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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast.
Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others.
We're glad you're here and we hope you enjoy this message.
The day was coming to a close.
Finally, the work was actually done.
The dinner had been served, the homework was actually checked y'all, and the kitchen was
surprisingly clean.
And so the FAM and I made a decision that we were just going to relax on the couch, wind
down, and just enjoy the fact that the day was done.
And it was.
At this moment, I'm chilling and taking a deep breath in.
And Ash, she decides that we should actually ask our kids these questions.
That would be a way for us to kind of better connect with them.
So I'm like, sure, the day has been amazing.
Let's do this.
What can go wrong?
At this point, I'm feeling good about myself.
And so I call over my firstborn.
I'm like, Firstborn, come here, let me ask you this question.
And the question was this do you think I'm a good listener when you want to talk about
something important?
And so Eli started to take in that question.
He started to think about it, but then he started to think about it for too long.
Too long for my liking.
Because in my head, I'm like, this is easy, bro.
Scale one to five, five being terrific listener, one being terrible listener.
I'm at least a 4.33.
And so he proceeds to then share and talk about how when he actually wants to say
something important, I'm not very attentive to him.
And then he goes on to say, dad, you know what you could do to listen?
And I'm ahead of, oh, yeah, what I could do to listen?
Here's what you could do to listen.
But then he began to share.
Like, man, I'm actually not very attentive.
And the great day was then ruined.
As I'm about to erupt on the couch, what's going on here?
Internally, something was being revealed to me.
This conversation was beginning to open my eyes to what I had been oblivious to this whole
time.
And that's the kind of dad I was to my son.
And if there's one thing that became pretty clear to me in that moment, it was my pride
had blinded me from seeing things I needed to see.
And if there's anything in our world today that has fractured our relationships, if
there's anything in our world today that has fractured our system, the way we operate
today, it's very much our pride.
Why is the world broken?
Why does the world do what it does on a regular basis?
It's our pride.
In a word, it's our lack of humility.
And I think this is not just kind of a religious assessment.
This is, I think, just a general cultural assessment.
You think back a few years ago, kendrick Lamar released a song called Humble 2017.
Now, this song garnished him a number of accolades for Grammy nominations.
And whatever you might want to say about the album or this song in particular, I think it
was right in its ability to critique the rap industry and the music industry at large and
especially just our broader cultural moment in which society is obsessed with both
materialism and superficiality.
And he kind of noted this in interviews, but he went on to say, though, that the song is
about the ego.
And listen, now, our inability to see reality as it actually is, that's what he's after.
And so there is something humble, whether you're a Christian in here or not, there is
something beautiful about humility that I think we all can agree on because a humble
person is generally, like, just calm.
They're not anxious.
They're freed from the need to just have everything together.
They're freed from the need to kind of just prove that they know everything.
There's a freedom about humble people that we all can see and say, man, I would love to
have that, would love to experience that in my life.
There is something beautiful about humility.
But listen, the road to humility is not pretty.
I would say, though, I think it's the gateway virtue, meaning that if you can get this
virtue, every other virtue will fall into place.
But the problem is you never achieve it by going after it.
This is the paradox of humility.
As soon as you think you have it, you don't.
Like, when you think about the Christian life, there are things that we might say about
ourselves that we get applause from.
Like, for example, if I were to say, I feel like I'm becoming a more loving person, you
might say, well, that's great.
Look at God's.
Love is working through you, Fredo.
Like, first John, we love because he first loved us.
Or if I say, like, Man, I feel a bit more generous lately.
You might say, well, that's good.
God loves cheerful.
Givers.
That's great.
Your life is open.
You're sharing more.
You're giving more to people.
But then as soon as I say, Well, I'm feeling more humble lately, we start to have
questions.
Or if you feel like, man, humility is really flowing through me right now, we come to
different conclusions.
The moment you think you're humble is the moment the pride begins to creep back in.
This is the paradox of humility.
As soon as you think you have it, you don't.
And yet it's absolutely critical to the journey of Christianity, the journey of following
Jesus.
And so I think our passage today invites us to consider the ways that our pride has made
us oblivious to ourselves in particular and then offers us, I think, a way forward in
light of this message on humility.
And so we're going to read if you got a Bible with you today from Philippians, chapter
two.
Probably one of the most beautiful words written in the New Testament, of course, like,
well, you're a pastor.
It's all beautiful.
Yes, it is.
But this passage in particular is a profound picture of what a life looks like when it's
marked by humility.
So I'm going to ask if you are willing and able that you would stand with me for the
reading of God's Word.
And wherever you're watching this, if you would just take a moment and pause and just
breathe in, stop what you're doing and just allow the Spirit of God, who penned these
words years ago, to also now speak these words over our church today.
And this is what the text says.
Philippians two, starting in verse one therefore, if you have any encouragement from being
united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if
any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the
same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
Not looking I'm sorry.
Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but
each of you to the interest of the others in your relationships with one another, have the
same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality
with God something to be used to his own advantage.
Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human
likeness and being found in appearance as a man.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under
the earth.
And every tongue acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
Amen.
This is God's word.
Let's pray together.
Spirit of God, we now ask that you would speak to us and that in speaking God, you would
give us ears to hear and eyes to see, so that we might become what we are not yet in
Jesus.
We pray these things now in his name.
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you so much.
You guys can be seated.
We are so glad that you are here as we continue our series called Oblivious.
This message is able to be shared with you today because of people who support the work
and ministry at Sandals Church.
I want to invite, if you would like to be a part of that work, to go to Donate SC.
You can give a gift today.
But for now, let's get back into the message with Pastor Fredo.
I had recently came across an interesting study on blind spot detection systems that many
of our cars use today.
Maybe you're familiar with this.
The rear view mirror has this little yellow light that will flicker and say that there is
now a car in your blind spot that you can't quite see.
And its design was there to help reduce the one in four fatal crashes that happen every
year due to lane shifting when it shouldn't happen.
Right?
And this research was done by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, and they were
making the case that if this technology had had been in every single car in 2015, that it
could have prevented 85,000 crashes and 55,000 personal injuries.
That's astounding now, that's so much to the point that they're actually now most
manufacturers, especially if you drive a new car today, you'll have that technology in
there where in your review you see that little flashing light.
But here's the tragic part of this study.
It said that many drivers they found will disable this system alert because they find the
notifications to be too annoying.
Think about that for a second.
If this is true when it comes to our vehicles, how much more true is that for our actual
lives?
How many of you are annoyed by the thought of a blind spot alerting you when it comes to
our blindness?
Listen to these words from Paul Tripp.
He says this spiritual blindness is not like physical blindness.
When you're physically blind, you know you're blind, so you compensate for this
significant physical deficit.
But spiritual blind people are not only blind, they are also blind to their own blindness.
They think they see well.
So the spiritually blind person walks around with the delusion that no one has a more
accurate view of himself than he does.
Let that sit with you.
How many of us right now are walking around with the delusion that we have the best view
of ourselves?
And so the invitation today is to consider how humility now gives you vocabulary to say
maybe for the first time, I don't see everything the way I think I do.
Maybe I don't see God the way I think I do.
Maybe I don't see the world the way I think I do.
Maybe I don't see myself, and therefore I need help.
You see, the Body of Christ is to be a place where our blind spots can come into the light
in a safe moment.
And so I want us to do this now.
I'm going to offer a set of questions.
You can kind of think of this as an inventory on maybe where you might have blind spots in
your life.
You ready for this.
Buckle up.
Question one when someone gives you feedback, do you close up on the inside?
Or would you say your soul is spacious?
You have room for words.
Question two how often do you consider the perspective of others?
Question three when was the last time you invited someone to teach you about a topic?
How are we doing so far?
Question four when was the last time you changed your mind on an important issue, like
maybe 2020 was a moment where you changed your mind on a lot of issues.
Like, for me, it was really clear the Lakers are a good team.
You all didn't know where I was going with that.
A lot of things happened in 2020, but they won the championship that year, and maybe you
came to the conclusion it's time to be cheering for them and praying for them.
Question five how willing are you to admit that you are wrong?
Lord help us with that.
And then, number six, how do you respond when you are corrected by someone else?
You see, now, at this moment, you can, like many of us, begin to cower with a little bit
of guilt, shame, maybe even just denial.
Or you can allow the revelation of these blind spots in your life to be invitations from
God.
What if the gaps in our lives, because we all have them, were actually invitations from
God?
You see, this is what I want us to notice first.
That humility enables me to see that I have blind spots and to receive God's grace.
You see, the story doesn't end, thankfully, by the grace of God.
It does not end with us seeing our blind spots, but us receiving grace for them.
That's the whole point.
Listen to James Four.
God opposes the proud.
In other words, he stands at distance.
He stands at arm's length from proud people, but he gives grace to the humble.
There's grace for you today.
The good news today is that there is grace for us in our blind spots.
There is grace for the gaps in our lives.
But even with that said, why is it hard for us to just acknowledge and confront the shadow
side of our lives?
Two things come to mind.
First, people oftentimes are not gentle.
Maybe you've just had experience with people who corrected you and they were not kind
about it.
But secondly, I think there is a lack of security.
Many of us operate out of a false version of who we are, and that false version of
ourselves can rarely take correction.
But when you're in a place, a humble place, there's space to receive words from people
both that you need to hear from and that you don't want to hear from.
And so just be open to the possibility right now that the exposure that's happened of
these blind spots is not to bring shame or despair or any kind of embarrassment, but it
actually is a pathway to God's grace for you.
Imagine your weaknesses being places that can be opened so that there's a special grace
for those things.
Consider for the moment just that there is a God who actually longs to address the areas
that you are scared to touch.
What a gift that can be.
And that's what I think is happening here in the Philippians Church.
We're getting a picture from our passage of what it looks like to have a blind spot
revealed.
We remember from this letter many people have referred to it as kind of the book on joy.
Right?
Joy is mentioned a handful of times in this letter, and we think it's because Paul was
writing this letter to the Church of Philippi from prison.
But this church actually supported Paul.
So they sent him money financially, they sent him people.
So he actually got presents.
Right.
He was blessed by this church.
And so he's joyful, I think, over their generosity.
He's joyful over their love, he's joyful over their faith.
But they still have some things to work on.
And I think that's a good word for us, that no matter how healthy a church is, god still
has work to do in them.
No matter how healthy sandals might get, god still has work to do in all of us.
And there were some challenges this congregation is facing.
Namely, it was, I think, around disunity and the division that was marking this church.
And the reason why I think that is because in Philippians two, in the first five verses,
six different times, paul uses the word or the phrase unity or be united.
Listen to these phrases united in Christ, share in spirit, like minded, same love, being
one in spirit, being of one mind.
Now, these repeated phrases, at least for me, give us insight, I think, into a potential
blind spot.
The church at Philippi was dealing with their division, and so his word to them, I think,
is a good word for us.
Be careful of the division that is out in the world and how it might creep into the
church.
Be mindful of that.
It's a potential blind spot.
It's a call for unity.
Now, when we say unity, though, we're not referring to uniformity.
There is a clear difference between those two things.
Uniformity is about everyone doing the same thing, believing the same thing, thinking the
same way.
That is not what we're called to.
I don't even agree with myself most days.
Unity is you and I, through our disagreements, still saying our eyes and our hearts are
fixed on Jesus and we want to be formed and shaped by his humble, sacrificial love.
And I love that.
Paul doesn't end there.
He continues notice how he framed the issue.
He says, do nothing out of selfish ambition and vain conceit.
These words are critical for us.
Selfish ambition.
He's not saying you can't have any ambition, but he's saying a selfish kind of ambition is
one in which the driving force of how you view your life and yourself is with you at the
very center of everything.
You at the center.
That's a selfish way to approach it and, I think somewhat silly illustration, but I think
a helpful one that reveals how all of us work through this in various kinds of ways is
when you think about taking photos with each other.
You take a selfie.
You take a photo, you go to look at the quality of the photo.
Where are you all looking?
First, you're looking at yourself, right?
You're looking you're looking at yourself.
And if you're good, you're good with a photo and it's time to keep it moving.
So all of us at some level have to confront the vanity of our lives and the ways in which
selfish ambition drives us.
And then he goes on to say, though we're not looking verse four, just to your own
interests, but to the interest of others.
This was the verse that became the theme verse for this entire series of Olivia's.
Now, let's be clear though.
What Paul is getting at here is not that Christians are not to have any interest or any
ambition.
That's a terrible way to view life.
Christians just be boring, but the glory of God be boring.
What he's saying, though, is that if you imagine yourself in a community of believers with
a group of other Christians in which everyone is saying, I'm going to let you go first, or
how can I help you?
Or how can I serve you?
In that kind of community, everybody's needs will be met.
Your interests will get dealt with, right?
This is a beautiful picture of what it's like to serve one another out of a kind of
humility.
So what he says in humility, he goes on then.
Now to say value others above yourselves.
So humility not only is revealing blind spots, but secondly, now, humility enables me to
value others above myself.
Paul clarifies what he means by using this phrase have the same mindset as Christ Jesus,
which I think is a close way for Paul to restate what Jesus was saying when he gave us the
greatest commandment, which was to love God and then to love your neighbor as yourself.
In other words, for the Christian, there is a reprioritization of a value system so that
you value yourself and then you take that same value system and apply it to your neighbor.
Paul's restating that.
And I think over time this begins to break the grip of selfishness in all of our lives.
Because, in other words, Paul is getting at this.
The way we ought to think of ourselves is the same way Jesus thought of himself.
The way you think about yourself should be the same way Jesus thought about himself.
Now think for a second.
How does Jesus think of himself?
What does Jesus think about himself?
Paul gives us a picture of that.
He's a humble servant.
He's a humble servant.
And so to value others above yourself is to say this that there is no thing and no one
beneath me.
There's not a thing, not a task that is beneath me.
There is not a person beneath me.
Now, let's pause right now.
In your life, is there anything that's too small for you to do right now?
Is there any person in your life that's beneath you, that you're unwilling to serve?
I remember a number of years ago when I had the privilege of pastoring at Palm Avenue.
We were in the midst of kind of revitalizing the campus, getting it ready for an Easter
launch, and a lot of the staff was there on site doing a lot of work, a lot of manual
labor work.
And I remember throughout the course of the day, we had a lot of things to get done, and I
kept walking by the same pile of trash, like, I'm not going to deal with that.
Got pastoral stuff to know.
A few hours later, after a long, hard day, our executive pastor, Danza Bardi, was at that
pile of trash, throwing it all away.
I hid, but I was moved by the boss not viewing any task beneath him.
Why?
Because he's a humble dude.
He's never shared that story with you.
Why?
Because he's a humble dude.
But there was no task beneath him.
Jesus, I think, gives us this picture, which is what Paul is after there in verse six of
this passage.
It's often referred to as the Christ Him.
This kind of poetic thing, if you read in the text, it kind of is structured differently.
And the reason why that is is because many believe what Paul was writing there in
Philippians two, starting in verse six, was actually not original to him.
It was a song that churches had been singing for a long time.
There in Philippians Two.
Imagine this.
We get one of the first worship songs the church was singing, and it's referred to as the
Christ hymn.
And oftentimes we read the translation as this although he was in the form of God, he
became a servant.
Now, that's a fair way to read the passage, but I need you to just be a nerd with me for a
second and let's do some homework.
We know with words, words often come with a semantic range of meaning, which means there's
various ways to read the passage.
And so, though it's helpful to read it, although he was God, he became a servant, he
became a human.
I think a better way to read it is to say, because he was God, he became a servant, a
human being.
In other words, humility is not the opposite of divinity, but humility is the very
expression of divinity.
Because he's God, he's humble, which is to say that God is the most humble being in all
the universe.
Think about that for a second.
There was no one more humble than Yahweh.
And Jesus modeled this.
You want to know what God looks like?
Look at Jesus.
He's fully god.
And then he modeled this himself on his last night of life with his disciples.
We're told there in John 13, listen to these words.
Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power.
I love this phrase.
This is one of my favorite phrases in the Gospel of John.
That sounds strange, but here's why.
Because what would Fredo be doing if he knew all things were under his power?
Imagine right now, every little issue in your life you had complete control over.
What would you be doing?
This is what Jesus was doing.
It said there he knew where he came from, and he had come from God, and he was returning
to God.
So not only did he have all things under his power, he had a clear sense of who he was.
What a gift.
Then it says there that he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, wrapped a
towel around his waist, and after that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his
disciples feet, drying them with a towel that was wrapped around him.
He used his own clothes to dry his disciples feet.
Now, here's what you got to understand is going on.
In the ancient eris tradition, it would have been common practice that a servant in the
household was designated to wash every guest's feet as they came into the house.
You can read Luke eight around a time when that didn't happen, how Jesus responded to that
story.
But if a family was not wealthy enough, the first person who got to the party was the
designated servant, which you and I would understand.
Why it's even better to be fashionably late, because no one wants that job.
And coming where I come from, if the invitation says two, I'm not there to at least 240.
Because the show up on time to a Mexican event means that you're the first one to help
finish setting up everything.
So I'm fashionably late.
But this is what we see Jesus doing.
He's in a household.
No one's there to be the designated servant, but he is.
He's washing John's feet, washing James'feet washing Peter's feet, bartholomew's feet,
Nathaniel's feet, Philip.
Then he gets to Judas.
He's like, Nah, I know what you're about to do.
Go ahead.
No, he washes his feet.
He washes his betrayer's feet.
And the reason why I point that out is because in our own humble service, there's still
enough pride in all of us to decide who we want to serve and who we don't want to serve.
And oftentimes we're oblivious to that.
We love to serve people who love us, but it's difficult to serve those who we can't stand.
And what a gift for the Church to move forward in this world right now, to model humility,
to be marked by a kind of humility that serves people who we can't stand.
Why?
Because Jesus did this.
Jesus washed the feet of both the deserving and the undeserving.
That Jesus is so humble to his very core that he would choose to wash the feet of both
saint and sinner alike.
That's good news for us, because I don't know about you, but I know where I stand in the
column of saint and sinner.
And I'm grateful that I have a king with all power under his control.
Washes my feet.
He's the servant of all.
And so I want us to begin to think about how can we become the kind of person then who is
marked by this humility?
How can we become this?
In other words, what are the practices that we might give ourselves to as we seek to
become humble in the way that Jesus was humble?
My first thought is this by lowering my defenses.
Lowering my defenses?
What do I mean by that?
Well, humility, I would say, has much more to do with lowering our defenses.
Right.
I said it's about doing the lowly task.
But also it has to do with lowering our defenses.
Because oftentimes humility can be confused with a lot of things first.
I think it's sometimes confused with people who just don't want to be center stage.
They'd rather just be behind the scenes right away in the corner doing something.
But you can be shy and very prideful.
You might even know people like this.
Humility is also sometimes confused with self deprecation in which you and I try to
distance ourselves or create distance between who we are and the gifts we have.
So we'll kind of make fun of ourselves light hearted ways.
Oh, yeah.
No, it's not me.
That's not really me.
Thank you, though.
Could be self deprecating.
That also, I think is a false kind of humility.
It takes me back to a story.
When I was in seminary, one of my favorite professors, his name was Russell Moore.
I had the privilege of being a student of his for a little bit of time.
He's now the editor in chief at Christianity Today.
And I remember one day in class he was given just some very raw, honest advice to Young
Prideful Seminary.
And one of the things he said was, listen, your first hundred sermons will all stink.
Like, oh, cool, that's great, thanks.
I'm on sermon like 42.
But then he went on to say this.
He said, and when you give sermons, he said when people come up and give you compliments
or they say something kind about it, just say thank you, guys.
He's like, I don't know why this is, but sometimes pastors have this inclination to say,
oh, that was all God, none of me.
And I remember Dr.
Moore said, listen, if it was all God, it would have been a lot better than what we just
heard from you for 40 minutes.
So clearly it's not all God because God would have wrapped it up in 15 but you kept it
moving for too long.
So he said, just be honest and say thank you.
Maybe ask, what did you get out of it?
And so humility, I think, is not those two routes, but humility has more to do with
lowering our defenses.
Listen.
To the words of Proverbs 19.
It says, Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among
the wise.
That's the invitation to lower our defenses so that we can have space in our lives to
receive the feedback, to allow the blind spots to be addressed, to see the gaps in our
lives for what they are.
Peace GAzero has this brilliant way in which he practices lowering his defenses with three
simple words.
He says this tell me more.
So that when someone's correcting him, someone's giving him feedback, he just says, Tell
me more about that.
Tell me more.
Imagine if you went to work next week and your boss walks up to you and says, hey, I want
to know how to be a better supervisor.
Can you tell me more about what I'm doing wrong?
You would think revival broke out at your work if you went home and you asked your spouse,
hey, how can I better serve you?
How can I better love you?
Can you tell me more about the issues I'm dealing with right now?
Or if your kids, if some of your kids walked up, hey, can you tell me more about how I
could be a better parent?
You would think the Spirit of God has broken out in your house, right?
What a practice, though, for lowering our defenses with those three simple words tell me
more.
I wish to God that that night on the couch with Eli, I would have just said, Eli, tell me
more.
I'm listening now.
I'm listening now.
I think of the wise words from Brent Hansen.
He wrote a book recently called Unoffendable, and I think his words here ring true.
He says this few want to hear this, but it's true.
And it can be enormously helpful in life if you're constantly being hurt, offended, or
angered.
You should honestly evaluate your inflamed ego.
He put to words in a book what Kendrick was saying six years ago in a song.
Here's what it means.
I think it's this that the most humble people are often the least defensive.
And so if you're regularly bothered, offended, hurt, irritated dare I use the word
triggered by what someone says?
Could it be the case that your ego is swollen?
And so to live a life marked by humility, I think means the daily practice of lowering our
defenses.
Three little words.
Tell me more.
Secondly, I think it also looks like us releasing entitlement.
Release my entitlement.
Look at the words there from Philippians two passage where Paul says he did not consider
equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.
In other words, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, had a right
to be the Son, and yet he did not use it to his own advantage, but leveraged his position
for us.
He leveraged it for us by becoming one of us.
That is a beautiful picture of someone who is humble enough that they don't have anything
to possess.
You see, someone who can lower the defenses is essentially someone who doesn't have
anything to protect, but someone who's also willing and able to just release entitlement
is someone that says, I got nothing to possess.
Here, let me leverage this for your sake.
But oftentimes our pride can convince us that God owes us a better life and that I deserve
more.
This is embarrassing in my own life, but very true.
I work right upstairs, and sometimes I'll come into the office, I'll sit at my desk and
I'll think to myself, how come I don't got an office?
I mean, I'm a pastor here, getting bothered all the time by people.
I say that gently.
But then I think to myself, do I think I deserve a better life?
Can I not imagine my situation in which my role, my position is actually leveraged for the
good of others?
You see, someone who's releasing their entitlement is able to say that maybe the blessings
I enjoy in my life are not always about me, but about other people and what I can release,
as Jesus did, coming into the world with nothing to prove, nothing to possess.
Lastly, we can become the kind of people marked by humility.
Listen now, by making humility a daily practice here I go again.
My favorite word, practice.
Listen to Paul's words from Philippians Two.
He made himself nothing by becoming what?
Obedient to death?
How often do you think Jesus was obedient?
All the time.
Lived life 33 years, we're told every day.
Made it a daily decision that he will make humility a practice.
He'll humble himself through the act of obedience.
So what I'm saying to you and I is that humility is not a one time kind of prayer request.
God, make me humble.
That's kind of a dangerous prayer.
But truth be told, I don't think there's one prayer that can make you humble.
I don't think there's 100 prayers that can make me humble.
But I do think there is a daily practice in which we become people marked by humility.
As it says there in Luke Nine, when Jesus invites people to follow Him, he said to them
all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross, what
daily, and follow me.
He lived a life of obedience.
He modeled this for us.
Now, I'll be honest with you.
This is a painful process.
There is nothing pretty about this.
As I said, humility is beautiful, but the road to it is not pretty.
This is a costly thing.
And just to humanize and normalize all of our experiences, there was nothing enjoyable
about humble obedience on a regular basis.
But there is a promise that comes with it.
You think of the words of one Peter Five where it says, humble yourselves therefore under
God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time.
Humility is always listen now a painful death, but it always ends in new life.
It always ends in new life.
As we close, I want us to think about the word above that Paul used twice in this passage.
First, he says to value others above yourself.
Jesus, I think, perfectly modeled this.
He valued our lives above his own to the degree that he was willing to die for us.
That's what he does.
But then it says that God raised him up and gave him the name.
That's what above every other name.
Jesus, who said, you over me, then got the name above and over everybody else so that at
his name every knee bows, every tongue confesses.
What a day that will be to see the most humble person getting the worship of everybody
else.
What a picture that is.
And that's what Peter's inviting us to consider under God's mighty hand.
Submit yourself and know that you're going to be lifted up.
You're going to be exalted.
There is an honor coming your way.
The other side of your humility today is honor, exaltation, new life and resurrection.
Imagine you confronting your spouse over things that you need to address, knowing that if
I just walk this road of humility today, honor is coming.
Exaltation is coming.
Imagine you for just a moment lowering your defenses with someone today, knowing, man,
that though I'm choosing the downward path, I'm on my way up.
Resurrection is coming.
New life is coming.
What a gift that is for us to see.
That's the good news of the gospel.
Nothing ends in death.
It always ends in new life and resurrection.
This is the upside down way that Jesus says his kingdom functions.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, he said, because they're getting everything.
They're getting everything.
Let's pray together.
Jesus, what a gift it is to see you value us above yourself, only to get the name that is
above every name.
And so it's before you that we bow today, God, and we say, would you work in us?
Would you help us become people who are marked by humility?
And would you lead us to a place, God, where what is maybe blinding us, what has gripped
our lives we might be broken free of today?
We pray these things in Your name.
Amen.