“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (I Peter 5:5).
You and I resist the proud, too, don’t we? The braggart who takes all the credit for work the whole team accomplished is deserting his friends, turning them into enemies and setting himself up as a target for their animosity.
Not very smart.
The next time he seeks our help or invites us to join his team, we think hard about accepting. We know how he works and it’s not good. We resist him.
Pride looks good on no one, least of all followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in particular ministers of the Gospel. Pride is one adornment we should all reject.
I wish I could stand before you this morning and say all the Lord’s people have this down pat, that pride (or egotism, however we want to say it) is something we do not have to struggle with. But the evidence to the contrary is all around us. Christians sometime are the world’s worst prigs, pharisees, egomaniacs. And some preachers are the chief offenders.
Lord, help your people.
Humility, let us say, means not to think down on yourself, to put yourself down, to crawl and cower and, in the memorable words of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9:8, refer to yourself as a dead dog.
Humility is simply to know who you are, with all the potential and limitations that involves. Not too high, not too low. Balance. Health. Reality.
Humility is good. It’s Christlike, it enhances all the spiritual gifts and it inspires confidence in a champion’s supporters. Humility attracts people and encourages them to like you because it “feels” safe.
“Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it at all” (Mark 10:15). “God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble” (I Peter 5:5). “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you” (James 4:10).
My observation is that while a portion of humanity struggles with inferiority feelings and low esteem, the great majority fights a never-ending battle to check the ego, to rein in their over-inflated esteem, to tame the self.
Since humility is so essential to everything in life, God has arranged matters so that a number of forces about us are always at work humbling us. While most of it is painful, it’s almost always good for us. (And to re-emphasize, by “humbling,” we simply mean “to restore our proper perspective about our place in the Lord’s world.”)
1) The universe humbles us.
“When I consider the heavens and the works of thy hands, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?” (Psalm 8).
2) Failure humbles us.
“It is good for me that I was afflicted,” said the Psalmist, “that I might learn thy statutes” (Psalm 119:71).
You had great hopes and were brimming with confidence. Then, the project did not work out the way you planned and you lost your investment, disappointed your supporters and had to start from scratch. While some will urge you to get back up and regain your old bluster, you know better. You have been forever humbled, and hopefully will be a better person for it.
3) The winners around us humble us.
All around are people who are better looking than you, more athletic, smarter, wealthier and more popular. About the time you thought you were the sharpest person anywhere, a champion enters and sucks all the air out of the room. Everyone runs to them and suddenly you have no audience. It happens to the best of us.
The trick is not to let this fact overwhelm you and stifle your interest or discourage you altogether. You are still something special, an original from the hand of God. However, reminding yourself that you are not the best, the brainiest or the biggest but part of the Lord’s people is a good thing. Dialing your self-confidence back a notch—far enough to clear up your vision—is often a good thing.
