The Life of True Humility

About this sermon

Introduction: Whenever we’re talking about humility, we’re talking about submission to God. We’re talking about an obedient life, a rightly informed life (seeing God and ourselves rightly), measured by the standard of Scripture. We must truly understand that and embrace that. We will never pursue true humility when are congratulating ourselves, or flagellating ourselves, based on false perspectives of what humility really is. I find it interesting, that our perfectly wise Savior chose as His most prominent disciple the man with the most volatile temperament. I find that interesting because I’ve known so many people through the years who claim to understand pride and humility and yet struggle with personalities like Peter’s. In fact, the way that Jesus dealt with all His disciples (who were quite a set of 11 personalities), helps us to understand some common mistakes that we make when we think about humility. Let me just briefly, in the way of introduction, mention some common mistaken notions about pride and humility. Humility is not chiefly about personality. It can be expressed, and is expressed THROUGH personalities, but it isn’t to be equated with a certain kind of personality. If you’re not careful, in the life of a church, everyone begins to look the same, talk the same, walk the same, because they have bought into this mistake. They equate humility with a certain kind of personality. You can have very quiet and unassuming people who are very proud by the standard of what God can see. And you can have people like Peter, who at times say the exact the wrong thing, or do the most dreadful thing, but are the first ones into the water when they see the Lord standing on the beach. Do you remember that story? ESV John 21:1 After this Jesus arevealed himself bagain to the disciples by cthe Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. 2 Simon Peter, aThomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of bCana in Galilee, cthe sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. 3 Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but athat night they caught nothing. 4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples adid not know that it was Jesus. 5 aJesus said to them, "Children, do you have any fish?" They answered him, "No." 6 aHe said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. 7 That disciple awhom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, bhe put on his outer garment, for he was cstripped for work, and dthrew himself into the sea. 8 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards1 off. Peter was characterized by some major failures, but he was also characterized by what Jesus produced in him, even while his unique personality was preserved and useful in the hand of God. Humility is not chiefly about external things — the things that men often associate with humility. It’s not about facial expressions, bodily posture, tone of voice. Again, I’m not denying that pride can be manifested in some of those things. The Bible talks about a haughty look, etc. But you can’t EQUATE humility, with those kinds of things, because that’s precisely what hypocrites do. All those external sorts of things hypocrites EQUATE with humility because they aren’t really the essence of humility, and if someone thinks they are, they can be easily feigned.

Topics

• Humility