like this, their head turned towards heaven, and that's how they would pray. But I get the sense that this Pharisee, he's kind of looking off to the left, and he's looking off to the right, kind of taking inventory on all the people that are inferior to him, including the tax collector. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "A proud man is always looking down on things and people, and of course, as long as you're looking down, you cannot see something, or in this case, someone that is above you."

Well, continuing at verse 13, "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'" So you get the picture? While the Pharisee is standing front and center, the tax collector stands at a distance, off on the periphery, he won't even look up into heaven. And while the Pharisee bloviates about how awesome he is, the tax collector beats his breast, which is a sign of deep grief.

In fact, it's only mentioned one other time in the Scriptures, also in Luke's gospel, not coincidentally, in chapter 23, and it's at the moment that Jesus dies. When he says, "Into your heart, I give up," or "Into your hands, I give my spirit," and he dies, and in that moment, under a dark sky, Luke says that the people witnessing it beat their breasts because they were cut to the quick over what they had just witnessed. And that's how the tax collector feels in this moment. Such a deep awareness of his need as he prays, "God have mercy on me, a sinner."

Well, Jesus drives the point home at verse 14. "I tell you this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God, for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all those who humble themselves will be exalted." There's a reason that pride is called the mother of all sins. It's because pride blinds us, not to pride in others. You can spot pride in another person from a mile away. But in ourselves, it's almost impossible to see. It's kind of like, forgive me for maybe the crude example, but it's kind of like if you have bad breath, okay? Everyone else in the room can know it, except for you, right? It's just one of those things hard to detect in ourselves.

And so when someone might want to help you out, they'll offer you a breath mint, not because they're just wanting to share, they're kind of trying to help you out, right? We've all been there. But now, since the pandemic, and we've had to wear masks all the time, we're kind of armed with a new ability. Have you noticed this? Because you can, after some time wearing a mask, you can go, "Whoa, good thing I'm wearing this mask, because I don't know if I got COVID, but I certainly got bad breath." Anyone experienced this at all? We have some humble people in the house today, that's awesome.

A couple weeks ago, I was going into a meeting, and as I entered the building, I put my mask on and I was like, "Okay, I know the mask probably helps protect people from COVID, but I don't know if it's going to protect them from my coffee breath today." And so I pulled out one of those little Listerine strips, you know, they kind of melt in your mouth, and I slipped it up under my mask. And then I experienced something that was also new to kind of the pandemic age, the minty fumes. They kind of were trapped in the mask, and then they leaked up right into my eyeballs. And I mean, it was like being hit by bear spray. I'm like, "Oh my goodness!" Tears streaming down my face.

And at first, I didn't make the connection. I didn't connect the dust. I just thought maybe I had gotten poisoned by something. Some foreign spy was trying to kill me. It took a while to figure out that it was the little Listerine. They should put a warning on those now. Do not use while wearing a mask. Anybody else experience? Yeah, it's a tough lesson to learn. It's painful.

Well, my point is this, and I do actually have one, is that when it comes to our pride, we are all nose blind, okay? We just can't even sniff it out. But even so, we're going to try. I'm going to ask a couple questions. You can ask yourself this question. I've been asking myself these questions all week long. First one goes like this. Am I currently holding a grudge against someone? Are you holding a grudge? What makes us feel justified to hold a grudge against others? Let me hear you. Pride.

How about this one? This one caught me. Do I sometimes think people who disagree with me are stupid? Come on. Anyone else guilty? Yeah, I am. It's pride. But listen, there's a difference between believing someone is wrong and viewing them with contempt. To do the latter is to basically operate under the assumption that I'm never wrong. I'm never in need of people's charity or patience. And yet, there's a lot of this going on. Would you agree?

Okay. Final one. How long has it been since I said the words, "I'm sorry"? How long has it been? And what keeps us from doing that? Pride, right? Even being timid and reluctant to speak up or participate in an endeavor can in itself be a self-protective form of pride. I just don't want anyone to think less of me, so I'm just going to kind of stay out on the periphery of things. Or how about being honest enough to confess to another human being that you have a weakness, a struggle, a temptation, and you're asking them for prayer? What keeps us from doing that? Pride, because listen, pride makes no room for vulnerability.

In your marriage, in your relationships with your friends, your neighbors, pride makes no room for vulnerability, 'cause man, I'm good all the time. It's like the sad story of a man named David Grunman. David Grunman one day left his home in Phoenix, Arizona, 1982, walked out into the desert, armed with a shotgun and two rifles. He started to, for whatever reason, shoot at this giant Saguaro cactus. You know, this big, big giant cactus. This one was 24, 25 feet tall. Shooting away at it. Nobody knows if he was just angry or bored, but for some reason, you know, it kind of felt good to just see the flesh getting knocked out of this giant hundred year old plant. Until the cactus toppled over and fell on top of Mr. Grunman and crushed him to death. True story.

But that's the insidious thing about pride. We don't see it until the crash. In our marriage, our career, our finances, our Christian witness. Pastor and theologian John Stott once said this, pride is your greatest enemy. And if you don't believe that, bear in mind that it's pride that made the devil the devil. It's pride that caused Adam and Eve to fall. Pride is your greatest enemy, but then, John Stott adds, and humility, your greatest friend.

So how do we become more humble? Well, let me just briefly suggest three things that we can all apply, three prayers, in fact, because after all, the Pharisee and the tax gatherer went up to pray, and so I want to offer to you three prayers of the humble, and the first one's pretty obvious. It's God, have mercy. So take our cue from the tax collector. God, have mercy upon me, a sinner. Jesus promises that all of those who humble themselves will be exalted, and this is the good news of the gospel, because while we can never earn God's grace, we can receive it freely.

And let me just, again, humbly ask you to think of this on a personal level. If God has exposed an area of pride in your life, maybe here in just the last few moments, I beg you not to let your pride keep you from confessing it and dealing with it, or an area that you know it's not going to end well. You know that, but you keep telling yourself, I'll just deal with this later next week, or who knows, maybe I'll give it up at Lent, or whatever the case might be. That's just pride. Are you willing to simply say, God, have mercy, because you know what, you can walk out of here today, or you can be assured today, if you're at home, that if you humble yourself before God, He will exalt you, He will forgive you, He will restore you. But again, we have to be willing to admit our need.

So is it possible there's a need in your life that needs to be confessed today? 1 John 1:8–9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness." I mean, that's God's standing offer to us today. Second prayer of the humble is fix my focus. Fix my focus. Pride always involves comparing ourselves to, and looking down on other people. And so for example, in Romans 14, Paul is dealing with two groups of Christians who are at odds with each other. They are divided over what Paul calls disputable matters.

Disputable matters are issues that there's freedom among sincere believers to disagree because the Bible doesn't speak explicitly to one side or the other. And yet because of this, these people are at odds. And by the way, aren't you glad we don't have any more disputable matters to deal with today? But here's the bottom line. Paul says, "Why do you judge your brother or sister? Why are you holding them in contempt?" And of course the answer is again, pride. But as Paul reminds them and us by extension, we're all going to answer for ourselves before God, not others. We're going to stand before Him in that moment.

And Paul says, "So rather than focusing on other people, focus on yourself, and even more importantly, focus on Jesus." Because we can even get into the, I think the trap of just kind of go, "Oh, I'm so terrible. I'm such a loser." And we think that that's humility. But humility comes from focusing on Jesus. Not even on yourself. Humility comes from focusing, fixing our eyes on Jesus. As Hebrews 12:2 says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." That means your faith begins with Him, and it finishes with Him. And He is the one who is carrying us along in faith.

And as you choose to do this, you will begin to view yourself and others the way that Jesus does, which is a beautiful thing. As 2 Corinthians 5:16 says, "So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view." This last little phrase here literally in Greek, it means we regard no one from a flesh, according to the flesh. Because the flesh is always measuring people. It's always sizing them up. But again, as we fix our eyes on Jesus, God incarnate who humbled Himself to death on a cross, focused on His glory, His perfection, all that He has done for us. And when we do that, this whole game of comparing ourselves to other people becomes so less interesting, so less compelling when I'm caught up in the wonder of who Jesus is.

So pray, God, have mercy, fix my focus. And third, change my heart. Remember advice columnists and landers? Most of us are old enough. Kyle doesn't know who I'm talking about. The rest of us probably do. One time she said this, don't accept your dog's admiration as a conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. I love my dog, but he's not too good at pointing out any faults in me. He just wants his next meal. The reality, according to Scripture, Jeremiah 17 in particular, is that our hearts are deceitful and beyond cure, unless Jesus changes them.

And in Matthew 11, Jesus called out one day and He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. If you are tired of propping yourself up, Jesus is calling you." And He's saying, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and what? Humble in heart." Jesus is saying, "You follow me, you fix your eyes on me, you ask me to change your life and I will teach you to live the way I will empower you, in fact, to live the way that I created you to live." And not only that, but you know, this is the only time in the entire Bible that Jesus talks about His own heart, where He describes it.

And think of all the things that He could have said about His heart. My heart is full of joy, my heart is full of wisdom, my heart is perfectly holy, my heart is, any number of those things are all true. And yet He chooses to say, "I am gentle and humble in heart." Taken together, it means that Jesus is approachable. Okay, He's not going to scold you or remind you, "Oh, here we go again." No, He's the Good Shepherd who gently leads His flock. And by saying He's humble here, He's saying, it's akin to saying, "I am actually of low estate," or that a low position, it means that He meets us whatever level He needs to meet us at, that He is accessible.

Reminds me of my dear Aunt Lois, who went to heaven earlier this week. And by all accounts, she was gentle and humble in heart. Someone even perhaps say to a fault, I mean, she was just so warm, so loving, so she made you laugh, and then she probably made you one of the best meals you ever had in your life. That was my Aunt Lois. And more than once, just a lovely, lovely, dear person. Jesus says, "I am gentle and humble in heart. I will always make room for you. I will always take you in." And this is really, really good news because the truth of the matter is this, we are far more sinful than we imagine. And yet we are far more loved than we can even begin to dream.

Doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, there's no sin that Jesus can't forgive, and there's no heart that Jesus can't change. And how do we know? Well, because as we're about to remember, He gave Himself up for us on the cross. I mean, that's how committed Jesus is to rescuing us from our sinful, pride-filled hearts. But before we share in communion, I just want to close with one final illustration. Anyone the last week or two sing the song Joy to the World? If you were here with us last Sunday, you did.

Joy to the World was written by a man named Isaac Watts. And Isaac Watts was good at just, not just good at writing hymns. Isaac Watts was learning Latin by age four, Greek at nine, French at 11, and Hebrew at 13. He was so bright that the people in his hometown offered to pull together their finances and send him to Oxford University. That's the kind of promise they saw in the young Isaac Watts. He ended up going to a different university and became a pastor. But just a year into his pastorate, he began to suffer from mental illness which would plague him for the rest of his life.

He was also small and skinny and pale, and it's said that he had a disproportionately large head. So he wasn't exactly a looker in the eyes of people around him. In fact, when he proposed to the woman that he loved, she turned him down. Basically saying, "I love the jewel on the inside, but I'm not so excited about the package." So like us, Isaac Watts was a mix of both strengths and weaknesses, of joys and heartaches. But in his case, these differences were extreme. I mean, this genius mind that's wrapped in a humble exterior.

Well, perhaps because of this, Isaac Watts was, his songs are kind of thematically about this passion and wonder over a God, the eternal God who would assume ordinary human flesh. Talk about degrees of difference. Joy to the world celebrates the second coming of Jesus Christ when he will come and make all things right. And it's one of his greatest hits. But his other greatest hit is about when Jesus was born into this world in his life, in his ministry, as our suffering servant, and the ultimate sacrifice he would make for us on the cross.

And the words of that song go like this. "When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on my pride. See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did heirs such love and sorrow meet or thorns compose so rich a crown? Were the whole realm of nature mine? That were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all."

Well, let's survey the wondrous cross together as we come together in communion. And let's allow it to humble us and grace us and change us and inspire us to live our lives for the only one who is worthy of all glory and all praise, Jesus Christ. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the mind-boggling truth that the eternal Son of God was born into such a humble estate. As we celebrated just last weekend to come into this world as a baby, an infant, to a homeless couple and to suffer the things that we suffer to experience the full gamut of human difficulty and yet to live a perfect life before you, God, the life that we were created to live and then He would die the death that we deserved taking upon Himself, humbling Himself to death, even death on a cross.

And so Lord, in view of that, may we have an appropriate sense of humility for there is nothing that we can do apart from you. And Lord, I pray that each one of us in our own area of need would bring to you today whatever it is that has the stench of pride and would in humility say, "Lord, I repent, have mercy on me." And if you're here or within the sound of my voice, you've never done that before, but Jesus is calling and you know it, He is like knocking on the door right now.

I invite you to say again, kind of these three prayers, "Lord, have mercy on me." I admit I'm a sinner. And I receive what you have done for me on the cross. I don't even fully understand it, but I receive it. Would you count me in and may I be able to focus my life on you and following you. And along the way, Lord, I look forward to the ways that you will change my heart. If that's you, the words don't have to be as specific as I just said, but it's the attitude of your heart. You can just simply say, "Yes, Lord, count me in."

And so now Lord, we come to you celebrating and remembering what you've done for us through your sacrificial death on the cross. And we thank you and will never cease to thank you for your amazing grace bestowed upon us. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, and all God's people said, Amen. Amen.