Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. Fame. Money. Power.
These are the most common indicators of success from the world's point of view. In contrast, today's podcast begins exploring how Christians should follow the Lord and His example of humble service. What is it you really want out of your Christian life? You say, well, I want God's provision. I want God's protection. I want God's acceptance and love for sure. And I certainly want the assurance that when I die, I'm going to heaven. Well, there's nothing wrong with any of that.
That's fine. Have you ever asked yourself this question? What does God want out of my Christian life? Maybe He wants something not instead of, but maybe something more than what you and I expect out of our Christian life. And sometimes a person could say, well, what does God expect of me? He expects me to love Him. He expects my devotion, my worship, my service, and all that. And that is true, but that's not all. Because you see, what I want to talk about in this message, if you don't have what I want to talk about here, all of those things will never be satisfying. And besides that, the purity of your heart won't be there.
And I want to talk about a subject that most people have little or no interest in. The title of this series is humility, its place in the life of the believer. Now, you weren't expecting that, were you? Say amen.
That's right, you weren't. So I want you to turn if you will to Philippians chapter two. And what I want us to see here is this. I want us to see in the light of what this whole issue of humility is about, I want us to see its relationship to Jesus Christ and His relationship to this whole attitude. So let's begin, if you will, in this second chapter. And let's start with verse one. Therefore, if there be any encouragement any Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there's any fellowship of the Spirit, if there's any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in Spirit, intent on one purpose.
Then listen. He says, Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. He said, Now this is the attitude we should be seeking to have pursuing.
This should be the attitude that is an objective in all of our lives. Who, that is Jesus, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but entered himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
For this reason, what reason? For the reason that he humbled himself and became obedient even to the death of the cross. For this reason, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now what is humility? Humility is a lowliness of mind that does not seek to exalt itself, parade itself, assert itself, vaunt up itself. Prideful, arrogance, all of this is absolutely totally opposite from a lowliness of mind, which simply means this, that we have the right, balanced, proper, godly view of ourselves. We do not see ourselves as number one. We do not see ourselves as upfront. We do not see ourselves as the superlative of anything.
But taking our position as we are, we have a lowliness of mind. Now that does not mean, for example, that you're to cower and to crouch before everything that comes your way. For example, there are people in positions of power and authority, people of great wealth and prominence and prestige and all the rest. It has nothing to do with that, because the person who has all of that can walk in the spirit of humility. Because you see, it's not what we possess, it's the attitude that we have about ourselves. And when a person may have possession of all of those things or experience all of it, but who understands that God is the source, who understands that there are sinners saved by the grace of God, who understand that He's the one who keeps their heart beating every single moment, who understands that one day they'll stand before Him and give account for their life, who understands that He is the source of their life and their blessing, their difficulty, their pain, their hardship, He is the one who sees them through all of that. A person can have all of that and yet they walk in a manner that is right and good, in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord, in a manner that is not boastful, arrogant and assertive. They're not priding themselves, showing off and reminding other people of their authority, reminding other people of who they are, where they come from, where they're going and all the rest that goes along with pride and arrogance and a counterfeit life. That's a counterfeit life.
It's not a real life. Now you see, one of the reasons that people are not interested in humility is because they have a wrong conception of it. Their idea of humility is that if you have a humble spirit, you are what? What are you if you have a humble spirit?
You're weak. That's what people think, that, well, humility means weakness. Humility does not mean weakness because Jesus was certainly a humble man. He declared that He was and we certainly read the Scripture and we'll come back to it in a few moments.
We read a Scripture that talks about who He is and so therefore if Jesus were the humble man He says He was, then certainly that doesn't mean weakness because there was no weakness in Him. And the truth is it's not a matter of being fearful because you will be overlooked. You will be passed by.
You will be abused. You will be mistreated if you don't stand up and be strong. That's not what humility is all about because God infuses in the humble heart and the person who has humbled spirit, He infuses into them a strength and the power and a sense of assurance that oftentimes is far, far beyond their understanding.
So it's not a matter of being weak at all. That is a misconception of what humility is all about. Now it takes two things and we'll get into this deeper as we go along in this series, but two things right up front briefly to say two things that are very essential for a person to begin to understand what humility is all about and to live out that kind of life.
And the first one is a honest self-evaluation. Now for many people that's a very scary thing, to stop and look at themselves, to see themselves as they are, not what they want to be, not what they want other people to think that they are, not what they would like to be, not what they desire to be, not their goal, but what are we really like? And so when we begin to look on the inside of us, we're going to see some things we don't like. Now none of us like particularly somebody else telling us something on the inside of us that they don't like, but a person who is willing to pursue the spirit of humility, to walk in obedience to the Lord God, to be submissive to Him, is going to have to look on the inside. And what you're going to see when you look on the inside, you're going to see some things if you're really honest that surprise you.
You're going to see some attitudes maybe or some habits in your life that you know do not fit who you are as a child of God. You see, humility isn't, well this is what I think I am and I'm not willing to look any further down than this. Humility says, God, I want to see myself like you see me.
I may not like what I see, and I know that you can correct what you see that's not right, but God I want to be the person you want me to be. You see, the truth is no person has ever been saved who did not express humility. No person's ever been saved in pride, arrogance, or some inflated idea of their goodness or their own self-righteousness, but always in a sense of brokenness and a contrite heart. I remember when I was saved at the age of twelve, I didn't understand much of anything about spiritual things, but I did remember this very day what I felt, that I was a sinner. I was lost as a twelve-year-old boy.
I was lost. I knew I was, and I wanted Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sin. It wasn't coming to him saying, Lord, I'm only twelve. I haven't committed too many things bad in life, so here I am. No, no matter what your age is, you're a sinner lost without Christ, and I want to say to you that you can be saved with the grace of God. Now, I want to say one thing to clarify that statement. I'm not saying that a very small child is lost.
I don't believe they are. There's a state of innocence and an age of innocence that only God knows what that age is in any person's life. You can't look around and say, well, they're too young, they're too young, and they're not too young. There is that stage of innocence, but most of us don't have to worry about that stage of innocence.
That's been a long time ago. All of us can look at our life and realize, God, I want you to look at me. Now, the second thing I want to say about that self-evaluation is this. It takes courage to do that. You may begin to open up your life and you say, I can't handle it anymore, Lord. This is as much as I can handle. Well, the question is, do you want to see yourself the way the Lord sees you?
Because listen, watch this. Once you get a glimpse of what He sees in your life, you may like it or not like it, but one thing you know, the one who revealed to you the truth about your life is the only one who can change your life and position you in your relationship to Him so that you can have the full onslaught of His blessing in your life. So that's what humility is all about. Now, I want us to look at the life of Jesus because here is a beautiful demonstration. I want us to look at His life, then I want us to look to see what did He teach you about it. But before I do that, I want you to go back to a passage of Scripture in the little prophet of Micah. It's so important I'm going to give you time to find it. That's Hosea and Joel and Amos and Obadiah, Jonah, Micah.
Look at that because here is not a suggestion. Here is a very, very clear command of God, not just a command, but a requirement for every single believer. Micah chapter six, look if you will in verse eight. He says, He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your God. That is a requirement for every single follower of the Lord Almighty God, to walk humbly before our God. Now, I want you to look at something in this passage we read a few moments ago in Philippians chapter two, if you'll turn back for that for a moment, because I want you to see that Jesus Christ came into this world. His coming into this world was an expression, a demonstration of awesome humility on His part. Now look at what He says in this second chapter now. The scripture says, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, which is Paul's way of saying what God said to Micah, and that is, we're to walk humbly before the Lord. This is the attitude we ought to have. What attitude is that?
This is it. That is Christ Jesus who, although He existed in the form of God, that means that He not only was like God, but He was and is God. He says, for example, that He exists in the form of God. The very being of God is who Jesus Christ is. He is second in command, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three Persons of the Trinity, who are all equal in attributes and in power, because there's one single purpose and one unity in the Godhead.
Notice what He says. He says, who although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. He was equal with the Father in His attributes, in His power, in His characteristics, equal with the Father.
But He says that Jesus did not grasp that, hold on to that, tightly grip it. But He says He did what? He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He did something.
What did He do? He was willing to empty Himself. Now the word empty here is the same word that you and I would use if we had a glass full of water and we turned it upside down and poured it all out. He was willing to empty Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. Now what is it He emptied Himself of? Well, what did He have? He had glory and majesty and power and He had preeminence. All the angels certainly would bow down to the Lord Jesus Christ in all that He was and all that He is.
Glory and majesty and dominion and power and eternity and all the rest. And what did He do? The Scripture says He emptied Himself. He emptied Himself of His glory and His majesty because the womb of the Virgin Mary could never have held, listen, the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His awesome majesty and glory.
He laid it down. In His humility, He submitted, so to speak, to the will of the Father who desired to send Him, His only begotten Son, to this world in order to down across to save us from our sins. He voluntarily came. He submitted. He was subservient to.
He was submissive to the will of the Father. And so He said He emptied Himself of His glory, of His majesty, of certainly some of His power. And He gave Himself, came into this world. He stepped down.
Think about this. Here's Jesus in all of His radiance and glory and power and majesty and brilliance which you and I, our minds, our eyes couldn't even conceive of such a thing. And what did He do? He stepped down.
What did He step down to? He stepped down to the level of the earth, to the level of humanity. Jesus Christ took upon Himself human nature without sin, never any corruption.
Flesh and bones, just like any other man. He grew up as a child like most other little boys and a young man into manhood. The only difference was it was always without sin because He was God. But He took upon Himself humanity. This is what He's saying when He says, He says in the likeness of men. And not only that, He came as, listen, not as the captain, not as the ruler, not as the Caesar, not as a king in the eyes of the world, not as some general of some great army to bring revolution, though He brought a revolution into the world, but He came of all things totally obnoxious to the people who hurt Him sometimes as a bondservant.
Now think about this. Here's the Son of God. Here is God who rules and reigns in the world. Here is the God who created it all. Look in Colossians 1 15, He created it all. Here is the God who is supreme and who is the sovereign ruler of the universe. And what is He doing? He's humbling Himself to come to earth, to take upon Himself the very form and appearance of a man, but not only that, He came as a servant.
It doesn't make sense to our society and to our world. But that's what humility is about. And that's what the humility of Jesus Christ is all about.
He came as a bondservant, He says. Now listen, being found in the appearance of a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient. Obedient to what? Obedient, first of all, to the Father.
Obedient to Him and obedient unto death. That is, Jesus Christ humbled Himself in this fashion. He humbled Himself to the Father and He humbled Himself before men. Because He didn't, that is, they couldn't kill Him. He said, no one takes my life, I lay it down.
I lay it down, the Father raises it up. He humbled Himself before the Father to become the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world. He humbled Himself before the Father to be crucified between two criminals, making Himself in the eyes of the world the third criminal.
He died almost naked in the most horrible form of death. Here is God now in the appearance of human flesh, dying like a criminal. You talk about humility.
Who of us has any right to boast about anything? Listen, it's the fact that the Apostle Paul understood what humility was all about. And he understood that Jesus knew what it was all about. He didn't have to do all of that.
He chose to do that. And so here is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God humbling Himself to die the most tragic, painful, shameful death a person could possibly die in His day or in any day. He demonstrated humility to us. And so anybody who's going to be a follower of Jesus Christ must at least get a glimpse of, at least a little bit of an understanding of what is humility all about. Is it being a nobody? Not in the eyes of the world as they think of being a nobody.
But in your eyes and mind apart from Jesus Christ, absolutely nobody. We as the children of God are to reflect the spirit of humility. The world may think it's weak.
We know that it's not weak. It is the pattern of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for listening to The Pattern. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
