For Paul, one thing was the key to shining like a light for the Kingdom of God in the midst of darkness: humility. How and why does he tell the church to be humble?
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Jon Stallsmith
Series: Philippians: The “What Ifs” of Faith
October 27, 2013
What If We Lived Like a Light in the Darkness?
Philippians 2:4-18
Open your Bibles to Philippians 2. If you need a Bible, slip up your hands. We will give you a Bible. If you need a sheet to take some notes on, we can give you that too. So a hand in the air is your best way to indicate you need something like a Bible or a sheet. If you need something else, they might be able to help you. Our folks are very hospitable here.
We’re in Philippians 2. We’re going to spend some more time digging into this passage, but we’ve been talking about these “what ifs” of Philippians, these big questions. What if we really thought like Jesus? What if we lived as though the gospel were really true? What if we knew Jesus really was the Lord? What if? What if? What if?
Tonight’s “what if” comes out of verses 14 and 15 in Philippians 2. The question is…What if we lived like light in the darkness? Let me just read that passage. In verse 14, Paul says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world…” (Philippians 2:14-15) What if we lived like light in the darkness?
What does that mean? We want to talk about that tonight. What does it mean to shine, and how do we shine according to the Scripture? What is the way of shining brightly in God’s kingdom? Remember the situation of the Philippian church, this community of believers gathered in this Roman colony city of Philippi. They’re wrestling. They have some serious challenges or obstacles in their way preventing them or perhaps trying to shield their capacity to shine.
As we read Philippians, we see they’re dealing with disputes with the outside world. The people around them in Philippi who are not yet following Jesus don’t really understand their commitment to the Lord, and they are criticizing them, maybe getting on their case a little bit. Paul is in prison. There’s just this friction with the outside world.
But then also within their community, what we’ll see in Philippians 3 is they’re dealing with some real doctrinal differences. So even in that community they’re looking at each other and they’re not agreeing with each other about who God is and how he really saves us and how he works in our lives. They’re trying to sort that out because it’s a serious issue.
Finally, they’re dealing with divisions. We’ll get to chapter 4 and we’ll talk about the argument that has popped up between Euodia and Syntyche. I think these two women were actually divided and fighting over whose name was more difficult to pronounce. I’m pretty sure Euodia wins, although Syntyche really gives me a hard time too because I don’t know if that’s correct.
So they have disputes in the outside world, they have doctrinal differences in their relationship to God, and then within their community, they’re dealing with some real division issues. Then on top of all that they’re discouraged because their leader is in prison. One of the reasons Philippians is such a powerful book for us, it’s so relatable even today, is that we face those same challenges all the time.
We face the challenges in figuring out how we relate to God. We face the challenges within our own community of division. We face the challenge of disputes and disagreement with the outside world. We cannot really go to the grocery and buy some bananas without being bombarded by the visual imagery of our culture luring us into valuing the flesh and all sorts of pictures on the magazines.
You can’t really walk through your life without encountering a coworker or somebody you’re doing business with who’s dishonest or who is out for his own gain. That’s frustrating. There’s just friction with the outside world. You guys know what it’s like. Perhaps you’ve encountered it, where you run into some doctrinal differences with people. Sometimes they’re minor things.
Maybe we don’t interpret the means of water baptism exactly the same. Some people sprinkle. Some people dunk. I think there are other options. I knew a guy in the desert who when people would come to faith they didn’t have enough water so they would just bury them sand and pull them out. So there are minor differences there. (They would get them before they suffocated. It was a quick burial and bringing out.)
There are minor, but then there are also major doctrinal differences where you meet people and you’re going, “Whoa, this matters actually. We really do need to be clear about grace.” But we run into that stuff and we run into divisions within our own community. Some of us have probably been involved with a church that has split, sometimes over doctrinal issues, sometimes just over tastes in people. That stuff hurts. Churches splitting I think splits the heart of the Lord too. I think it’s just a really sad thing to him.
But even if it’s not the church that’s splitting, it’s entirely possible, particularly at a church the size of Grace, to be very divided within the same congregation. We’re pretty big, and so you could have a handful of people who you just detest at Grace, but you’ve just figured out good ways to avoid them.
So one of the reasons Philippians speaks to us so clearly is that we can relate so easily to the situation of the church in Philippi. The question comes up not just for the Philippians, how are they going to be a light, but for us too. How are we going to be a light with all these challenges, with division and dispute, doctrinal differences? How are we going to be a light in this situation and what really makes the difference? What makes us shine? From where does the wattage come? What kind of light is it?
We could ask the question, “Is it our unity?” If we’re thinking about the whole worldwide collection of believers, this whole big body of Christ across the world, is it our unity that causes us to shine? Unfortunately, probably not. Unity may not be one of the first words that springs to the mind of people when they think of Christians.
We have about 41,000 denominations according to a Pew Forum study. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where they believe Jesus was crucified, buried, and he was resurrected, that location in Jerusalem is a massive structure and is currently administered by six different denominations. They get along so poorly that they can’t even trust a Christian to keep the key. So there’s a Muslim family who keeps the key to the church, because the Christians… That’s not very bright…like shining bright. I don’t know if it’s intelligent either.
Or what about our money? Is it how we spend our money? Is that what really shines brightly in the world? If you look at the statistics, America, in comparison to most of the developed world is actually an extremely generous nation. We on average give much more than the French and the Italians and the Germans. I don’t know what kind of measurement that is.
But if you look specifically within America, what we do with our money, an average American gives about 2 percent of his income per year to charitable causes. If you zero in to the church, our opportunity to shine, people who attend church, Christians, give about 2.5 percent. So that’s not a very bright difference.
What about our marriages? As believers, are our marriages really what shine in the world? You guys have heard these statistics. Unfortunately, the average number of marriages that end in divorce among those who consider themselves to be Christians and those who don’t is roughly the same.
If we zoom in on those statistics just a little bit, about 60 percent of marriages among Christians, people who consider themselves Christian but never go to church, end in divorce. Among those who do go to church regularly, 38 percent end in divorce. Unfortunately, our marriages are not shining at the moment in general, looking at the big picture, very brightly.
Is it our love? “By this all men will know you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “that you love one another.” Is it our love that shines brightly? In a recent book written by Dave Kinnaman with help from Gabe Lyons called unChristian, they did a number of surveys in America among 16- to 29-year-olds. So this age group of students, college students, and young professionals, the people who will be probably the leaders of our culture in the next 10 years, if not at the moment.
Interestingly, of those they polled, 49 percent of them, almost half, had a negative impression of evangelical Christians. There were 48 percent who were neutral, neither positive nor negative. Only 3 percent had a good impression of evangelicals. Ten years earlier, 85 percent polled had a favorable impression of Christians. Something is not shining very well.
The reasons they said they had a negative impression are reasons we’ve heard before. We’re hypocritical, too focused on getting converts, anti-homosexual. We’re sheltered and isolated. We’re too political. We’re judgmental, lacking in love, too quick to condemn. As a whole, we might be very loving people, but for whatever reason if we look at the statistics, the world is not really getting it very well, at least in general, on the whole.
Now I don’t say all this to bash the bride. We are, as the church, Jesus’ bride. We’re his people, his special people for which he died. It says in Ephesians that one of the works of Jesus in the life of the church is to sanctify us by the washing of the water of the Word and that he wants to develop us and help us more and more emerge in holiness and in purity.
So when we’re looking at our track record through history, the church has certainly made some mistakes and certainly there have been times when we haven’t shined very well, but what we do need to think about is…What is it about walking with the Lord in his kingdom that really illuminates in the midst of the darkness?
As we’re going to think about this a little bit, I’d like to do just a little exercise. Hopefully, on your sheets, you have a little spot at the top that’s in a box, I think. What I’d like you to do is to list a few things under each category there you would least like to lose. If you don’t have a sheet, the three categories are in the areas of your resources (that’s possessions; stuff you have), the second category would be roles (positions you have in life or titles, job responsibilities), and then relationships, which is pretty self-explanatory.
Just take like 30 seconds. Jot down next to those a couple of resources, a couple of roles, and a couple of relationships you would least like to lose in life. As I was just reflecting on this here, I jotted down next to resources or possessions, our house. I’d really not like to lose our house. Books. I’d be so bummed if I lost my books. And savings. I would not like to lose my savings account, not that it’s very large, but still. You hold on to what you have.
Roles, positions in my life, things I would not want to lose. Being a pastor. I like being a pastor. Being a baseball player. I liked being a baseball player in the past. I still carry it sometimes. You may have guessed from my illustrations at 5:15. Relationships. Obviously, my wife. I’d hate to lose my relationship with my wife. I’d hate to lose some of my closest friendship relationships. There are scores of relationships in my life I would just hate to lose.
If you look at your list… Maybe you jotted down resources, the Holy Spirit. Yeah, that would be a bummer to lose the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Or role, like son or daughter of God. Yes, we would at least like to keep… But you look at that list and you just think about the stuff at the surface of your mind you would least like to lose. Then just take a moment and imagine what life must be like for most people who don’t know God.
Imagine for a moment you took all those things you would least like to lose and you put them into this water bottle. This is water. It’s not the best illustration. But you have all the things that are most sacred, most precious, most important to you, the things you would least like to lose, and they’re in this water bottle.
If you don’t know God, then you will probably spend most of your life holding onto this as tightly as you possibly can, and it’s up to you to make sure you don’t lose this stuff. You grasp it. You hold onto it. This is actually the way of the world. Most people carry a white-knuckle grip doing everything they can to maintain their grasp on that which is most important to them. How can I keep my relationships? How can I keep my titles, my positions, my roles? How can I keep this stuff secure?
We think that because we have a firm grip on the stuff that’s most valuable to us… They’re good things; not necessarily bad things. But we think sometimes if we have a grip on this that we’re really free, but then what happens is the stuff in here, the relationships change or the possessions, the resources, come or they go. As we hold onto this and these things go up and down, we go up and down with it.
So people are spending big portions of their lives just white-knuckle gripping their stuff trying to hold onto it. Into the midst of that kind of world, Jesus shows up and says, “Actually, there’s an entirely different way to live,” where we don’t have to spend all of our effort hording, protecting, accumulating, filling, grasping.
Let’s start in verse 4. Let me read for you. In Philippians 2:4, Paul says to them, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” (Philippians 2:4-18) Look at the alternative way. We’re going to see it in three places. First, we’re going to see Jesus as the example. D.J. talked about this last week. We won’t spend a ton of time. But then we’re going to see Paul’s commands to the believers in Philippi about being light. Then we’re going to see Paul’s example himself.
1. Jesus. He surrendered everything. He didn’t grasp his resources, his equality with God, all of the power resident in Jesus at the time of creation, when he was the agent of creation bringing forth at the will of God the cosmos. He didn’t grasp that resource. He didn’t grasp his position at the right hand of the Father. He didn’t hold on. He didn’t feel like, “I have to protect this,” but he was willing to surrender it.
Even his relationship with the Father while he was on the earth, that dynamic was different. He was willing to surrender aspects of his relationship with the Father while he was on the earth, even to the point when he came to the cross and quoted in his last moments from Psalm 22 saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Father they say was turning away as Jesus became sin on the cross, taking all iniquity and evil upon himself to deal with it, to pay our debt, to conquer it once and for all.
So Jesus, when it came to his resources, his possessions, when it came to his role and his position, when it came to his relationship even with God, he didn’t grasp. He didn’t even see it as something to be grasped, but what did he do? He humbled himself. As we read that passage, one commentator says one of the ways to understand what it says when he didn’t count equality with God a thing to be grasped, we could say literally he refused to use for his own gain the glory he had from the beginning. He wasn’t willing to use it as his own gain.
N.T. Wright, commenting on this passage, said Jesus’ position, the highest position in heaven, in very nature God, his position did not excuse him from suffering, but rather uniquely qualified him for it. Sometimes I can feel this way. You come into a situation, and because of your social role in that situation…
You walk in and you’re the oldest or you have the thickest beard or whatever it is when you walk into a situation, but you walk in and you think, “My position. I really shouldn’t have to take that trash out. Somebody else can take care of that because I’m up here doing this.”
What’s going on here in the example of Jesus is he did not see his position as equal to God. He did not see his position as excusing him from the responsibilities that lay before him. Rather, he understood that precisely because he was in that position, because he was that high he was qualified and called to stoop to the earth, because this is the very heart of God. God’s heart is humble.
What happened because Jesus didn’t grasp, because Jesus surrendered, because Jesus humbled himself? What happened? It says at the end of that passage, verse 9, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, and every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Lord.
What we see is Jesus took the path of greatest humility and it led to the place of greatest honor. He gained the greatest name. He shines the brightest. Why does Jesus shine so brightly? Why is his name the name above every other name? Why? Because of his humility. What causes us to shine in the world? Well, Jesus’ humility is what caused him to shine, and in the same way, let’s see what Paul calls the church in Philippi to.
2. The believers in Philippi. The first thing he says, verse 12, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” (Philippians 2:12) As you have always obeyed. He’s calling them to obey him. He’s calling them to obey God.
In order for anyone to obey, that person has to have humility. You cannot obey without humility because obedience by its very nature is hearing the command or the direction or the will of someone else and saying, “Yes, I will agree to that.” Disobedience is when you hear the will of someone else and you say, “No, my will and my way is better. I will disobey that.” That’s pride. Obedience requires humility.
As you read that passage and you see that phrase “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” it’s important to see that in the original language as Paul is talking about this idea of working out your own salvation, he’s not saying we are to earn our salvation by working; he’s actually calling us to exercise our salvation, to work it out like you would in a gymnasium. To put it into practice. That you would live out the daily reality that you’re a sinner saved by grace, redeemed, lifted up by God. Work it out. Live that out day to day.
Then he throws in this interesting phrase “with fear and trembling.” What’s that about? If you look in the Old Testament, you see that phrase “fear and trembling” a number of times. Exodus 15 is one example where it’s talking about the Egyptians when God shows up and does a mighty work. The Egyptians are gripped by fear and trembling. Isaiah 19 is another example. Same kind of situation. God showing up. Psalm 2: God showing up; fear and trembling.
Then in the New Testament, Paul writes. He uses this phrase several times…1 Corinthians 2, 2 Corinthians 7, Ephesians 6. If you do a quick survey or catalogue of all the times Paul uses this phrase “fear and trembling,” you realize that really what it’s about is an awareness of the presence of God active among us. That’s what inspires fear and trembling. That’s the thing. He’s not talking about cowering or being paralyzed by terror. He’s actually saying fear and trembling is the posture we have when we recognize the greatness and the power of God at work among us.
Once again, that is the sort of thing that is drenched in humility. I remember a few years ago (I think it was about eight years ago, because I’ve been at Grace about 10 years now) I was working through some authority and pride issues in my own life, and I was in a rough spot. I remember for the first time I hung out with one of our elders, Jim Brown. He’s a good man.
Jim knew me a little bit and so asked me to go to lunch one day. We went up here to the little Country Cooking place in Lawrenceville. We sat down and he asked me to tell him a story. Because I was in a pretty low spot and I was bitter about a bunch of stuff and pretty immature and full of pride and all that stuff, I just started talking, and I just kept talking, and kept talking and kept talking.
We met for about four hours. They kept refilling the sweet tea. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this happen where you have a few too many sweet teas and you say some stuff you didn’t mean to and you get a little loose lipped and you don’t shut up and you just keep talking and talking and talking and talking. Well, that happened to me, and at the end of that, Jim said, “Jon, I think we should meet again this week,” and I said, “Okay.”
So two days later we met again and we sat down and Jim said, “You know, Jon, last time we met you talked about yourself nonstop for four hours straight.” I said, “Ooh, I did that, didn’t I?” He goes, “You’re pretty full of yourself.” I was just convicted. It’s true. I am. He said, “Jon, do you know where humility comes from? It comes when a man measures himself against God. When you recognize the greatness of God and who he is in heaven, you recognize who you are truly.”
Compared to God what are we? Any numerator no matter how large divided by an infinite denominator is zero. I think that’s going on here when it’s talking about fear and trembling. Paul is saying, “As you’re exercising your salvation, as you’re living this thing out, be aware of the greatness of God, the fact that he, the Creator of the cosmos, is among us and working powerfully.”
If that doesn’t keep you humble, I don’t know what will. That’s really the source of humility, that fear and trembling. But it’s not just that obedience requires humility, the next thing Paul talks about is they should stop grumbling and disputing. Now if you’re going to stop grumbling and you’re going to stop disputing, you’re going to have to be humble.
I remember when I was growing up. In my household, humility, and grumbling actually… Grumbling was a big issue. My parents had me memorize a few select Bible verses. “Children, obey your parents the first time without grumbling or complaining.” That was just ingrained pretty deeply into me. It was always that “without grumbling and complaining” part that got me because they’d say something and you’re like, “Okay, I know I have to obey, but I want to be grumbly about it.” But they just worked on me, and it just taught me such humility.
The words he uses there, the “grumbling and disputing,” echo back into that time in the wilderness when Israel was going from the exodus in Egypt to the Promised Land. They just got so caught up in their own needs and what they wanted. “This food is not good enough. That water is not present enough. I don’t like quail anymore.” They just grumbled and grumbled and grumbled. Why? Because they were so self-centered. Growing up, my parents were just, “Hey, don’t complain.”
I have a profound aversion to grumbling and complaining. I think part of it came from this song. This has been echoing in my heart for some time since I was a child until now. I want to play it for you. It’s just a minute long, and it’s one of those songs that once you hear it, it just stays with you and it moves you profoundly, I hope. So let’s cue this up and just reflect on these issues as we listen.
[Song]Mr. Bumble Bee is humble
He won’t talk about himself
He’s so funny making honey
Takin’ it to your kitchen shelf
Love is humble
Never proud
Mr. Bumble says boasting’s not allowed
Mr. Bumble Bee is humble
He’s not all puffed up with pride
If you would do as you should
You’d humble bumble bee inside
Love is humble
Never proud
Mr. Bumble says boasting’s not allowed
You never hear a bee say “Look at me
I’m the busiest bee around”
He’s got a job to do and until he’s through
He’s buzzing all over town
Mr. Bumble Bee is humble
He’s not all puffed up with pride
If you would do as you should
You’d humble bumble bee inside
Yeah. So whenever you’re tempted to complain, grumble, dispute, remember Mr. Bumble. He’s so humble. He won’t talk about himself. He’s so funny making honey, takin’ it to your kitchen shelf.
Seriously, if you literally sing that song in your mind when you want to complain, it changes you a little bit. People might think you’re a little crazy. People have thought I’m a little bit off for some time now. But this is important. What do we want our kids to learn? What’s the really important stuff we could teach our children?
Amy and I don’t have children yet, but we work with kids all the time here at Grace. A wonderful place. If there was one thing we could impart, pass on, cultivate in our children, wouldn’t we want it to be humility? Wouldn’t that be the rich soil that would set them up for a godly life all of their days?
Finally, it’s not just grumbling and disputing, but Paul tells them to hold fast to the Word of life. That’s verse 16. He says, “Holding fast to the Word of life.” This is one more thing that requires humility. What’s the Word of life? Paul is talking about here the good news of Jesus, that he came to the earth, that he died for our sins, that he rose again. He says, “Hold fast to that Word of your salvation.”
What’s going on there? The only prerequisite to coming into the kingdom is humility. In fact, we cannot bring anything else to God that he would say, “Oh wow, you really have qualified yourself because of that self-righteousness. Or you’ve really qualified yourself by those good deeds. Or you’ve really qualified yourself by your smile.” It’s not how God works.
The Scripture is very clear that apart from God we’re hopelessly lost, hopelessly inadequate, that we are wayward in our hearts, that we sin, that we disobey God, that apart from him we can do nothing. Yet Jesus came, paid the punishment that should’ve been ours, made a way of forgiveness, offers us eternal life. The only thing we can bring to that conversation is our humility, saying, “Lord, I cannot do it on my own. It must all be by grace. Lord, I trust your work, not mine. Lord, I trust your forgiveness, your power, your way, your kingdom, not mine.”
It’s the one thing, our humility, our salvation actually. God works in us. There’s the mystery of the sovereign power of God softening our hearts, but from our perspective, the thing we must have in order to be saved is humility, the willingness to surrender our grip and say, “Lord, I’m going to trust you. I’m going to trust the work you did on the cross. I’m going to trust your forgiveness.”
Just as pride is the root of all sin, humility is the root of all virtue, the very root of salvation. So when we’re asking that question, “What really makes us shine?” I think what Paul is saying, “You’re shining as lights in the world in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation,” what he’s saying here is the thing that really causes us to shine is humility. The thing that sets us apart from the rest of the grasping world is surrender…people who live humbly. Our humility determines how brightly we shine.
I’ll give you a couple of examples of this. Imagine you’re playing foursquare with some children. The humility lessons are easiest with children, I think. It’s easier to see it because they don’t have as much veneer of self-righteousness and false humility. We accumulate that over the years, but with kids, it’s all right there very raw.
So imagine you’re playing foursquare with some kinds. Bouncing it, bouncing it, bouncing it. There’s a ball that lands in that gray area. Was it in the line, on the line, outside the line? You’re not really sure. Nobody is really sure. This typically is the situation that sets off a pretty big fight at the foursquare square.
But just imagine what would happen if a child were to say, “Oh yeah, I’m not sure if that was in or out, but why you don’t take my square and I’ll just come over here, stand in line, and wait till the next time”? What if a kid just showed such great humility? You’d be watching that and you’d go, “Wow, I’ve never seen that before.” It’s amazing.
Or imagine you’re having a birthday party. You have all your kids there; there are a bunch of 9-year-olds. Everybody is eating cake, and there’s just this cyclone of icing and cake glob on the ground. Then everybody goes outside to play some games. One child stays back and says, “I see it’s kind of a mess in here. Could I just help clean up?” That’s like unfathomable to us. “What? What kind of child are you?” It would stand out. It would be like light in the midst of a whole grasping generation, wouldn’t it?
Humility stands out so starkly in our world. The thing about humility, you think, “Oh, if I’m really going to be humble, well then I’m just going to get overlooked.” Actually, no. It is the nature of humility to shine into the grasping world. I think of our leaders here at Grace. Living at Buddy’s house for seven years, we have really humble leaders.
Buddy knows Jody likes to have a full tank of gas. So he would check in the mornings if she had gas in her car. Then if she didn’t he would just drive over, fill it up with gas, and drive back. He just makes sure she has gas in her car. I love this story about Buddy. He was invited to go to a really big conference, and I’m good friends with the guy who was putting on the conference. Buddy, because he’s a pastor, has a position of honor there.
He got to that conference, and every morning he would get up and he would come over to all of the guys who were running the conference and he’d say, “Hey, I’m going to walk over to Starbucks. What do you want?” He’d just take all their orders and he’d go over, pick it up at Starbucks, bring it back, serving all of them. He had the title. He had the position. He was the guest of honor, but his heart was so humble. Do you know what that does? That stands out.
You don’t even see those things, but when you’re around Buddy, one of the things I hear most frequently about him is he’s so authentic. He just is himself. Do you know what that is? When we’re saying authentic, we’re saying he’s humble. We’re recognizing the character of humility, because humility is just being honest about who we are. Humility is knowing who we are, nothing more, nothing less.
It’s not negativity about ourselves, pushing ourselves down, “Oh, I’m nothing.” It’s not passivity. “Oh, I’m nothing. I’m not going to do anything.” Think about it. Jesus’ humility drove him into service. It was an active humility. It’s not subjectivity about how I feel about myself. “I feel pretty good about my humility,” or anything. It’s just being objective…an objective understanding of who we are in relationship to God. That true humility coming forth and shining. Paul talks about this.
3. Paul. He’s our third little example of humility. He says, “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.” (Philippians 2:17) So here is Paul demonstrating humility also, speaking of pouring himself out completely, fully in service. Just like Jesus emptied himself, Paul is saying, “I’m pouring myself out.”
But you think, “Okay, Paul, but do you really have to tell us about how you’re pouring yourself out? Is that kind of like you’re a little not humble?” “Hey guys, I’m so humble, I’m going to pour myself out for you.” But if you know your offerings, if you know your Old Testament sacrifices, the burnt offering, the meat offering, that was the really valuable one. Then the drink offering that was poured out was kind of a secondary one.
Notice the language Paul even uses about himself here. He says, “I’m pouring myself out like a drink offering upon the full burnt blood sacrifice of your faith offering.” He’s saying, “Compared to what you’re doing before the Lord, I’m just a little poured-out thing.” Paul has this really clear sense of who he is and where he is. He doesn’t trump himself up too much.
The result of living like that, pouring out humbly, is joy. He says, “I can rejoice and be glad. Will you rejoice and be glad with me?” Over and over and over again, we see the characteristic in the Scripture that is the way of salvation, but not just the way of salvation, also the way of light in the world is the way of humility.
It’s the way of taking the lower place, humbling ourselves before man and before God. It’s the way of not grasping, but just holding before God, surrendering. I don’t have to maintain everything by my own strength. I can just be humble, honest, authentic. I can be who I am, and that shines so brightly in the world.
Buddy tells this story from India. Some of you guys might know that India, not uniformly, but quite a lot of it, is a Hindu population. In that Hindu system they have the caste system where some people are just by birth considered to be privileged all the way down to the very lowest of the low, who are the untouchables.
You may have heard about the untouchables. They’re known as the Dalit. They’re so scorned that no one literally touches them. They’ll move to the other side of the street. If they come in to a tea house and they order a cup of tea, they will be served tea in a cheap clay cup so when they leave the owners of the tea house can take it and smash it just to make sure that no one else will ever drink from the same cup as what an untouchable has used.
This was a few years ago. They realized they are pretty discouraged about their status in life and they’re thinking, “We don’t really like Hinduism anymore. We would like to find a new faith.” As they were researching, they invited a number of leaders from various religions. They actually filled up a whole stadium. They had these various religious leaders come forward and speak about the merits of their religion as this whole stadium full of untouchables were hoping to find a new faith because they way they were living at the moment was not very bright. It was pretty miserable.
So the various religious leaders came forward. They presented their pieces. When it came time for the Christian leader to stand up, he just opened up his Bible to John 13. You have national cameras filling the stadium. This is a big event in India. So this Christian leader got up. He read from John 13 how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Then he stepped down onto the front row where there were a handful of Dalit untouchable women (women even; imagine, men don’t touch women; they’re even less clean), he just knelt down and he began washing their feet.
The entire stadium erupted in applause. Why? Because humility shines in darkness. It was unthinkable to them. Who would touch an untouchable? Only the most humble of persons. But that’s the way of the kingdom, and that’s what shines in the darkness. So as we move toward response, I want us to invite the Holy Spirit to search our hearts, to lead us into areas where we might be prideful, where we might be holding division because of pride, despising other people or separated from our wives or our kids or people at work because of pride.
That’s the tricky thing about humility. The Bible never tells us to pray for humility; the Bible talks about humbling ourselves. If we’re going to humble ourselves, we need to know the areas of pride so we can just humble ourselves and release them to God. Not just as individuals; as families. Not just as families, but as a whole church, that the Lord would lead us to a place of deeper humility and that we would be able to surrender pride, that we’d be able to empty ourselves, that we’d let go of the worldly grip on stuff and shine with that pure light of humility.
One of the best ways to do that is to remember at the Communion table where we take that bread that signifies Jesus’ body broken for us and we dip it into the juice that signifies in the cup Jesus’ blood poured out for us. It’s a reminder that our salvation is nothing we can do. It’s what Jesus did, being torn apart, broken on our behalf that we might have the forgiveness of sins.
If you feel like the Lord is stirring in your heart, we’re going to be over here. We’ll pray with you. You can come over during this service. After we’re finished worshiping, we can pray together. If you have other prayer requests, if you just need the hand of God to reach out of heaven, he will do that. He works in our lives. We’re going to give. We’re going to receive the offering. It’s another way, but just in all of it, let it be suffused with humility. Let’s pray.
God, thank you for this passage, this Scripture. Thank you that you don’t call us to do anything you haven’t done first. Thank you that you showed us that your true heart is humble and that as the King who defines the way of the kingdom, you stoop and wash feet. Lord, we ask now in the name of Jesus that your Spirit would be illuminating, bringing to the surface, clarifying, working within us.
Come now examine us, Lord. Reveal the wayward thoughts of prideful instincts, the areas we’re holding onto that we might surrender them to you. Lay them aside. Lord, we invite you to work now. Lord, for some of us even who have heard the story of your death and resurrection and have not yet been willing to fully humble ourselves before your work, I pray that tonight you would usher us into your kingdom by the power of your Spirit.