Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you would do a little thought experiment with me, I want you just for a moment to try to imagine the most calming, most relaxing person that you know, that you personally know.
[00:00:16] Try to imagine them in your mind. Maybe they were at Thanksgiving, or maybe you're missing them around the Thanksgiving table.
[00:00:23] Maybe it's, maybe it's not the person beside you. I don't know.
[00:00:26] Um, don't, don't, don't nudge them right now. Right. But. And here's the. Once you have that person in mind, I want you just to take it one step further. Would you describe that person as a humble person?
[00:00:40] For me, they are that person. I imagine it's the kind of person that when you are around them, it's almost like a breath of fresh air.
[00:00:48] It's life giving to be around them. And they tend to not be the people who make it about themselves, do they?
[00:00:56] And maybe here's the question that's under all of these.
[00:00:59] Are you that type of person for someone else?
[00:01:03] Are you the type of person that when you enter the room, people don't, but you actually, it's more relaxing to be around them.
[00:01:13] And maybe if you're not, or maybe you're somewhere on that path like I am.
[00:01:17] Do you want to be. Do you want to be that type of person for someone else?
[00:01:21] And if so, then I believe what we're going to talk about this morning is for you. And so we are going to dive into our Advent series. And as you saw in the video, we are talking about Jesus and his humanity, right? How he and his nature and his character, who he was and what he was like and how he embodied this in human flesh and what that is meant to be for us as expressions as his church, and also what that expression means for his kingdom on earth. And Philippians 2 is gonna be our roadmap this next few weeks as we move towards Christmas, because it's a clear, unfiltered look at what that looks like when the people are actually take on this identity of Christ and how we are meant to live, right? And when it actually resembles heaven on earth.
[00:02:10] And on the docket for today is a theme that I believe is central to who Jesus is. If you spent any time in scripture or knowledge, Jesus, it's who he is, but it's also, as Paul says, meant to be an understanding of what his church is meant to be like. And that is the topic of humility.
[00:02:27] Now, when I talk about humility, I know a lot of different words come to mind, right? I mean, I want to be really clear, what I'm talking about, what I'm not talking about, when I say humility, I don't necessarily mean niceness. While that's great to be a nice person, I don't necessarily mean timidness and I definitely don't mean low self esteem. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about humility.
[00:02:48] And I think we need to re, maybe re investigate or rediscover what it means to be a person who is humble or to be described as humble. And how do we, how do we move that path? And so we're going to dive into Philippians 2 in the first 11 verses and we're just going to read over, because we're going to visit this over the next few weeks. So if you have a Bible, turn with me to verse one of chapter two, Philippians and we'll read these verses together. They'll be on the screen as well.
[00:03:14] Verse one, it says this. 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 of one spirit and of one mind.
[00:03:34] Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but to each of you, to the interest of 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 for his own advantage. Rather he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him in the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name and at that name of Jesus. Every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
[00:04:26] So if we're going to look in here, in this passage, Paul's going to make it very clear what does it mean? What is his definition of humility? What's a biblical understanding of humility and how we're meant to. If we're gonna move as a people towards that and grow in our understanding, we have to first start at the beginning, right? Cause Paul makes it very clear before we get there, we gotta understand where we're at currently. Right. He starts this by Kind of painting this picture. Like, hey, if you have any encouragement, any. Any. If you're uniting Christ at all, if you have any common sharing in love and spirit and tenderness and compassion, if any of this is true, he's almost trying to paint this picture. He's like, hey, if this is true about you, right, if this is the body of Christ, if you've put your fai. Jesus, I just remind you of who you are and first and foremost that you are basically swimming in this ocean of grace available to you. What is grace?
[00:05:17] It's God's unmerited favor, right?
[00:05:19] We can't earn it, we don't deserve it. But yet he has given us his love and his compassion. And in doing so, he's given us his comfort, his spirit, his tenderness and mercy.
[00:05:31] It's like, before he gives them any marching orders, he's like, hey, I just want to remind you real quick before we get into the.
[00:05:36] What we're meant to do or what we're meant to look like, I gotta remind you of who you are first.
[00:05:41] And you are rooted in the fact that God has done this for you, right? And this is a common thing. It actually has the word united. So I wanna make it really clear before. Cause I know you hear this. I know it's happened. You're like, okay, I know what Logan's gonna say.
[00:05:56] Humble, okay? Just be more humble.
[00:05:59] Like, just leave here and like. Like, just try harder.
[00:06:03] And you're like, let's just jump to the application point, right? You're like, okay, I'm gonna go and try. And that's gonna work till, like, lunchtime, right? At best.
[00:06:11] Or until someone cuts you off in our overcrowded parking lot. And then all that humility is gonna be like. You're like, yeah, you go, God bless you. Merry Christmas. You know, and all that humility is out the window, right? And you tried. You tried. But guess what?
[00:06:25] Willpower is great until you run out. It's a finite amount ability of stuff.
[00:06:30] We need a greater source of humility than just our effort alone.
[00:06:34] And he's trying to. And Paul knows this.
[00:06:37] He knows this about the Philippian Church. He knows about himself. He's been walking with Jesus long enough that it's not just about him trying or wanting to be humble or wanting it for other people. It's gotta be deeper than that.
[00:06:50] So I don't want you to hear me, that you just pursue humility because, well, Jesus did it and, oh, man, the Jesus card. And now I better try, or worse yet, that you need to Try to be humble because you want to earn his favor. That's not what I'm saying.
[00:07:03] No, we pursue humility because of what God has first done for us.
[00:07:08] It's actually an outflow of that, right? Because if he's first loved us, and Paul says, he says, if this is true about you, then make my joy complete, right? In verse two, he turns it and he. He kind of paints a bigger picture. What does it mean to be? How, how will his joy be made complete? What says to be like minded, to have the same love, one spirit, one mind. That's a lot of ones, right? Same one, one mind. What is he talking about? He's talking about unity. He's talking about unity as a people.
[00:07:38] And I know when I say that word unity, some of us kind of cringe. We're like, oh, here comes the Kumbaya message or whatever, right? That's not what I'm talking about. You know, unity does not necessarily mean that we have all, we agree on everything or the same we agree on everything. Okay, I know that's a kind of a misconception, but I think what Paul is pointing to, that our unity as a people, as a body is evidence that what we really understand, our position in Jesus, like if we really understand as a people as we sit in this room and there's hundreds of people in here right now, that all of us right now are in need of a savior, that we're in the same position before God. None of us are higher or lower than each other.
[00:08:18] And this is a true of the flipping church. There is all types of different hierarchies and scales and lifestyles and upbringings and knowledge of God and experience. And yet he's saying, hey, we are all in the same need. We all have the same posture. We have the whole, we are all. What unifies us is our need for Jesus. And he's making that really clear that that's what the same mind, same love, same spirit, right? That we be unified in that.
[00:08:47] How does that get lived out?
[00:08:49] Is that true? About US author and pastor N.T. wright. He said it this way. He says if Paul could come back today and see the contemporary church, the thing that would astonish and horrify him would not just be our lack of unity, but the fact that we mostly don't care about our lack of unity.
[00:09:08] And he makes the note that in every letter that Paul writes, he brings up this topic of unity. Is that interesting?
[00:09:16] Paul knows in us that we just don't do this really good, right? That willpower in ourselves. If we just try to love each other, well, we will fall short because we just, as we're gonna go into verses three and four, we just kind of care about our own interests, right? That's what we end up doing. We care about our own interests. And it's an epidemic of sorts within the church because we're humans and it's in us to care about ourselves more than others.
[00:09:43] And so unity is always tied to humility because disunity always reveals our lack of humility, doesn't it?
[00:09:51] Right? Even when I'm trying to be a humble person, right? When I.
[00:09:55] The outflow of that is often disunity, right? I start to put myself above people or compare or whatever that might look like.
[00:10:03] And Paul knows this. So he writes about in every letter. If you pick up any of Paul's letters in the New Testament, he's always saying, be united. Be united as a people, right? Have the same mind, same posture, same spirit, same love, right? We're all pursuing the same thing here. We're trying to pursue Jesus with our lives, to make him known, just as Bob said, to invite other people to know who he is.
[00:10:26] But I just think about that quote that I think nt's onto something, right? There's something about that, that our unit, our disunity, like we just don't even care.
[00:10:35] And do you feel that burden? Cause it burdens me.
[00:10:38] I've heard it said that. I think it was Gandhi that said this. He says, I don't have a problem with Jesus, I just have a problem with his followers, right? He loved the teachings of Jesus. It's just the way we live it out was the thing that's like, ah, hard pass, I'm good.
[00:10:52] And I know that might be true in my own life. And so how do we live that? How do we change that? How do we change that narrative? Well, we get a little insight into it. And one of those paths is humility, right? In verse three, Peter or Paul says it this way. He says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility. This is our working definition.
[00:11:12] Value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others.
[00:11:20] That is Paul just kind of saying, hey, do you want to know what humility is? It's right here. It's doing nothing out of selfish ambition. And that we're going to put others, we're going to value others above ourselves. And that's a high bar, right?
[00:11:31] Putting their interests above. And I know when I say that there's caveats. We're like, yeah, but what about this scenario? And just hold those for a moment, okay? Cause I'm sure they're valid.
[00:11:41] But what I think that Paul is describing is a life that is not organized around our own self interests, a world about us.
[00:11:51] And this is counterintuitive to Paul's understanding who Jesus is. And these are some questions I was asking myself and I want to ask them to you of just how to reveal my life that's revolved around my own self interest. And so some of those questions I considered this week was how much of my time or your time is devoted to self advancement, Whether that be in your occupation, in your own life, in your own physical health, self advancement, whatever form it takes.
[00:12:19] How much of your time is spent on image maintenance, whether in person, online perceived ideas of who you are, how much of your time goes to your plans, your convenience and your comfort.
[00:12:35] If you kind of have that sinking feeling inside, which I imagine all of us do a little bit, it's okay. You know why? Because we are wired from childhood to climb the ladder.
[00:12:50] It's what we're taught, it's what we're modeled for us, right?
[00:12:53] I'm gonna make someone really nervous here, okay? I think we have enough insurance for this, so don't worry, okay?
[00:12:58] But we live in a ladder climbing society, don't we?
[00:13:03] We want to take steps, we want to advance our own causes, our own desires, and we don't really care who really is around us. And we wanna get to the top, right? This is when everybody gets scared, but we wanna get to the top. And then we feel like, well, if I was just in charge then, then everything would be okay, right? And some of us have actually done this really well. We've spent years, decades, we've put, you know, endless hours, effort to getting to reach whatever that pinnacle is. And then it doesn't live up to be what we think it is, does it? And so then we get off this ladder and we're just like, oh, no, the problem is I just need to get a different ladder. It needs to be taller and I'm not going to do that because that will really freak someone out.
[00:13:42] But you feel like I need to, I'll just climb a different ladder. I was on the wrong ladder. I'm going to get it right this time. I need a new job or I need a new spouse, I need group friends, I need new live, new place, whatever. I'll just change something else about, but I'll just keep chasing, chasing, chasing and it starts at the Thanksgiving table. Did you realize that?
[00:14:00] Some of you guys know, right? I grew up one of those houses at the Thanksgiving table, right? There was the nice grandma table, right?
[00:14:05] Nice table settings, all the nice fine china, you know? And then what's at the end of the nice table?
[00:14:14] The kids table, right? Y' all know, right? So there's the people who can handle that, you know, nice thing, you know, the lazy Susan thing, the spun, you know, and you got the nice. That's how I grew up, you know? And then there's like the card table, man. Like, it's living on its last leg, literally, right? And it's got like the stained up tablecloth.
[00:14:33] Cause they're like, the kids are gonna use this, right? And when you're a kid, that's awesome, right? Some of you guys are like, what's wrong with the kids table? And there's nothing wrong with the kids table, right?
[00:14:40] But I remember the moment, and I wonder if you've had this moment too. Like, you're sitting at the kids table and there's some year it happens where you're like cutting your turkey and you're like, how do I get there, right? Like, I'm way too mature and cool for this table. Like, the little cousins are throwing food. You're like, dude, I'm not here. Like, I want to get to that table, right? Like you're trying to plot your advancement at that table, right? And you're like. And you're trying to listen to conversation chime in or whatever. Like. Or the next year, you're like, well, maybe I'll get one seat closer, right? Maybe next year, okay? Now I'm 18. I'm an adult. I can get to the table, right? And then you get to the table and you realize, like, it's like some weird uncle talking about something you don't want to hear about, right? You know, and you're like, this is kind of boring. Can I go back to the kids table?
[00:15:24] All of us, all of us, from the Thanksgiving table to the holiday table, to your work, your life, we all have these ladders that we think if I could just climb and get there, man, it's going to be better.
[00:15:40] And I've climbed ladders. There's ladders that I'm tempted to climb every single day.
[00:15:47] It just. It's a way for us to measure our status.
[00:15:50] It's a way to make myself feel good, to make myself feel more important.
[00:15:55] I worry about my interests. And I think, oh, if I just could get there, then. Then I, God, if you just. God, if you just give me this one thing, if I could just get that promo, then I'll be happy, right? Or whatever it might be.
[00:16:08] And then it just kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And if that stings, it stung the Philippians too. I hope you know that this is a human problem. It's not a 21st century problem. It was. It was just as much a problem in the first century right here in Philippines. Philippi, right? Cause they were dealing with the same thing. Paul actually says in a few verses later, he says, hey, I'm gonna send my. The best of the best. I'm gonna send Timothy's near and dear to me. Because he needs to pastor you guys through this. Because he says in verse 20 and 21 that everybody is dealing with their own self interests. That's how he says it. He says, that's like an epidemic in this church. And you know what? It can be an epidemic in our hearts too.
[00:16:45] I think we'd be naive to think, oh, no, we got that covered. We figured that out.
[00:16:49] Because in their world, in their Greco Roman world, even their religion was set up. You know, if you look at the Pantheon or mythology, it was very much a ladder. It's like all these stories about this God's trying to take over this God and then, you know, they're gonna reach the Pantheon, right? Reach the top.
[00:17:04] Like, even the idea of humility wasn't a virtue in this society. It was looked at as like weakness and brokenness. Like, ew. Why would you want to be humble?
[00:17:13] Why would you lay down your life for anything?
[00:17:16] And I hope you're starting to see the countercultural nature of Christianity, right? When a group of people, and our Savior was one who humbled himself.
[00:17:25] But I gotta ask, if it's the same, then the same now, are we following some other version of who God is? Right? Cause it's very easy to put the American dream or follow kind of very much an ancient way of looking at the world as it's really about advancement, not about humility.
[00:17:45] What does Paul say? I think the crux of this passage is in verse 5, he says this in your relationship. So as this gets lived out, right? He's talking about the body. Those around us in your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Jesus Christ.
[00:18:03] Here's where I think we get wrong, right? Some of you guys wanted to jump right into the parking lot. Let me just leave early because I just need to try and be.
[00:18:10] And I think what Paul's making a Point is, if we have any chance of that at all, at first, we have to put the same mindset as Christ. Humility is first. It isn't a behavior, it's. It's a posture. It's a heart posture.
[00:18:25] Humility is a chance for us to.
[00:18:28] It changes the way we see ourselves, but also how we view others.
[00:18:35] Some of us wrestle with the idea of just, I don't feel like I'm seen, I don't feel like I'm enough or whatever narrative was taught to you as a kid or growing up. And so you feel like I have to climb the ladder cause I gotta be self important because no one sees me.
[00:18:51] Or some of us, we, maybe it's the other way we think, we feel so lowly of ourselves, we think we have nothing to offer that we just wanna hide.
[00:19:00] But see, humility is a right understanding of who we are and in the sight of God, right? It's a mindset that actually Paul says, some versions say that we, we have. He says, put on, put this on in Christ, right? It's actually something we already, if you've been a knee to Jesus, if you've said yes to him, we actually already possess this. It's like if you were to give me a Christmas present, I go, oh, thank you. This is so great.
[00:19:25] And then I do nothing with it and just put it in a closet to regift it later, right?
[00:19:31] Did I really use that gift?
[00:19:33] No, I just go, oh, thank you. And then I don't do anything with it. And when Paul's trying to say, hey, no, if you have one with Christ, if you've said yes to him, then put on the mind of Christ like you already possess everything in you to do this because of who he is, right? So Paul then takes us on this journey of. It's a gift that we have to try to put into use. Does that make sense?
[00:19:56] And then he goes into the rest of this passage describing who Jesus is and what he is like.
[00:20:04] And just to remind you one more time, our Savior is not one who climbed the ladder, he's the one who descended the ladder, right? He did not consider equality with God something to be used of his own.
[00:20:20] He made himself nothing.
[00:20:22] He became a servant. He took on human likeness. He humbled himself.
[00:20:28] He became obedient to death, even to death on a humiliating cross.
[00:20:33] Do you notice the verbs in there?
[00:20:36] Humility's not stagnant. Jesus is humble, right? He's the goat, as the kids would say, right?
[00:20:45] And Jesus sits here. He's in the Penthouse. He's in the suite. He has every reason to stay here. This is who he is. This is where Jesus belongs.
[00:20:55] But yet, because of his love for us and obedience to the Father, he humbles himself.
[00:21:01] And humility is supposed to be a movement downward. It's a descent. And that's who Jesus is. That's what we're about to celebrate in the next few weeks.
[00:21:10] It's a descent downward humility. It moves, it descends and it acts. We can't say, oh, I'm a humble person and do nothing about it.
[00:21:18] I would argue whoever that person you imagined at the beginning, their life is a life in action.
[00:21:24] It is so countercultural to me that Jesus didn't create God's will or he didn't accomplish God's will by asserting his power. He actually lowered himself down. Isn't that interesting?
[00:21:36] And this is where we reach this staggering reality that Jesus, he laid down his status for you and I and for those we'd want to invite to Christmas Eve services.
[00:21:49] He had every reason to cling to privilege, to stay here, and yet he said no.
[00:21:56] He laid that aside for you and I.
[00:21:58] He had all the reason and the power to avoid all suffering and difficulty in this world. You know, he did. He willingly embraced it. He actually entered into humanity to know what it means to feel hunger, thirsty, fatigue, weakness and vulnerability.
[00:22:14] It's the upside down kingdom of God, and we get to be a living by man. And Jesus is consistent with his message. He says, if you're going to follow me, then your life has to be a life of descent too. And that's the hard part. Pill to swallow, right, that we're not meant to look like the world where all we do is try to get up into the right. And man, God's going to bless everything I do, and it's going to be perfect. And no pain and no suffering. No, that's. Jesus actually says the opposite.
[00:22:41] He says, if you're going to pick up your cross daily, you're going to follow me.
[00:22:45] Those who lose their life will find it. That's what he promises.
[00:22:50] So let's move from scary ladders and the theoretical and let's move into the very practical reality of how do we practice humility in real rooms that you're going to find yourself in today and throughout this week and in this Christmas season.
[00:23:05] It was Tim Keller who once said, he says that there is nothing more relaxing than humility.
[00:23:09] And I think he's right.
[00:23:11] I think he's right.
[00:23:13] There's nothing more relaxing than humility.
[00:23:16] It's like a breath of fresh air. And I think this is true. Because you know what? Pride is exhausting, right?
[00:23:21] Pride tells me I gotta take one more step no matter what, even if I don't want to do. And whoever's in the way, I gotta step over them to get over top of them, right? That's exhausting.
[00:23:32] This ladder is endless self improvement in itself, while it's all for, you know, working out and all that stuff. But performance, if it's based on trying to earn your right with either people or God, performance is exhausting, right? Status, management, whatever, you gotta be the newest, greatest and wonderful in line. And what everybody, if you have to be everything that everybody thinks about you, man, that is exhausting.
[00:23:55] And Jesus offers us a different path, a more human path, a not necessarily easier, but it is a more restful one. It's who he is.
[00:24:04] And so this morning, I want to leave you, in the moments I have left with you, with just how humiliated when we actually follow Jesus path. Like, hear me out. He's the one who's done this, right? He's paved the way for us. We just get to follow his example, right? We're just tracing the outline of what he's done for us. That's what Paul's saying. This is who he is. This is what we get to duplicate.
[00:24:26] But here is what humility, when it's lived in us, when it's not just in theory or just a hopeful thing, but when we follow his model, here's how it changes us and changes us around us. First, humility changes where you place yourself.
[00:24:40] Humility changes where you place yourself.
[00:24:43] You know, Jesus told this really interesting story in Luke 14. He's watching a dinner party, and in his society, people were coming to eat. And there's religious people, and there's people big to dos. Um, and they're kind of. They're all jockeying for table spots, right? It's their Thanksgiving table, and they all want the seat of honor. And it seems like Jesus is kind of watching it. And he's like, interesting, you know? And he tells this very interesting story. He watches and he basically says, hey, it's way better to like sit in a place of low and then be raised up, right? So don't take the seat of honor.
[00:25:14] He's like. Cause it's way more embarrassing if someone comes over you says, psst, you're in my seat, right? Someone did that to you in church today. They're like, you're in my seat. Get out, move. No, I'm just Kidding. We don't want to be that, right? But I grew up one of those churches that was okay, like you knew, like, like, oh man, just feel the eyes in the back of your head if you sat in so and so's seat, you know, but this is what Jesus is making it really clear like, like, hey, don't be the person that's always jockeying for that top seat. And he says it this way. He says, those who exalt themselves will be humble and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
[00:25:48] One is, we gotta be kind of embarrassed sometimes. We say we get humbled. No one wants to get humbled. But if we humble ourselves, there's a chance for him to actually do something with that. So when I ask you, you will find yourselves in rooms this week, whether it be your home, your place of work, with roommates, a restaurant, that maybe you're going to have lunch after this. When you walk in a room, where do you sit?
[00:26:15] Do you go to the front and center?
[00:26:18] Do you try to make yourself known?
[00:26:20] The party's here, right?
[00:26:22] Big personality, I'm just who I am. That's great.
[00:26:26] Or maybe you're the person that just snuck in here this morning in an invisible corner.
[00:26:33] Maybe you just don't want to be seen at all. You don't want anybody to know really where you're at.
[00:26:38] Do you enter the rooms? You find yourself to be seen or to serve the interests of others. I love how Pastor Jim Keenan has said it. He says, do you enter in a place saying, God, who's there for us to love today?
[00:26:52] Whether that be your family, your roommates, your co workers, the Christmas party, the store you go into.
[00:27:02] This came really personal to me a few years ago. My wife, while she was practicing her Jedi counseling skills on me, I remember her. I vividly remember this. It was years ago, but I remember her asking this question. She says, logan, when you walk in a room, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Or like, what's kind of going behind it? And we were kind of like working through that and I was like, ah.
[00:27:23] I was like, I think I probably like when I walk in a room, I probably think like, man, I want people to like me. So I want to like make connections so that like I'm going to make you like me now in an innocent way. That could be okay. But what that meant is really, it's really a self serving interest, right? I'm not really coming in to love someone. I'm coming in to, to hopefully like, hey, I'm gonna make this connection then like you, you affirm me in some way. And like, the more I thought about it, I'm like, that's not who I wanna be.
[00:27:48] And so yes, I could be good at talking to people, but like I don't wanna do it. So they feel like, oh, they've filled something in my cup that's not good. And the same could be said if someone walks in the room and you're just comparing yourself. You're like, what does everybody think of me in here, right? Like that's very self serving too. You're not worried about anybody else, you're worried about yourself.
[00:28:07] I think that's the opposite of what Jesus wants us to do. He wants us to enter rooms, to love others.
[00:28:13] Second way humility changes is it changes what we talk about, doesn't it?
[00:28:17] What we talk about.
[00:28:19] Paul later writes in First Thessalonians, he says, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, a life of simplicity, not of grand gestures of just always explaining the newest and greatest thing. And all of us do this, right? We all have things that we're passionate about talking about. And we will talk about it nonstop, whether it's cold plunging, the carnivore diet.
[00:28:44] Have you seen stranger things? Did you binge it this weekend? Right? The PRs that you hit, whatever it is. But humility will teach us if we're really going to follow Jesus model. You notice Jesus is always asking questions, isn't he? And it seems that people are always trying to draw things out of Jesus. And Jesus taught lots of things, but it's often after someone asked him a question or he's often telling people, hey, like you know, he's just, he's observing things. He, he's, he's never about his own self promotion. He actually tells people not to talk about him. Sometimes he's like, hey, don't tell anybody I healed you. And it's like that seems counterintuitive, right? But he, Jesus actually tries to pull it back. He says it's not my time, right? He tells his own mother that it's not my time to, for people to know what's going on here, right? And so what I would ask is, is that we would change what we talk about, right? Cause when we show up in these spaces, often we are, we're bringing conversation. We either we talk about the things that we're passionate about and that comes out very easily for us, but. Or we could follow Jesus model and be more curious about other people. When you enter those rooms do you ask good questions? Do you get to know the people in you? Or do you just talk about the thing that you want to talk about?
[00:29:51] It might be a sign that God wants to do something else in your life.
[00:29:55] In one way, that this has kind of become true for me. And it's from our church history, but it's actually the practice of secrecy. Now when I say that it sounds weird. You're probably thinking like secrecy, keeping secrets. No, what I simply mean is this.
[00:30:08] There's a history in our faith of just doing good things. And get this, telling no one about it.
[00:30:16] Don't Instagram about it, don't virtue signal.
[00:30:21] Don't go like, hey, I'm at the, you know, selfie at the food bank. Or no, I'm all for charity, I'm all for philanthropy. You just don't have to tell anybody about it. Okay, what if this week simply, you were able to live out your faith in a quiet way, and I pray that God would give you before you even leave here today, give you a real person to love, some room that you know you're going to enter in and just find a way to maybe bless them and hear me out. Don't tell anybody about it. Don't email me, don't even tell your friends. Cause you know what it is, there's something in us that we wanna, we want credit, right?
[00:30:58] We want credit for it. We wanna be able to say, hey, I did that.
[00:31:02] And just let that act of just saying, hey, this is between me and the Lord. Let it detox you of your need to feel noticed, right? That's what secrecy does for us. And lastly, this humility, it changes what we worship more and more. I am so a firm believer that whatever we behold, we become.
[00:31:26] And humility. Remember Paul's saying in this passage, don't think about your self interest, but think about the interest of others. Self interest, That's a self worship. If I just think about just me all the time, I'm just really beholding myself.
[00:31:39] It's this world centered around me, you know? What Paul's trying to say is you can be in Christ, but you gotta get your head out of the sand a little bit and look at those around us and become this embodiment, you know, it's interesting that when I say it changes what we worship because this passage, this verses 6 through 11, it was actually known as the Christ Hymn. Did you know this is actually one of the first worship songs for the new church?
[00:32:04] Like Paul's actually referring to one of the first songs that's why it's kind of tabbed over in your Bible. Maybe you're like, why is it done that? Why is it like that? Cause it was meant to be a song that was sung by the believers, right? Many couldn't read. They didn't have access to the scrolls or these letters from Paul. So how would they learn who Jesus was? How would they learn it? Well, they would sing it and they would like sing Jesus into their imagination of this is who Jesus is.
[00:32:33] They would try to sing it over and over again. That's why we corporately sing songs together. Why? Because you know what, we tend to, to let our eyes drift, don't we?
[00:32:42] The things I. I'm thinking on and resonating on, that's actually where my attention goes.
[00:32:47] And Paul knew this, and Jesus knew this. We need to sing him into our imagination. This is why, I think later in Hebrews 12, the author says, to fix our eyes on Jesus who enjoy, who endured the cross for the joy set before him. Why? Because so that we will not grow weary and, and lose heart.
[00:33:06] Right? When we don't fix our eyes on Jesus, we tend to lose heart and we go back to the status management and the climbing the ladder and starting to try to put ourself in the seat of honor.
[00:33:16] But humility moves us towards. When I make that downward mobility, I actually move myself to worship. Not myself, not some future idea or maybe someone who I think's really reached those status, but actually Jesus, the one who is the one on the cross for you and I.
[00:33:33] And I can't think of a better expression this morning than communion.
[00:33:39] I can't think of a better way for us to worship and kick off this Christmas Advent season by worshiping together with our, with our. Not just with our minds and our hearts, but also our bodies. And if you remember when Jesus, he knew this, he knew our hearts would drift of our love for him. That's why he with his first disciples, you know what he said?
[00:33:58] He says he took the bread and he broke it. And he says, this is my body broken for you.
[00:34:04] Eat this in remembrance of me.
[00:34:08] And say he took the cup and passed it around. He says, this is my blood that was poured out for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And we do that so that we will remind ourselves of a humble savior, of one who entered our story, who embraced humanity, who came into our story. Who knows what it's like to walk into the mundane of your Monday tomorrow.
[00:34:31] Whatever conflict or lack of humility you might find with your co workers or your family or whatever it might be.
[00:34:41] And Jesus knows that. And so he gave us communion so that we remember him.
[00:34:46] And I can't think of a greater act of humility than laying your life down for you and I.
[00:34:53] And that's what Jesus does. He invites us to do, to remember again, to remember again, remember who he is. The fact that he did that willingly for us, it's a way for us to fix our eyes and to really get humility in us. And even us walking forward, what we're about to do here in a few minutes, when we walk forward down the right side, what we're doing is we're saying, I mean, think about this. There's going to be hundreds of people who stand up here in a few minutes and say, this doesn't save us. But. But it's reminding us of our need for a Savior. And I'm in need of a savior today just as much as the first time I ever said yes to Jesus.
[00:35:24] I don't get to some place I'm like, you know what? I'm doing pretty good.
[00:35:27] I think I got this whole thing figured out. Life's life's cherry, man. I'm good. No, I'm in desperate need of Jesus today. And I think us just even standing up and walking down here and saying, that is his body that was broken, his blood that was poured out. For me, that's me.
[00:35:42] It's humility in worship, right? It's just saying, God, I need you.
[00:35:47] I know there's someone here this morning that you're just realizing like you've maybe never said yes to Jesus. You've never even. And I would just invite you at the end of our service, just there will be time for prayer at the either side. Maybe just let these songs as they play, just think of the words that are being said. And I just want us to all corporately just worship together. It's really an act of humility together.
[00:36:08] That's what this is. That's what communion gets to be. It's an act of humility together. We're all saying, man, whatever side of town you come from, whichever political party you affiliate yourself with, however you drove here, whatever car, whatever tax bracket, we are all in need of Jesus.
[00:36:24] That's right there in Philippians. That's what Paul's calling us to, to be united by our need for Jesus.
[00:36:32] So when we come down here, you go to come down the right side.
[00:36:35] These are all gluten free options this week, so good luck for the gluten free people. You're good. We got you covered.
[00:36:42] We're dippers, not sippers. So dip your communion.
[00:36:45] But really what I ask, don't rush. We got plenty of time to worship Jesus and remember our humble Savior.
[00:36:54] Would you pray with me, Jesus? I can't help but just thank you this morning for your humble act of coming to be with us. And you could have come in any form and fashion, Lord, but you didn't come as some great emperor or king or put yourself in status. You were born in a lowly stable.
[00:37:16] You were a refugee. You had to flee for your life.
[00:37:22] It says you had man of no reputation, Lord, you were humble.
[00:37:28] That you put aside all the prestige that you could have had. You had every reason to be the biggest personality and the biggest person in the room. And yet you often found yourself sitting at the kids table.
[00:37:38] You sat with those that no one wanted to sit with. You loved those who no one wanted to love.
[00:37:43] And Lord, you invite us to do the exact same thing. And so, God, what would it look like if Journey Church if us personally, it started this morning where we actually became that embodiment. We became humility in action, Lord. And we didn't have to get praised for it. We didn't have to point anything. And anything that anybody would ask us why, we just say it's because Jesus did it first.
[00:38:04] Lord, help us do good.
[00:38:06] Not to be seen by man, but to be be seen by you.
[00:38:09] And that's good enough.
[00:38:11] And so, Lord, as we respond and worship in communion, will we just take this communion just as knowing, Knowing that you went humbly before us and it was joy for you to go before us, that you went to the cross with joy in your heart, not begrudgingly. You didn't come down that ladder begrudgingly. You did it with joy in your heart because you love us.
[00:38:31] And so we do these things in your name.
[00:38:33] Amen.
