Last Sunday night, when we looked
at that entire message by Paul to the Ephesians, and I said,
I'm going to, after that, try to pick out different parts of
the message and deal with them. And I said, next week, I'm going
to try to bring a message on humility. And Andrea Vincent
said, you need to entitle it The Greatest Message Ever on
Humility. I didn't title it that. Paul said in verse 19, serving
the Lord. Serving the Lord. The Lord we serve is described
by his bride. in the Song of Solomon as altogether
lovely. What a description of the Christ. That cannot be said of any creature. Altogether lovely. Glorious in holiness. Fearful in praises. You know, when we speak of the
praise of God, it ought to be done so with fear, not this whoop-dee-doo
attitude, but fear. Doing wonders. Only He does wonders. The Beloved. The word, God's self-disclosure
of himself when he speaks of himself, the word, which was
made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace
and truth. the all powerful one. The one who is the brightness
of God's glory. Somebody tell me how I can comment
on that. The brightness of God's glory. The express image of his
person upholding all things By the word of his power, one writer
said this simply by nod. The fairest of 10,000, the bright
and morning star, the day spring from on high, the ancient of
days, the great I am. I love it when he says to the
Pharisees, if you believe not that I am, you will die in your
sins. No more sobering words. Now the I am was revealed to
Moses in the burning bush when he said, I am that I am. But
I love thinking of that burning bush in the simplicity of that,
there's no more powerful picture of us of who Jesus Christ is.
That bush kept burning and did not need the wood for the flame
to continue. That speaks of the independence
of Jesus Christ. And this is a hard thing to get,
well, it's impossible to get a hold of, but he has no needs. All
things within himself, he has no needs. You and I are so needy. Can't even express how needy
we are. He has no needs. He is utterly independent, and
yet, That wood could not be consumed by that fire. That's speaking
of the PERFECT HUMANITY OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE WRATH
OF GOD, EVEN BECAUSE OF THE GREATNESS OF HIS PERSON, BECAUSE OF WHO
HE IS, WHEN THE WRATH OF GOD CAME DOWN ON HIM. THE REASON
HELL IS CONTINUAL IS BECAUSE WE WILL NEVER SATISFY GOD'S WRATH,
BUT SUCH IS THE GREATNESS OF HIS PERSON THAT WHEN THE WRATH
OF GOD CAME DOWN UPON HIM, HE CONSUMED THE WRATH AND IT WAS
NO MORE. the Lord we serve. He said, I am the way, I am the
truth, I am the life, the perfect man, the excellency and the glory
of Jesus Christ, the Lord. That is the Lord that we served
and he is to be served. Don't you wanna serve the Lord?
Whatever that means, I want to do that. I want to be a servant.
He is to be served. And there's all kinds of words
that we could use to describe how he should be served. Shouldn't
he be served in passionate love? Zeal for his glory? Willingness? There's all kinds
of Good words that we could use to describe serving the Lord. But what is the word the Holy
Spirit chose to describe what it is to serve the Lord? We can't
overemphasize the importance of this. Serving the Lord with
all humility. Serving the Lord with all humility
of mind. Now, I would like to preach on
something I realize that I know very little about, but I see
the beauty of it. Humility. Serving the Lord with
all, not just with humility of mind, but with all humility of
mind. Humility, what is it? Well, the
best definition I've ever read, and I've looked for all kinds
of definitions of it, and the best thing I've ever read is
this. Humility is a just estimate of yourself. That's such a good
definition. It's a just estimate of yourself. The Lord, Jesus Christ, was and
is humble. Now that's glorious. This person that I've just described,
the altogether lovely one, the ancient of days, the eternal
I am, the one who is all powerful, all knowing, everywhere at once,
is meek and lowly in heart. That's the description of Jesus
Christ. That's how he described himself.
This was his own description. He said, come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He's
got the power to do it. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me. He didn't say learn about me,
he said learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart. Now, how many times have you
been around somebody where you felt threatened, judged? You felt like they were looking
you over? You felt very uncomfortable? Do you know no sinner ever felt
that way around the Son of God? Isn't that amazing? He is meek
and lowly in heart. The scripture says in Philippians
2, he humbled himself. You know, I reckon that he's
the only one to ever really do that. Just like he's the only
one to ever really confess sin. Our confession is so inadequate. He's the only one to ever believe
God. Our faith is so filled with unbelief,
he's the only one to ever be sorry for his sin. When my sin
became his sin, he expressed the true sorrow of it. I've never
done that. Everything about me, you can
just put it down, inadequate. My humbling of myself is filled
with such pride and such arrogance and such, he humbled himself. And how did he do it? He took
two stoops. One, when he became a man, when
he assumed human nature, what an act of humbling himself. I mean, he who holds the universe
in the palm of his hand became blessed. And how he humbled himself,
here's his second stoop, When he became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross, not only did he become flesh,
he became sin. Now that is the most mysterious,
glorious, I wish I could speak on it properly. He became sin. He was made What a stoop that
you and I could never understand. We just believe it because that's
what the Word of God says. He humbled himself. Now, someone once asked John
Calvin this question. What are the three greatest Christian
graces? Good question. What are the three
greatest Christian graces? And he answered like this, number
one, humility. Number two, humility. Number
three, humility. When Paul described his serving
of the Lord, he said he did so with all humility. Now, let me
see if we can make that good from the scriptures, that statement
John Calvin made, this thing of humility. If you could pick
out one word that would describe the Beatitudes, what is the word
you would select? I know the first word to come
to my mind humility. Now remember the Beatitudes describe
what every true believer is. That's what it is. It's the description
of the believer. It's not talking about what a
believer ought to be. It's talking about what a believer is. Blessed
are the poor in spirit. You can't be poor in spirit without
humility. Blessed are they that mourn.
They mourn over their sin before God. You can't mourn over your
sin without humility. Blessed are the meek. You can't
be truly meek before God without humility. Blessed are they that
hunger and thirst after righteousness. You're not gonna hunger and thirst
after righteousness if you're not humble. You see, if you're
humble, you know you have no righteousness and you must hunger
and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. The
only merciful people are humble people. Blessed are the pure
in heart. You say, it takes purity in heart
to see why you need to be humble. It's that new nature that sees
the sinfulness of the old nature. It's only the pure in heart that
are humble. Now, there are natural kinds
of humility and humbleness, and we actually like that. When you
see somebody in the world that's not a believer, that's humble
instead of self-promoting, you like that person better. And
if somebody's proud and arrogant, self-promoting, you don't like
them. You like a humble person. I think of what the Lord said
with regard to Ahab. Ahab was not a believer. Remember
when he humbled himself before the Lord and the Lord said, see
how Ahab humbles himself before me. Humility is beautiful. Even that
which is not produced by the Spirit of God, you like that
better than the other kind of stuff. When you talk about being
a peacemaker, only a humble person is a peacemaker. When you talk about being persecuted
for righteousness sake, Well, the humble know the righteousness
of Christ is the only righteousness they have, and they'll get in
a fight over that. And they'll be persecuted for righteousness
sake in that sense. You see, humility is the foundation
of everyone. Well, grace is the foundation,
and the manifestation of it is humility. Now, do you see why
I said, Three most important graces, humility, humility, and
humility. You could say that with regard
to the fruit of the Spirit too. Humility is in all of the fruit
of the Spirit. You know, this is one, this is
a scripture that always amazed me because Moses wrote this.
Moses wrote, Moses was the meekest man in all the earth. And the
word meek means humble, humble. He said, I'm the most humble
man alive. Well, I guess he was, I believe he was. I'm not gonna
argue with that. He said that under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, but how beautiful humility is. Now I'm going to
try to give what the scripture says about this attribute of
humility. serving the Lord with all humility
of mind. Well, first thing I'd like to
say is this, it's what God requires. It's what God requires. What does the Lord require of
thee, O man? But to do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God. Don't miss any of these, to do
justly. I remember one time, this has
been all the way back on American Avenue, when I preached this
message. I preached that in Micah chapter
seven. I'm ashamed to bring this up, but I did. Someone says,
do you ever say stupid things? Yep, check out what I'm saying
with the scripture. Don't believe it because I said
it, because this was terrible. I said, it's always right to
do the right thing, do justly. Well, somebody says, what's wrong
with that? You ain't never done it. That's
what's wrong with it. I mean, it is always right to
do the right thing. Nobody will argue against that.
It is always right to do the right thing. But that's not what
he says. He says it's to do justly. And my dear friends, that is
what justification is. If I'm justified by God, that
means I do justly. Somebody says, well, it's a legal
term. It's a forensic term regarding our standing and our legal state
before God. Well, maybe that's involved in
it, I don't know. But if I'm justified, I do justly. That's
all I do. Perfectly righteous. What does
God require of you? To do justly. And every believer
has in Christ Jesus. To love mercy. Oh my soul, I love being saved
by sheer mercy. You tell me salvation's by works
in any ways, it's over for me. I love mercy. And I wanna be
a merciful man, don't you? To love mercy and to walk humbly
with thy God. And if I'm not walking in humility
with him, you can be sure of this, I'm not walking with him
at all. This is what God requires of
me and you, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God. And here's the second thing I'd
like to say about humility. Humility is what Christ calls
greatness in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew chapter 18 verse four,
whosoever shall humble himself as this little child is the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven. What would we call the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven? Well, the man who's the most
courageous, the most zealous, the man who's going to preach
in such a way as it doesn't matter whether everybody hates him,
he's put to death for it, he's willing to die for a martyr for
Christ's sake. There's all kinds of things we would call the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven. And I wouldn't deny I'm thankful
for those things where they are when it's the gift of God. But
when the Lord describes who the greatest in the kingdom of heaven
is, It's that person who humbles himself as that little child. Now there's one thing that I
know about what was going on there. The disciples at that
time were arguing among themselves which of them would be the greatest.
You know, they did that a lot. They did it a lot. You know one
person in that group who knew he wasn't the greatest, that
little child. Those other fellas, I'm not sure
which one's greatest, but I know it's not me. You know what the
Lord says about that little child? Whosoever shall humble himself
as that little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven. That's greatness in Christ's
sight. When Paul mentioned in Ephesians
chapter four, verse one, walking the worthy walk. That's what
he called it. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
four. I beseech you, verse one, Ephesians
chapter four, verse one, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech
you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called
And what's the first thing he mentions when he mentions a walk
worthy of the believer, worthy of God, worthy of the calling
wherewith you are called. With all lowliness, same word
translated humility, first thing he mentions. I think this is interesting.
When David describes the believer in the Psalms, he uses three
words more than any other words to describe the believer. Poor. You don't have anything to bring
to the table. Nothing. Needy. You have great needs. And humble. The humble shall
hear thereof. This is the only way you can
hear the gospel. If you're not getting anything out of the gospel,
here's why. The humble shall hear thereof
and be glad. You see, when you hear as a sinner,
you hear the gospel. When you hear in any other way,
you do not hear. the humble shall hear thereof
and be glad. God gives grace to the humble. We read that numerous times in
the scripture. God gives grace to the humble. He gives him the grace to be
humble. You know, the only way I'll be
humble before the Lord is if he gives me the grace to be humble.
It's not something I can work up. Oh, what a blessed grace
it is. But he gives grace to be humble,
and then he saves them by his grace as the humble. You know, you could substitute
the word for the word humble, sinner. Sinner. He gives grace to sinners. He resists the proud, but he
gives grace to sinners. And his grace is always saving
grace. Humility is a part of God's,
or of Paul's description of God's elect. Let me read this to you.
Colossians chapter three, verse 12, put on therefore as the elect
of God. That ought to catch our attention.
Oh, that ought to catch our attention. Put on therefore. as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness
of mind. Humility. Turn with me to, well, let's
stay there. Let me keep on reading this passage.
Turn with me. We didn't look at that. Let me
turn there. Colossians chapter three. I want you to see what
comes with this. Put on, therefore, as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, and long-suffering. And here's what this creates
for bearing one another and forgiving one another. That's what humble
people do. They put up with one another.
They give each other the benefit of the doubt. They bear with. one another, forbearing one another
and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Now that is the fruit of humility,
this kind of attitude. Turn to Philippians chapter two
for a moment. Philippians chapter two. Verse three, let nothing be done through strife. contention or vain glory, the
seeking of self-promotion. But in lowliness of mind, there's
the word, humility. In lowliness of mind, let each
esteem other better than themselves. Now, how do you go about doing
that? How do you go about doing that? I know me better than I know
you. Now, I don't know myself as God
knows me, because if I did, I'd probably kill myself, and you
would too. I'm thankful the Lord doesn't give us a complete view
of what we are, but I do know myself better than you. I know
what goes on in my heart. I might have some guesses as
to what goes on in your heart, but I know what goes on in my
heart. and with the knowledge of what goes on in my heart, or even things I do, sins I commit. You know there's no such thing
as a good sinner, or he's a good sinner, no such thing. Sinners
are sinners, and that's what the natural man is, and we still
have that sinful nature. I know, I have some idea of what
goes on in my heart, and I cannot even imagine you being as bad
as me. Every believer feels that way
if their attitude is right. Esteeming the other as better
than themselves. Verse four, look not every man
on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Humility looks on the things of others. Pride doesn't. Pride only looks itself. It can't
see past its own nose. Humility looks on the things
of others. Look not every man on his own
thing, but every man also on the things of others. Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. but made himself of no reputation,
took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men,
and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself. He became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Now, when Peter speaks of our
relationship with others, He always says, all of you be subject
one to another and clothed with humility. I have referred to Brother Gene
Rutledge several times over the years since he died, but one
of the favorite things he ever said to me was, I got way too
many sins of my own than to worry about somebody else's. I hope
we all espouse that attitude. Twice in the book of Proverbs
we read before honor is humility. Before honor always is humility. Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before the fall. But before honor is humility. Now what does humility look like? And I'm talking about saving
humility. I'm talking about when the Lord
saves somebody by his grace, reveals Christ to them. They're
made to look at Christ only as everything in their salvation.
They love the Lord Jesus Christ. They love his people. They've
been saved by his grace. What does humility look like? Well, let's go to Luke chapter
18, because here we're going to find somebody who exalted
himself and was abased. And we're going to find somebody
who really did humble himself and were exalted. Luke chapter
18. Verse nine. And before I go on reading this
parable, if someone would ask me what is the most important
parable in the Bible, I would probably be foolish to think,
well, this one's more important than that one. I can't make that
statement. Every parable is important, but
there are none more important than this parable. As a matter
of fact, this parable, the Lord gives the key truth of the scripture
with no explanation of it, and uses the rest of the Bible to
expound on this parable. That's how important this parable
is. Somebody says, I already know
that one. We don't know good enough then. I'm sure of that. Now let's look at this, verse
nine. This is what scriptural humility
looks like. This is the humility that comes
from the Spirit of God. This is the humility that comes
when God saves a man and gives him a new nature. Here's what
it looks like. Verse nine, and he spake this
parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were
Righteous. What is self-righteousness? This. You trust in yourself that you
are righteous. If you have any, listen to me,
if you have any self-righteousness, you are self-righteous. That's so, isn't it? And you
know what happens with everybody who is self-righteous, without
exception? They have a religion of comparison. They can always find somebody
that they're more righteous than. What did this fella do? He despised,
looked down upon others. Now there we have the self-righteous
man. And the Lord gives us this parable,
and these are the two prototype men. Every man falls into one
of these two men described in this parable. Two men went up
into the temple to pray. The one, a Pharisee, and the
other, a publican. One, a very religious man, a
very moral man. One, a dishonest, corrupt, sinful
man. And everybody knew it too. He
wasn't coming there as just somebody who had bad thoughts and evil
thoughts. He had an evil life. He was a
publican. That's the most despised, profession
there was. He was an unjust man. He was
a dishonest man. He was an evil man. One, a Pharisee, a moral man. The other, a publican, a dishonest,
corrupt man. Now, remember when I said Humility
is a just estimate of yourself. Hear the words of a man who did
not have a just estimate of himself. This description of himself is
certainly not just. As a matter of fact, there's
no truth to it. Everything he says he didn't
do, he did do. Everything he says he did do,
he had the wrong motive for doing it and he didn't do it enough
anyway. This man had a very unjust, corrupt estimate of himself. Now let's read his estimate.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. Now the Lord put that there for
a reason. He's letting us know that God didn't hear this prayer.
This was not a man God would accept. He prayed thus with himself. God, I thank thee. I'm not giving myself the credit
for this. I'm giving your grace the credit for this wonderful
way that I'm living. I'm giving you the credit. I'm
not giving myself the credit. Forbid that I would ever be self-righteous.
I'm giving you the credit. I thank thee. But notice what
he doesn't say. He doesn't say, I thank you for
the blood of Christ. He doesn't say, I thank you for
the freeness of your mercy. He doesn't say, I thank you for
the greatness of your grace. But he said, I thank you that
I'm not as other men are. My life's different. I'm better. Now he probably looked at that
public and he would sit there, that'd be me apart from your
grace. There go I, apart from the grace of God. He would have
said that. I have no doubt about it. I thank thee that I'm not
as other men are. And then he talks about what
he did not do. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not
unjust. I'm not an adulterer and I'm
certainly not like this publican. I fast twice in the week and
I give tithes of all that I possess. And I'm giving you the credit
for the holiness and the growth and sanctification in my life. I thank thee. And the publican, verse 13, standing
The scripture says a far off. He felt a far off. And he stood
a far off. And in his own experience, he
was far off. Would not lift up so much as
his eyes unto heaven. I imagine he thought that that
would have been an act of utter presumption for him to lift his
eyes up to heaven. He would probably think a lightning
bolt would come down and fry him if he did something like
that. So presumptuous that would be of me. But he smote upon his
breast, the place where his heart was. And he knew that this was
his problem, an evil heart. That's the problem. Now listen
to me. I got all kinds of problems, but they come out of this one
problem. Smiling on his breast, this is
where the problem is, an evil heart. And look what he said,
And the publican, standing athar off, would not lift up so much
as his eyes unto heaven. but smote upon his breast, saying,
God be merciful to me, a sinner." And I don't know why the translators
translated that with an indefinite article, a sinner, but it is
in the original, the definite article, the sinner. And when
he's saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner, that's not
the word that's generally translated mercy. It's be propitious. Do something about my sin. I can't do anything about my
sin. And if you don't do something
for me, I'm going to hell. And I'm getting exactly what
I deserve. Would you be pleased to do something
about my sin? Be a sin propitiating, a sin
atoning sacrifice for my sin. Put away my sin. This wasn't just some kind of
general cry for mercy. This was knowing if he doesn't
do something about my sin and put it away, I will not be saved. Verse 14, I tell you, this man, went down to his house
justified. Remember, before honor is humility. And what honor this man had,
he went down to his house justified. And the other A haughty spirit
goes before a fall. Pride goes before destruction.
A haughty spirit before the fall. We see the haughty spirit of
this man. I tell you this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other for everyone that
exalts himself shall be abased and he that humbleth himself. shall be exalted." Your humility is, yes, it's just
an estimate of yourself. It's to trust Christ only. Let's
pray. Lord, we ask for grace to serve you with all humility
of mind, resting in thy son. Bless this message for Christ's
sake and cause it to bear fruit according to your will in Christ. And we pray. Amen.