Be Humble or You’ll Stumble

It was pride that took Lucifer out of heaven. It was pride that took Adam out of paradise. It was pride that took Saul, King Saul, first king of Israel, out of the kingdom. It was pride that took Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, out of Babylonian society.

It was pride that took Haman out of the Persian court. It was pride that changed angels into demons. It is pride that changes friends into enemies. Pride ruins everything, and here's why.

Pride is the cancer of the soul. Walking in humility isn't always easy, but it opens the door for hope to fill your life. Today on Connect with Skip Heiteck, Skip shares how Christ's humility led him to the cross and to your eternal hope. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that equips you with a vast amount of Bible knowledge from Skip, so you can deepen your faith even more. Skip often has the privilege of hosting guest speakers, guests like Franklin Graham and Lee Strobel, who've become great friends to Pastor Skip Heiteck in this Bible teaching ministry.

Here's another, our friend Levi Lusko. What's life with Jesus like? It's life not without storms, but going through storms with an anchor, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil. An anchor for the soul.

What a wonderful thing. Skip and Friends is a CD or digital package of messages from five friends plus five special teachings by Skip. It is yours as our thank you gift for your gift of fifty dollars or more to help connect others to the hope and truth found only in God's word.

With your gift of fifty dollars or more, we'll send you the Skip and Friends collection of ten messages on CD or give you digital access. For example, here's our friend Eric Metaxas. The evidence for God is astonishing. The evidence from science has piled up so dramatically that I'm here to tell you it's absolutely no contest.

Science points to the existence of God utterly dramatically in a way that it is as open and shut as any open and shut question ever could be, and we're talking about science. Get your copy of Skip and Friends when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Now we're in Philippians chapter 2 as we join Skip Hyton for today's message. So there was five guys on an airplane, small little aircraft. There was a boy and there was a preacher. There was a doctor, a lawyer, and the pilot. So they're flying this little private airplane and midway in the flight some problems happen. So the pilot shouts back, Mayday, Mayday, this plane's going down.

As you can tell, there's five passengers aboard, but we only have four parachutes. And so you guys decide who's staying, but I'm out of here and the pilot jumps out with the parachute. So the doctor immediately says, well, I've saved so many lives in my lifetime.

I deserve to live. So he grabbed a parachute and the doctor jumped out. Then the lawyer said, well, I'm the smartest guy in the world.

So I deserve when he grabbed pack and jumped out. So now there's two people left and one parachute. There's the preacher and there's the little boy. So the preacher says to the little boy, look, you have your whole life ahead of you.

Me, I've lived a good long life and when I die, I know I'm going to heaven. So you take the last parachute and you jump. And the little boy smiles, said, relax, Reverend. The smartest guy in the world just jumped out of the airplane with my backpack. What's the moral of that story? The moral of that story is Proverbs chapter 16, which says, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Be humble or you'll stumble. Be humble or you'll stumble. Be meek or you'll get mashed. Be selfless or you'll get squished. That's the moral of that story. Pride is the oldest sin in the universe and it shows no signs of growing weaker with age. Been around a long time and it's going to be with us for some time.

C.S. Lewis said, pride is the chief cause of misery in every nation and family since the world began. Think of it. It was pride that took Lucifer out of heaven. It was pride that took Adam out of paradise. It was pride that took Saul, King Saul, out of heaven. It was pride that took Saul, King Saul, first king of Israel, out of the kingdom. It was pride that took Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, out of Babylonian society.

It was pride that took Haman out of the Persian court. It was pride that changed angels into demons. It is pride that changes friends into enemies. Pride ruins everything and here's why.

Pride is the cancer of the soul and if it's left undiagnosed and untreated, it will destroy spiritual life. So the antidote is humility. That's the cure for this age-long disease, humility, and that has been the theme in chapter 2 of Philippians as Paul writes to this church.

It's been all about staying humble. Verse 1 of Philippians 2, I'm bringing you back over what we covered. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, that's humility, let each esteem others better than himself.

Let each of you look out not only for his own interests but also for the interest of others. So sacrifice over self, humility over vanity, preferring one another over being prideful toward one another. You see, to get along with people, you have to adjust.

You have to be interested in them. You have to esteem them as important. And if we dare to shine the spotlight off of ourselves for just a minute and onto others for a while, we will discover that unity is the result of our humility. That's been the theme of this apostle.

Now, after that principle, he now gives us an example. Verse 5, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, because Jesus is, as we have seen, the ultimate example. He is God, but he entered time and space in a human body. Jesus left heaven's magnificence to come to earth's mess.

He left glory to face gory. He went to the cross. That's where Paul left us in verse 8.

But now there's a change. Now Paul wants us to know that all of that self-sacrifice and humility was rewarded by God. That's also part of his teaching. It was rewarded when Jesus was exalted. So the theme was the humiliation of Christ.

Now it's the exaltation of Christ. So look at verse 8 once again. You need verse 8 to understand verse 9 because of the first word in verse 9. But let's look at verse 8.

And being found in appearance as a man, he, Jesus, humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God has also highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven, of those on the earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We told you last week that this was one of the first hymns of the early church. Most scholars believe this was the first creed of the early church where they would take theological truths, write them out, and then the church would sing them. So that's my commission to the worship team. Let's put these truths to music. I love this little creed, this little hymn that was sung.

So according to this little hymn, they started with Christ's pre-existent glory and went all the way down to the low point, which is the cross, and then from the low point to the post-incarnation glory and dominion of Jesus Christ, all in just a few verses. What I'd like to do in looking at these verses with you is show you three fundamental facts about humility, three fundamental truths. First of all, one you already know, humility is sometimes painful.

In fact, it usually is. You know, it's hard to just humble yourself before a person. You've got to swallow some pride. That hurt.

It's going to put you out a little bit, and it's painful. And that is part of the thought in verse 8, concerning Christ, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient, watch this, to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Jesus' birth was miraculous, and Jesus' life was extraordinary.

But it's Jesus' death that is the epicenter of redemptive history. And I've noticed that when people think about Jesus, worldly people I'm talking about, not Christians as much, but worldly people, when it comes to thinking about Christ, they prefer the Jesus of Christmas. They like that Jesus. It's the little baby Jesus.

You know, the angels are singing, the shepherds are there, the wise men come. But that is not the focus of the New Testament. The focus of, in fact, the whole Bible isn't the manger, but the cross. It's not the Jesus of Christmas, it's the Jesus of Calvary. It's not the baby in the manger, it's the body on the cross. Even Jesus in Revelation 13 is referred to as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

That is, it was always in God's mind from the beginning that the epicenter of all history, all redemptive history, would be the cross. Hey, even when Jesus was born, remember they brought gold, frankincense, and what? That's embalming fluid.

Did you know that? Myrrh is embalming fluid. So think about Mary getting embalming fluid.

Thanks. I guess. I mean, it could be sold and you could use the money for something, but embalming fluid, myrrh, was a very costly embalming fluid. We know that because when Jesus died, they took 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes and placed that on Jesus' body and buried him in a tomb. So even from his birth, it was pointing to his death.

And we always need to keep that framed in our hearts. Did you know that if you were to read the four gospels and count the chapters that speak about Jesus' first 30 years of life on earth, you'd only find four chapters that even mention what was going on in the first 30 years of his life. But did you know also that 85 chapters speak of the last three and a half years of Jesus' life? So what do you think they're focusing on?

Last three and a half years? Of those 85 chapters, 29 of them focus in only on the last week of Christ on the earth. And of those 29 chapters, 13 deal with the final day of his life. So if you were to count up verses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you'd find 579 verses that are focused in on and deal with the last 24 hours of Jesus' life as he goes to the cross. So all pre-New Testament history looks forward to the cross.

All post-New Testament history looks back to the cross. Graham Scroggi, a British commentator, said, cut the Bible anywhere and it bleeds. And it bleeds.

He's right. You could cut the Bible in Genesis 22, Abraham sacrificing his son, it'll bleed right there because it anticipates God sending his son on that same mountain. If you cut the Bible in Psalm 22, which is a poetic description of the crucifixion, it bleeds. If you cut the Bible in Exodus 12, speaking of the Passover, it bleeds. If you cut it in Leviticus 5, the sin offering, it bleeds.

Cut it in Isaiah chapter 53, it bleeds. It's all about the sacrifice, all about the cross. So much so that even when John the apostle gets a vision of heaven and looks at the lion of the tribe of Judah, he said, and I looked and behold a lamb as though it had been, what, tell me, slain. In heaven, you could see marks on this lamb as though it had been killed.

Have you ever thought of this? The only work of man you'll see in heaven are the marks of crucifixion on the body of Jesus Christ. And he'll wear that as a badge of honor and glory because that's how you got there, a lamb as though it had been slain. So for Jesus, humility was painful because for Jesus, it meant crucifixion, the most degrading, the most embarrassing, the most excruciating form of death at the time known to man. Crucifixion was invented by the Persians. They were pantheistic.

They believed the earth was sacred. They didn't want people to die on it, so they raised them up on a pole. That's how they invented crucifixion because of that belief. Later on, the Romans took crucifixion and they perfected it. What I mean by that is they managed to let crucifixion become the death that was preferred for capital punishment for non-citizens because it deliberately delayed death for hours and even days. So people got the maximum torture before they died. Jesus was humble enough to go to death on the cross.

Why? Why such humility? Why lower yourself from heaven to earth and then from earth to the cross?

Why go that low? Because it's that humility that provides the one thing you and I need more than anything else in the world, forgiveness. Forgiveness. Well, why would God go to that extent to forgive us? Answer, love, because He loves us. For God so loved the world that He gave. You can still ask questions like, well, why does God love us that much? That I can't answer. I don't have a good answer for that because I know us. I certainly know me. And why God would love me that much, I don't have a good answer for.

It's just a decision He made and I'm glad He did. One of my favorite hymns is called The Love of God. Some of you've heard of The Love of God by Frederick Lehman, written in the 1800s. The love of God is greater far than ink or pen could ever tell. It stretches to the farthest star. It reaches to the lowest hell.

But here's my favorite line in the song. Could we with ink the oceans fill and were the skies of parchment made? Were every stock on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade? To write the love of God would drain the oceans dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the hole, though stretched from sky to sky. The unfathomable love of God in sending His Son to pay the penalty for sin so that we could be forgiven. For Jesus, humility was painful.

Now let's apply that. For you and I, humility is going to be painful. Not as painful as it was for Jesus, probably not.

It says in the book of Hebrews, we have not resisted to the point of shedding blood, but it's going to cost nonetheless. It hurts, as I said, to swallow pride. It's going to cost you comfort to be humble. It's going to cost you perhaps your reputation if you humble yourself. It could cost you a whole lot of misunderstanding. It's going to cost you time.

It's even going to cost you money. So humility is sometimes painful. But here's the second fundamental truth about humility, and this is really the crux of these verses.

Humility is always hopeful. Beginning in verse 9, it's a complete reversal of verses 6 through 8. So verse 6, 7, and 8, it's like Jesus went down, down, down, down, death on the cross. Now beginning in verse 9, it's a complete reversal. Now beginning in verse 9, it's He went up, up, up to the highest possible level. Verse 9, therefore, God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and those on earth and of those on earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Notice the word therefore. Therefore in verse 9 refers back to the thought in verse 8.

So here's the thought. Because Jesus humbled Himself before the Father, the Father has exalted Christ. This is what the Father has done for Jesus.

What has He done? He highly exalted Him. Highly exalted Him. The words highly exalted, it's one word in the Greek. It's huper oopsao, which means hyper exalted. Huper, hyper, or super exalted. It means to lift up and over. So Jesus said, I'm going low, low, low, and God says, I will lift, lift, lift.

I will hyper lift. I will super exalt Jesus. A thought struck me as I was going through the study this week.

I'm going through this. I'm looking at what God's estimation of is of Jesus in exalting Him and this thought struck me. God the Father's treatment of Christ, view of Christ, estimation of Christ is the polar opposite of the world's estimation of Christ.

For the most part, it is. So here's an example. When Jesus came to heal the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue in Luke 8, it says, they laughed Him to scorn. When Jesus said, no man can serve two masters, you can't serve God and money, we are told the Pharisees sneered at Him. When Jesus raised up Lazarus from the dead, the leaders plotted to put Him to death. When Jesus stood before that same crowd, the Sanhedrin in Matthew 26, they spat in His face, they beat Him, others struck Him with the palms of their hands. And when Jesus was given by them to the Romans, it says, they struck Him, they mocked Him, and they led Him away to be crucified. So how did the world treat Jesus?

With rejection and extermination. How did God treat Jesus? With hyper-exaltation, super-exaltation. Now the focus of Paul is the upward trajectory after the cross, the upward trajectory of being exalted.

God highly exalted Him. What I want you to, what I want to do is sort of expand your knowledge of that and let you know that the exaltation of Christ came in four phases. First of all, there was the resurrection. Jesus died at the hands of sinful men, but it says in Acts chapter 2, Peter says, this Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised up to new life. Resurrection, first phase of the exaltation. Second phase, His ascension into heaven. The disciples were there when it happened. They stood on the Mount of Olives, they're standing there with Jesus, and suddenly He starts like floating up.

They're watching Him. Bye. He vanished out of their sight. He left. He ascended up into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God. Which takes us to the third phase after the resurrection, after the ascension, His dominion. Jesus after the resurrection said, all authority in heaven and on earth is given to me. So Jesus took His rightful place of dominion with the Father in heaven. And the fourth phase was a new position for Jesus, intercession, intercession.

Here's what I want you to think of. Jesus is not inactive. He's not just sitting around having a meal. He's not just sitting around heaven looking at the Father going, so what do we do today?

Are we just gonna hang out together? No, He's very busy. He's very active. Jesus died on the cross. He acted as Savior by becoming the sacrifice. Today He is playing the role of the great high priest.

That's Skip Heitig with a message from the series Technicolor Joy. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now, we want to tell you about an opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's word to a deeper level. Going to church is a great way to learn about God. But what if you want to learn more?

Go deeper. This spring, Calvary College is in offering classes in spiritual growth, classes like Spiritual Foundations. Learn how to joyfully walk with Jesus. Take evening classes on campus or online and transfer credits to Calvary Chapel University or Veritas International University for an accredited degree that will impact your spiritual life for the rest of your life. Apply now at calvarychurchcollege.com. apply now at calvarychurchcollege.com. Jesus's resurrection gives us the ultimate hope.

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800-922-1888. Thank you for changing lives for eternity. Come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares how God brings color to the most black and white moments of life and why you can always live joyfully in Christ. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.