LOVE IS HUMBLE
50 Days of Love
Part 4 of 8
Gerry White
November 21, 2004

We're continuing in our series we're calling "50 Days of Love." We're looking at eight different traits of love. In this service today, we're looking at "Love is Humble." It tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:4 "Love is not conceited or proud." If you want to build authentic relationships, you've got to learn the characteristic of humility.

Humility may be the most misunderstood character quality that God ever invented. So before we begin looking at what it is, let me explain to you what humility is not.

  • Humility is not shyness. It's not being timid or bashful. It's not being a weak or spineless wimp.
  • Humility is not a lack of confidence. It's not insecurity.
  • Humility is definitely not having a low opinion of yourself. Jesus was very humble and yet He did not have a low opinion of Himself.
  • Humility is not being a passive doormat.
  • Humility is not having poor self-esteem.
  • Humility is not putting yourself down all the time saying, "I'm no good. I'm nothing. I'm worthless. I'm junk." Jesus never put Himself down, and yet He was the most humble person whoever lived. He never degraded Himself.

As we see today, humility takes enormous amounts of courage. We're going to see that humility takes self-confidence. It takes a high self-esteem. It takes a personal security. In fact, insecure people cannot be humble. They have a very hard time being humble.

Insecurity produces the exact opposite in our lives. It produces pride. Whenever you find somebody who is arrogant, prideful, boastful, egotistical or self-concerned, you can know that they are masking deep insecurity.

Pride is always a cover-up for insecurity. When you see the person who acts like he runs the world, he has it all together, he knows enough, inside he or she is masking deep insecurity.

  • Insecurity causes us to brag.
  • Insecurity causes us to boast.
  • Insecurity causes us to exaggerate.

It causes us to worry about what other people think of us. It is insecurity that causes us to be hypercritical and judgmental of other people. So rather than pride being a matter of confidence, humility - the exact opposite - is a matter of confidence. Jesus was able to be humble because He knew exactly who He was.

This week, I went to the scriptures and discovered that there were an enormous number of promises about humility in the Bible. God promises more about humility than almost anything except maybe giving. Let me read a few of those to you.

  • God saves the humble.
  • God supports the humble.
  • God promises to guide the humble.
  • God gives wisdom to the humble.
  • God will rescue the humble. He promises to exalt the humble. Over and over again, God says, I will honor you if you're humble. With humility comes honor.

On the other hand God hates pride. "There are seven things that God hates." The No. 1 issue is pride. Pride is what got Satan kicked out of heaven.

But God loves humility. In fact the Bible says

The people I treasure most are the humble. They depend on Me.

Isaiah 66:2

God says, "I treasure people who have a spirit of genuine, real humility."

If God has promised all these things about humility, what is it? We know what it's not. What is it?

Because humility is a part of love - love is humble - the Bible teaches us that humility is something you do. It is a way of thinking and a way of acting. It has nothing to do with your feelings. You say, "I don't feel very humble." That doesn't matter.

Feelings have nothing to do with humility at all. In fact, how you feel is quite immaterial. Humility is a way of acting. It is something you do. It is a way of thinking.

Because of that - like love, humility is a choice. You choose to be humble. It's not something that's done to you. It's something that you choose to do yourself.

All through scripture the Bible tells us, "Humble yourself before God." It's something you choose to do. You choose to not be self-centered. You choose to not be arrogant. You choose to not be egotistical. Instead you choose to act in humble ways.

What is humility? It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of others instead of yourself and acting in their best interest instead of your own. Humility is not putting yourself down saying, "I'm no good. I'm nothing." Thinking less of yourself. It's not thinking about yourself at all.

Humility means to be other person-centered. It means to think about others and forget yourself. Humility is self-forgetfulness. You're so concerned about other people you're not even thinking about "What does this mean to me?" So it's not thinking less of yourself. You just don't think of yourself at all.

That is a choice, and that's something you can work on. It's something you can practice.

Let us not just talk about love. Let us practice real love.

1 John 3:18

The Bible says love is something you can practice, something you can get good at by repeating it over and over and over.

You know what it means to practice. How many of you have ever had music lessons? You know the meaning of practice. How many of you have ever been on any kind of sports team. You know the meaning of practice. You have to work hard to get good at it. How many of you have ever worked out hard at a gym for more than two weeks? You know the meaning of practice. When you do something over and over and over, you get good at it. You get better. At first when you start doing it, it doesn't seem so fun. It doesn't seem so natural. It's usually pretty difficult. But the more you do it, you get better at it.

The Bible says that love and humility is something you can practice.

Today, we're going to look at four kinds of pride that we normally don't look at and some ways that we can practice humility.

1. Practice giving preference to others.

Think about the situations in your life that are difficult to give preference to another person. You let someone else go first. I thought of a couple of scenarios, and maybe you can relate to these.

1. Imagine you are standing in the checkout line at Walmart. It's the longest, slowest line. How many of you have the tendency to always get in the longest, slowest line? You're waiting there. You're in a hurry. The guy behind you is hitting you with the cart. You're waiting to go. Then all of a sudden you hear these words over the intercom, "Lane 4 is now open." What are you going to do in that moment?

Let me give you another scenario.

2. You're in Lighthouse's Church's parking lot. You get to church about 10 minutes late The kids have been rowdy, and you see one spot open. Three cars are going for that same spot. What do you do? A) Hit the gas. B) Hit the breaks. C) Let the other guy go in front of you and then you park behind him. It's your choice.

Here's what the Bible has to say about it.

Give preference to one another in honor.

Romans 12:10

Just go ahead and find some categories in your life where you can let someone else get the spotlight and you can give some preference and deference to them.

3. Another way that you can give preference to others is to help other people get ahead.

Far more important than getting ahead in a road race is getting ahead in life and finally one day living in the presence of God forever in the place the Bible calls heaven. You know how that happened? Because Jesus gave preference to us. Like a slave, like a servant, He laid down His own preferences so that you and I could get ahead.

Don't push your way to the front. Put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourself long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Jesus thought of Himself. He was God but He took on the status of a slave an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead He lived a selfless obedient life.

Philippians 2:3-8

Think of the humble life Jesus lived, coming from heaven to earth, born in a stable. On the weekend when He was making a very public entrance into the city of Jerusalem, most of the Bible scholars of that day thought the Messiah would come in triumphantly as a military victor, maybe on the back of a white stallion. The Son of God instead chose to come into the city on the back of donkey. Then He died a criminal's death. Why? Because in His death, you and I are given the opportunity to have life. Jesus put our preferences ahead of His own.

There's another way we can give preference to others. That's by doing more listening than talking.

Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

James 1:19

We get those first two reversed. We are slow to listen, quick to speak.

2. The second way you can practice humility is to practice learning from others.

Being open to their suggestion, being open to their correction, even being open to criticism. That is a major component of humility. Part of humility is teachability, being willing to listen and willing to learn, willing to grow, open to suggestions and corrections from other people. You don't think you know it all. You don't act like you know it all.

  • Why should you do that?
  • Why should you be open to criticism?
  • Why should you be open to the correction of people around me?

There are two or three really good reasons.

One, you'll be more likable. The Bible says

Conceited people do not like to be corrected. They never ask for advice.

Proverbs 15:12

Do you enjoy being around arrogant people? Of course not. They're irritating. They're a pain in the blessed assurance. One of the things humility does is it makes you more likable. People like you better if you're humble than if you're proud.

Two, you'll be wiser if you're open to the correction of other people.

If you reject criticism you only harm yourself. But if you listen to correction you grow in understanding.

Proverbs 15:32

Humble people are always learning because they're open to correction. Everybody's ignorant, just on different subjects. You know some things that I don't know, and I know some things that maybe you don't know. The person next to you knows some things that maybe both of us don't know. We all come from different backgrounds.

That's why two heads are better than one and it's wise to learn from the experience of others. You don't have time in life to learn everything from personal experience. It's wiser to learn from the experience of others. The way to do that is by learning to ask questions. The only way to learn to ask questions is if you're humble, if you're open.

You've got to decide in life whether you want to be wise or appear wise. Whether you want to be smart or appear smart. If you want to appear smart, then you can't ever let on that you don't know, so you always have to boast your way through situations and you never do really learn anything.

The moment you stop learning, you stop leading. It's one of the key qualities of leadership. You never stop learning and growing. You stay open, stay teachable. If you have a business - growing businesses require growing owners, growing executives. The moment you stop growing, your business stops growing. You have to be teachable.

Proverbs says, "Intelligent people are always looking for new ideas." In fact, they're open to them and looking for them all the time. You look around and say, "How can I be teachable? How can I learn more?" You'll be wiser if you're open to correction.

Three, you'll have less conflict. You'll have fewer conflicts if you're open to the correction of others.

Pride only leads to arguments.

Proverbs 13:10

Proverbs 13:10 is this is this week's memory verse. I hope you'll memorize that verse and put it in your mind. Sometime this week you'll get in an argument with somebody you love or somebody you don't love, and God's going to say, "Remember that verse? Pride only leads to arguments."

You can calm it down if you will reduce the pride in your life and you'll have a more humble attitude and you can see what's causing the problem. It's always, always behind any argument - pride is rearing its ugly head.

Every time you are criticized, God is testing you. Criticism is always a test of your humility. You can count on it. Anytime you are criticized, God is testing your humility to see if you are going to respond in a defensive way, an offensive way or a humble way.

Humility is not for wimps. It's not for pansies. It's not for passive, low self-esteem people – insecure people. It takes courage to be humble, to face the music, to handle the heat, to say, "Give me your best shot. Tell me what is wrong in my life."

Do you have the courage to go to the person who knows you best and ask, "What's out of whack in my schedule? What's out of whack in my values? In my life? What is out of priority? What's wrong?" It takes enormous courage to be humble. Who do you need to ask?

Defensiveness never gets you anywhere. You don't grow, you don't learn, you don't develop, you don't become more like Christ by defending the sin in your life.

In many ways God wants us to be like little children. Not to be childish, but when it comes to humility, God wants you to be childlike. "Whoever humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Why does God want us to be like children in our humility? Because children are teachable. They're open to learning, they're eager to learn. They're not defensive. They don't say, "I don't need to learn to walk. I don't need to learn to talk. You can't teach me anything about reading." Children are teachable. You have a choice this morning. You can either be teachable or you can be unreachable. You can humble yourself or you can live in arrogant, prideful denial. It's your choice.

3. I can practice admitting when I'm wrong.

This comes a little easier for some of us than it does for others. The truth of it is, all of us make mistakes. And we do so with great regularity. I have found that we even say we're wrong to a degree. It's easy to say, "I was wrong," if I only have to own that for a minute and then go back into attack mode.

I can throw it back in another direction. "I was wrong. But you..." or "I'm really sorry, but if only you had..." or we start this excuse making, because of this or because of that. It's all of this sugar coating. When in fact what we need is brutal, humble honesty. "I own it. I was wrong. I'm sorry." It's so difficult for us these days to really just come out with the hard news of what's going on in our life - the truth about who we really are.

A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful, but if he confesses and forsakes them he gets another chance.

Proverbs 28:13

The first step in healing relationships will always begin with humility.

Make this your common practice. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so you can live together whole and healed.

James 5:16

4. The fourth way you can practice courageous humility is to practice surrendering your plans to God.

This is what we usually do. We make our plans without even consulting God. Then we pray and ask God to bless our plans, which we didn't ask Him to be a part of. We assume that our plans are His will. Then when our plans don't happen on the timetable we want them to happen or they don't happen at all, we get angry at God. That's called pride. God hates pride. He's very serious about pride.

God opposes everyone who's proud but He gives grace to everyone who is humble.

James 4:6-7

Surrender to God.

I can think of a lot of people I wouldn't want to have as an opponent, opposing me. I would not want to be in a boxing ring opposed by Evander Holifield. I would not want to be on a basketball court opposed by Michael Jordan. I would not want to be opposed by Bill Gates at an auction. There's no way I'm going to be winning that one.

But I really don't want to be opposed by God, because there's no way I'm going to win that battle. The Bible says that when I am prideful, God is not just mildly irritated at me. He's in opposition to me at that very moment. I'm playing God.

God's opposed to me. I'm an enemy of God any time I get full of pride. That's how serious it is. So he says, "Surrender yourself to God." What does it mean to surrender yourself and your plans to God?

Give yourselves to God and surrender your whole being to Him to be used for His righteous purpose.

Romans 6:13

Surrendering means, "God, I'm going with your plans for my life, not my own. God, I've got plans, I've got dreams, I've got goals, I've got ambitions, but I know that You put me on this earth for a reason, for a purpose, and God, I'm going to intentionally choose Your plan for my life instead of my own.

I know You're not going to reveal it to me all at once. It's going to come a little bit at a time, so I'm going to take it a step at a time, but I want to go with Your plan, not mine." That's humility. That's called being humble, surrendering your plans to God.

Humility is being honest. It's not denying your strengths; it's being honest about your weaknesses. Pride is always based on a false evaluation of yourself. You narrow your field of reference so you can be a big fish in a little pond and you start thinking how great you are, and you haven't taken the whole globe into perspective.

Pride is always based on a lie. It is a false evaluation of your own talents, your own ability and where you got it. Everything you have, even your talent, is a gift from God. You don't own it, you didn't deserve it, you didn't work for it, God gave it to you. You have nothing without God.

Humility, is an accurate, unbiased, understanding of your strengths and your weaknesses. You realize that you have limitations. It starts with the truth.

So what is the truth about you? The Bible says you're infinitely loved by God, you're gifted, and you're deeply flawed. All three of those things are true. You're very gifted, you're deeply flawed, you are a sinner, as all of us are, and you are deeply loved because God's love is not based on your performance. So much of the stress in your life and in my life comes from doing things God never intended for us to do.

So we make our plans. We say, "I can do more. I can achieve more. I can be more. I can have it all." You cannot have it all. The commercials may tell you, you can have it all, but you can not have it all. That is a myth. That is a prideful myth. You can't be all, have all and do everything that you'd like to do in life. You have limits. So you have to recognize that.

God would never ask you to do more than He gives you the power, the energy and the time to do. Which means this: If you feel like you're always under stress, your To Do list is never finished, you always have more to accomplish that you have hours in the day to do, then it means one thing: you are doing some things that are out of God's will. They are your plans, not God's, because God does not give you more things to do than He gives you time to do it.

If you're constantly under stress, you are doing some things that God never intended for you to do and you're being pushed by your own pride, not by God's plan. You need to understand your limitations. You're not God. You're not even superman or superwoman. You have limits.

"Take up My yoke upon you and learn from Me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." The Bible says, "Learn from Me." Jesus says, "I'm humble, and if you learn from Me how to be humble, you will have rest for your soul."

Humility is the antidote to stress. Humility is the key. Whenever you get full of pride, you're going to get stressed out. The more humble you are, the less stressed you're going to be. Why? Jesus says this, "Take My yoke upon you." What is a yoke? You probably didn't grow up on a farm. A yoke is a double piece of wood where you harness cattle together to pull one wagon. It's a wooden frame that joins two farm animals together. The purpose of the yoke is always to make the load lighter, to make the load easier. You've got two cattle pulling the wagonload of crops rather than one.

That is a simple symbol of two things.

1. It's a symbol of partnership. Jesus says, "If you'll hook up with Me, if you'll connect to Me, if you'll take My yoke upon you, I'll help pull the load."

You were never intended to go through life pulling the load by yourself. Jesus says, "Take My yoke upon you. It's easy. And I'll help you pull the load." Whenever you're trying to pull the load on your own, you get under stress. So you must humble yourself. "Get connected to Me, and I'll partner with you in life." And anytime you get disconnected from Jesus Christ, you're going to get under stress. Any time. And every time you get reconnected to Jesus Christ under His yoke, the stress level is going to go down in your life.

2. It's a symbol of control. When you put a yoke on two animals, they have to go in the same direction and they have to go at the same pace. Jesus said, "If you'll take My yoke upon you, then I will set the direction for your life, and I will set the pace for your life, and you won't get stressed out."

He says, "My yoke is easy." Most of you are thinking, "My yoke isn't easy. I've got a heavy schedule. I can't even tell you all the stuff I have to get done this next week. It's a heavy load." Is your life a heavy load? It's your yoke, and not God's. You're following your plans for your life, which God never intended for you to do, instead of His plans.

His plans, He says, "My yoke is easy, My burden is light and you'll find rest for your soul." He says, "Hook up with Me. I will not only help you with the direction of your life, but I will set the pace." And He knows just the pace that's right for you. Not too fast and not too slow.

Humility is giving up control of your life to God your creator who made you. That's the ultimate act of humility. "God, You call the shots. You're in charge. I'm yoking up with You. I'm connecting to You." When I do that, my stress goes down.

The other verse that God gave me on Monday is

This is what the Lord requires from you. That you do what is right, to love mercy and you live humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

God brought this verse to mind. I memorized it long time ago. God says there's only three things required in life.

What does God require from me? What does God want from me? He tells us real clearly in Micah 6:8: Do what is right, love mercy [that means have good relationships, what we're talking about in this 50 Days of Love, show forgiveness and mercy and love to people] and walk humbly before God. If you do those three things, you've done all that God requires of you in life.

Do the right thing, love mercy [show it to other people] and walk humbly before God. That simplifies life enormously. You say, "God, here are the things I need to do today - do the right thing, show love in my relationships, and walk humbly before You." We need to pray this next verse,

God, turn me away from wanting any other plan than Yours.

Psalm 119:37

Humility is surrendering your plans to God for His.

So much of our lives we live with the myth of being in control. We think we're controlling our destiny, our careers, our families, etc. We're not in control of any of that. It's all an illusion. You cannot even guarantee your next breath. If God didn't give it to you, you cannot even guarantee your next breath.

  • You can control your responses in life,
  • You can control your reactions in life,
  • You can control your attitudes in life,
  • But you can't control anything that's going to happen to you. You don't even know what it's going to be, much less control it. It's all a myth.

Today, you've realized you've never really surrendered your life to Christ. Maybe you've even realized there's a little more pride in your life than you thought. Which of these four habits do you need to work on this week? How quickly do you adjust to the needs of others around you? Do you give deference to their preference? How eager are you to listen and to learn from correction? Do you get defensive? How quickly do you admit it when you are wrong? Have you ever done that? It takes courage to be humble. How willing are you to surrender your plans to God? God says, "The people that I treasure the most are the humble." If you want God's blessing in your life, would you pray this prayer?

Prayer:

Dear God, I want to be the kind of humble person that You can bless. I admit that I often do things out of selfishness and pride and what other people might think of me. I ask you to help me this week to practice these habits of humility. Help me to give preference to others - their needs, their interests. Help me to not always have my own way. Help me to be open to correction and even criticism. Help me to admit it when I'm wrong. Today, I surrender all my life and plans to You. I want Your will for my life. Help me to have a realistic view of both my strengths and my weaknesses. Jesus Christ, I turn over the controls of my life to You. And I humbly ask You to be the director of my life. I want to depend upon You from this day forward. In Your name I pray. Amen.