1024. Humility in Action pt. 1

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Washington. Welcome to Today's message, where Steve will show us 1881, just 16 years after the ending of the Civil War. One afternoon he was stopped by a wealthy white woman while walking through an exclusive section of town. Not knowing the famous Mr. Washington by sight, she asked if he would like to earn a few dollars by chopping wood for her. Because he had no pressing business at the moment, President Washington smiled. Rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to do the humble chore that she had requested. When he was finished, he carried the logs into the house and stacked them by the fireplace.

And then a little girl recognized him and later revealed his identity to the lady. The next morning the embarrassed woman went to the office of President Washington at the university and she apologized profusely. He replied by saying, it's perfectly alright, madam.

Occasionally I enjoy doing a little manual labor. And besides, it's always a delight to do something for a friend. Well, she shook his hand warmly and assured him that his meek and gracious attitude had endeared him and his work to her heart. Not long afterward, she showed her admiration by persuading some wealthy acquaintances to join her in donating thousands of dollars to the Tuskegee University.

Booker T. Washington went on to be the leader in the African American community in the United States of America between 1890 and 1915. God delights to honor his people who are truly humble. 1533 says, the fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom and before honor is humility. We have been studying from the book of James chapters 3 and 4 on the theme wisdom from above.

What is a wise person like? A wise person manifests their wisdom in the way they handle things with a meek spirit. What is that the human heart is sinful and depraved and has its own desires for self-exaltation. And last week we learned that when God's people are worldly, that is they let their desires, their sinful desires control them.

We learned that God responds in a spirit of jealousy because he loves us and he responds with an attitude of grace. In verses 7 through 10, this is a two-part series, so we'll do half this week and half the next week. And we see here where James is leading us to a place of grace. A grace that is conditioned on his people choosing to be humble. So the question to be asked is what is actually required in being humble?

What is actually in action? And I'd like to read this morning James chapter 4 verses 7 through 10. Notice what the scripture says. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. After be turned to morning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. He begins this section of 10 specific commands with a therefore.

Submit yourselves therefore. This is the beginning of the practical commands or the practical steps one must take in being humble. God resisted the proud. We read in verse 6 but he gives grace to the humble. So what James is doing is he's telling us the steps that we need to take.

The 10 specific commands to humility. This morning we will look at the first and the last command and next week we'll look at the other 8 commands that are in the middle between command 2 and command 9. So why are we looking at the first and the last command?

Because it's it's almost like they're bookends. The first command is the introduction. The last command is the summarization of the overall truth that is found when one is humble. When a person is a humble person, what do they look like? What are the basics?

What are the specifics? And we see those two commands this morning. The first command, the introduction command.

You could say the fast command. The foundation, the basis is the commandment to submit yourselves therefore to God. The primary action necessary to receive grace, to show humility is to submit yourself to God. The word submit is the Greek word that is used as a military term. It describes a soldier who enlists in the military, swears allegiance to his country and then he subordinates himself to the authority of his commanding officer.

I went to a military school here in South Carolina called the Citadel. My freshman year I was immediately placed into a rank or an authority structure. I was placed into a company and that company was in a battalion. Four companies to a battalion. In my company there was a company commander. There were lieutenants. There were sergeants.

There were corporals and I was a private. And the first thing that I learned is how to respond to authority and I was given three answers and those three answers are the only answers that I could give to an upperclassman when asked a question. And those answers were sir yes sir, sir no sir, and sir no excuse sir.

And the other answer was unacceptable to an upperclassman. And so from the very beginning you learn the importance of submission. Submitting to orders.

Submitting to directives. To submit to God means this. That you are putting yourself completely under God's authority and God's control over your life. You are saying that I will do what God wants me to do. I will be what God wants me to be. I will go where God wants me to go. I will say what God wants me to say. I will have what God wants me to have. I will live where God wants me to live.

I will have all things. All things creation completely submitted to God. Colossians 1 16. All things were created by Him and for Him and He is before all things and by Him all things consist. Everything is held together under Him.

Hebrews 2 13, God put everything in subjection under the feet of Jesus and now in putting everything in subjection to Jesus, he has left nothing outside of his control. Jesus Christ rules in reign. He is Lord over all.

He is preeminent over all. In Romans chapter 8, the Apostle Paul tells us that the whole created world is living in submission to God under a curse. And that curse is because of sin but they groan, the creation groans and travails until the day when that bondage will be released, the bondage of decay, the bondage of death into the glorious freedom of a new heaven and a new earth. So all of creation is living in submission to God. Should you and I not be in submission to God?

Let me ask you a question. Was Jesus Christ not completely submitted to the Father? Jesus the Son of God won with the Father and perfect unity and complete equality. But listen to what Jesus said in John 6 and verse 38. For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me. Jesus submitted himself to the Father all the way to the point of the cross where he died in obedience to God's command. If the Son is in submission, if creation is in submission, should not you and I be in submission? And then listen to what the scripture says. It says the church is completely submitted to Jesus Christ and he is the head of the body, the church. And the church is subject unto Christ Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 24. So you and I as an individual believer should be completely submitted to God.

So how would you know if you're submitted? What is some of the evidence of that? Well I think first of all you know you're submitted to God when every area of your life has been completely surrendered to God's control. I love the story of the the general Ben Haydad who came to conquer King Ahab in Samaria. And when Ben Haydad came he said these words to King Ahab. He said, your silver and your gold are mine.

Your best wives and children also are mine. And listen to the words that came out of King Ahab's own mouth. And the king of Israel answered and said, my Lord O king, according to thy saying I am thine and all that I have. To completely surrender to Jesus Christ is to say what Ahab said to Ben Haydad, I am thine and all that I have. When the Apostle Paul met Jesus on the Damascus Road he asked him two questions. Paul said, who art thou Lord?

And secondly, what will you have me to do? All that I have, my whole life, everything is surrendered to God. I want to ask you especially as a college student, have you completely surrendered your whole life to God? I came to the Lord in the spring of 1975. In the summer of 1976, God did a major house cleaning in my life. It was about a year's process where God began to take away the idols of my life, the things that I loved and lived for and desired. And he brought me to a place of complete surrender my whole life.

And I remember very clearly coming to God and saying, God I give you my future. God I give you my friendships. God I give you my finances. God I give you my future job and whatever you want me to do. God I give you my marriage in the future who you want me to marry. God I give you my health, my dreams, my hopes, my plans, my ambitions, everything surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

So that I could say in Psalm chapter 73, whom do I have in heaven but thee and there's none upon earth I desire besides thee. The battle of the human heart is the battle of whether or not my desires will be wholly surrendered to God or as a Christian I'll be double-minded living for the world and living for God. So let me ask you the question, is every area of your life surrendered to God? Secondly, are you living in submission to the authority that God is currently placed over you? You see the measure of your submission is seen in your relationship to authority.

You learned this as a child. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. You see your obedience to your parents is your obedience to the Lord. Jesus was described as living in submission to his parents and he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.

You know I think of the fact of how many of you have gone home now and you're living in a completely different situation than you did when you were in college here. What is your spirit and what is your attitude towards those who are an authority over you? I mean think of the sheer humility of Jesus the Son of God the Creator and the maker of heaven and earth who completely submitted to himself to his own fallible parents.

We by nature want to have infallible parents but that's not the way that it is. Jesus was obedient to the authority that was over him so let me ask you a question. Do you blow off the rules and the restrictions of your of your authority as if they're irrelevant? When you're corrected by authority do you receive it or you react to it? We learned earlier that meekness is not being reactionary but it's being submissive to authority into circumstances.

Do you look for the inconsistencies of leaders as an excuse for your own actions? How does one know that they are living in submission to God? It is because they are living in submission to the authority that God has placed over them whether it's their family whether it's the government whether it's the church wherever you are that's an evident sign of your submission to God. So James is urging us if you want grace God gives grace to the humble. How do we become humble? By submitting ourselves to God and then secondly he says in the last command found in verse 10 that we are to humble ourselves before God. Verse 10 humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. Arthur Bennett has edited a wonderful collection of Puritan prayers. If you've never gotten the book I'd encourage you to do it. It's entitled excuse me the Valley of Vision. In the introductory prayer by the same title he writes this prayer let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up that to be low is to be high that the broken in heart is the healed heart that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit that the repenting soul is the victorious soul that to have nothing is to possess everything that to bear the cross is to wear the crown that to give is to receive that the valley is the place of vision the last commandment is directed towards us as individuals in our response not so much to authority but in our response to God to humble yourself the word humble means to lie prostrate at the feet of a sovereign king it's not just bowing the knee but all the way to the ground you humble yourself humility is a sense of absolute unworthiness in the presence of the one who is absolutely worthy think about it what was the response of Isaiah and Job and Peter and Joshua and John when they all came into the presence of the Lord did they rise up no they fell down in the sight of the Lord that was their response to God the Bible says to humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord we go back to the beginning of the book of James as he's writing believers and he tells them to rejoice in their trials how do you rejoice in a trial you can only rejoice in a trial when you've surrendered your life to God and you realize that the circumstances that have come into your life are for your good and for God's glory you've surrendered to the Lord you've humbled yourself before the Lord and it's in this humbling process in the face of trials that I just that I develop a spirit of meekness a sweetness a gentleness a kindness humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord because he is absolutely worthy but let me also say the humility is a sense of absolute dependence on another because life has brought you into a low place humility is depending on another because the life that you're living has brought you into a very low place what does he say humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up something has brought you low a circumstance a situation and you have chosen to embrace it in a position of dependence or humility before God you see humility is not just seen in obedience but humility is seen in dependence and you are looking to God to raise you up one of the greatest illustrations in the Bible when we use over and over is the story of Joseph Joseph was the chosen special son of his father he was the dreamer and in his dreams he dreamed that not only his brothers but his own father would bow down before him and what did God do to fulfill that dream he bowed Joseph down what happened to Joseph he was forsaken by his own family he was sold into slavery he was falsely accused for trying to to seduce the wife of his own master and then he was taken and thrown into prison and while he was in prison he interpreted the dream of a baker and a butler and one of them promised that when he got out he would he would commend Joseph to his king and he got out and totally forgot about him think of those three things forsaken falsely accused forgotten all different aspects of being personally rejected and it would be so easy it would have been so easy for Joseph to feel like he had been rejected by God but God was not rejecting Joseph God was fulfilling his purpose and plan for his own people God had a purpose and plan in the sufferings of Joseph and what was Joseph's response he humbled himself in the sight of the Lord and what did God do he lifted him up he raised him up he took him out of the prison and he put him in the palace he went from being a servant and a slave to being in second command to the most powerful ruler on planet earth Pharaoh king of Egypt we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord and what will God do God will lift you up so if life has put you in a low place then humility means to trust God to believe God will lift you up in his time perhaps you've been put into a low place of disappointment rejection personal failure maybe somebody has criticized you or misrepresented you maybe you've been misunderstood maybe you have been forgotten overlooked mistreated maybe you're living in a low place where you are constantly being irritated or perhaps you are living with sickness and disease maybe you live with daily stress that burdens you down you're living under pressure financial pressure physical pressure family pressure maybe you faced a tragedy the death of a loved one a dream that's completely been dashed all of these circumstances bring us low and that bringing us low is an opportunity for God to lift us up Jesus was brought low on the cross and buried into a tomb and as we celebrated yesterday he was brought up from a grave alive God has said to us humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord submit yourselves therefore to God and what we what will he do he will lift you up a number of years ago I read many of the books of the famous writer Andrew Murray Murray was a well-known pastor who lived in South Africa and he lived from 1828 to 1917 he began his ministry in 1848 and after 31 years of ministry stretch tragedy tragedy struck in his life when he became ill and he lost his voice for almost two years and during those years of silence God led Murray to a deeper humility and a greater love for God and Murray authored over 240 books but perhaps his most famous book is the book humility I remember reading that book as a college student it was very thin doesn't take long to read but I remember picking it up and being somewhat not skeptical but fearful about reading the book and as you read through the book and you see the humility of Christ and the humility of and how God blesses those that are humble you come to the end of the book and at the end of the book you make a personal commitment to be humble and I remember reading that in a prayer that you pray to God to say God I'm willing to be humble let me ask you a question have you ever prayed a prayer to God God I want to be humble fact is in the end of the book he urges believers for one month to pray as often and as frequent as possible that God would make known to you your own pride and bring you into a greater sense of humility I'd like to encourage you to do that because God gives grace to the humble and wise people are meek people and the pathway to meekness is through being humble may we pray together father we thank you for your word we thank you for your daily grace and your constant kindness to us Lord we realize we are not humble people we are very proud and father you have promised us and you have told us that humility is one of the greatest virtues in the Christian life and Lord we lack it and so Lord help us to be humble even in this time of kovat 19 where we find that there are many acts of or our experiences of humility of being brought low God we pray that you'll give grace to us as we seek to be humble before you in Jesus name amen you've been listening to a sermon from the book of James by dr. Steve Pettit president of Bob Jones University for more information on dr. Pettit series visit our website at The Daily Platform calm where you can get a copy of Steve's study booklet entitled wisdom from above thanks for listening join us again tomorrow as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform