You should be turning your Bibles to Matthew 11 as we begin tonight on the subject of humility. I'll be speaking on this subject tonight, first side of your handout, and then tomorrow morning after breakfast, the back side of your handout. So hold on to your handouts tonight. And then tomorrow night, Pastor Sean Laughlin is going to teach. Friday morning we'll have Joe Guggenberger from the Cities teaching, and then Friday night Kurt Witzig, and then Dave Knutson Saturday morning. So this is going to be eclectic. There's no theme per se. Hopefully the topics we each pick will not overlap with one another. And even if they do, let's take that from the Lord. That means we all needed to hear something twice, right? Like that's never been true in our Christian life before, right? So that's sort of the game plan here. And you may notice this year something a little different too, we hope. The messages are intended to be shorter. That's why I'm taking the front side tonight, back side tomorrow, whereas in years past we would teach through the whole thing. And we just got together as pastors and thought, you know what, we get so much Bible teaching throughout the year, and it gets harder for the younger kids to just sit through all this teaching. We thought, let's just cut back. Not that we're compromising the word of God at all, but we just think sometimes it would be better to hear less and apply more. And even for kids to get more by hearing less. So that's our perspective. So in case you're seeing 30 or 40 minute messages and you're shocked, there was actually some rhyme and reason behind that. But even as I say that, let's just see if that actually happens, right? I know exactly what you're thinking. Yes. Don't worry. I'm a doubting Thomas in that regard tonight, too. So let's just hope for the best here. Well, as you can see from your handout, the topic is going to be something that I think is pertinent to everybody in this room. If it isn't, then I'm Donald Trump. It is pertinent to all of us, even if you don't think it is. You know, I was really tempted just as a joke to title the message something like this. How to conquer pride and master humility by an expert. Yeah, you see the point, don't you? None of us are experts in this area of humility. And we all have a problem with pride. It's part of our human nature, right? So that's why this certainly applies. to all of us. I'm certainly not an expert in this by any means, and I'm growing just like you are in this area. I trust, hopefully, and this is something the Lord wants to be true in all of our lives. But you know who the standard is? You know who the expert is in this area? It's none of us in this room, including your teacher right now. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the master of this subject of humility, and that's why I want to begin with Him tonight. Matthew chapter 11, let's read those famous verses, verses 28 through 30. Christ says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. And doesn't that apply to everyone under the curse on this earth? Yeah. That means everyone. Everyone come to Christ. And I believe that's a salvation invitation in verse 28. We come to Christ by faith. and we receive Him as our Savior. And thereafter, we are to follow Him. And that's why He goes on to say, And I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Are you looking for rest here tonight? I am. I could sure use some spiritual rest, maybe even a little physical too. That's why it's nice to be here for some R&R. But the Lord Jesus, Provides this spiritual rest as we come to Him. 4 verse 30, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. He's not a heavy taskmaster. We know that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth and spiritual rest comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why as we think of this subject of humility, we're going to start with the Master tonight, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He actually has an invitation to spiritual rest here in these verses. And we see that He is the premier example of a true man of God, the Son of God Himself. Everyone here in this room is a man, and therefore the example we have as a man to follow is Jesus Christ. But I want you to notice something in this passage too that maybe you haven't really thought of before. I know it's not something I typically think of when I look at these verses. And that is that there's an implicit invitation here, not just to come to Him, but to do what? What's the second thing here? Come to Me. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me. Learn from Me. Learn from Me. You ever think of these verses in the context of learning from Christ? Now I come to these verses desperate for some spiritual rest usually. And they do teach that. But He also says here, learn from Me. And what is it that we can learn about the Lord Jesus from this passage? Well, what is He like? He is gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. What can we learn from Him in this passage? He describes Himself as meek. The King James Version has meek here. The New King James has gentle. The idea is of gentleness, but it's the idea of a fruit of the Spirit, gentleness, But really, it's power or strength under control. That's what meekness or gentleness is here in this context. And it also says here that we can learn from Him in terms of being lowly in heart. And when you stop and think of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is He? Well, He's the Savior who died for the sins of the world, including yours. It's true. But He is also the Creator and Lord of all. He put the universe in place. That means He has all power. He's omnipotent and omniscient in all the omnis as we think of that. He's great in that regard. And so how amazing and almost paradoxical that He would describe Himself as lowly as well. Wow! A God so mighty and yet so lowly, in heart anyway, Do you know the God we serve is a God of humility? Sometimes we don't think of it that way, and you listen to atheists online, and they'll say, oh, the God of the Bible is just this prideful being. He wants to be worshiped and exalted. Yeah, and you know why? Because He's worthy, and He's the only one worthy. But at heart, God is humble. He is a giving, sacrificial God. And He's patient with us. Isn't that a demonstration of lowliness? He condescends to be patient with us and doesn't squish us like a bug. Yeah. And on top of it, blesses us beyond measure. So this is something we can learn from the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is meek and lowly in heart. He is our premier example. Now, as we think of the master of humility, we're going to see him as our standard or example. But let's talk about the meaning of genuine humility as well. What does it mean to be humble? Well, let's start with a dictionary definition. This is from Webster's Dictionary. It defines humility as having or showing a consciousness of one's shortcomings, being modest, lowly, unpretentious. And just like the Lord Jesus, when it said of Him that He is lowly in heart, the definition describes humility as being lowly as well, not puffed up, not exalted. And you know, as I think of being lowly, I can't help but think of when I was a kid. I played football when I was a kid for several years, and we had these drills that we had to go through. The best drills to teach kids to play football is to stay low. And we've used this theme kind of among men through the years here at Duluth Bible and at these camping trips. You've probably heard it said many times that when it comes to your walk with the Lord, he wants you to stay low. And I learned that in football, too, that they would have back, you know, in this picture, they have aluminum bars. But when I was playing, guess what? steel bars that were all rusty, you know. They sat out in the field all year and when the football teams came along, you know, you'd get down in your three-point stance, blow the whistle, and immediately what would kids do? They'd pop almost straight up. That's your tendency. Because that's what you've been doing your whole life. But they want to teach you to stay low as you move forward. And if you can stay lower, you've got an advantage over the other man. But I remember I would go through those I'd get down there, and right away I'd pop up and bang my head on that steel bar. And I had to learn the hard way to get your butt down. In fact, I remember watching my son in Milwaukee when he started playing tackle football. And they had some really competitive programs down there in Milwaukee. The coaches would just be yelling at these kids. And I remember just standing there on the sidelines watching as a dad. And the coach was saying, Stegall, get your butt down! So yeah, that played pretty well at home, too, after that. Stay low, John. But what a great lesson, spiritually. You see the analogy? Here's another slide. You recognize the guy on the left here? Who is it? The guy in the Cleveland Browns running back? It's the famous Jim Brown, right? Some people say he was the best running back of all time. though he doesn't have the most yards of any running back and he's been eclipsed that way. But had he played longer, some people say he would have been the best. As a pure running back, they say he was the best. He was big, he was nimble, and he was ferocious. He played running back with a linebacker's mentality, from what I've been told. He was a little before my time, but I certainly have a lot of respect for Jim Brown. But anybody know who the guy on the right is? You recognize him? If you're from Milwaukee, you might know who this is, or Wisconsin. You know who it is? Coley? Not Ron Ding. Good guess, though. The Dane train. Do you know? Aaron Rodgers. You know what? I love that answer. I'm about to use this guy in a pretty negative way. Aaron Rodgers, yeah. Could be. But this is John Clay. That's his name. I'll just tell you a little story about John Clay. I was living in Milwaukee at the time that John Clay was a high school running back. He was a high school phenom. out of Racine, Wisconsin, just down there in, maybe it was Kenosha, might have been Kenosha, which is actually closer to Illinois. And so the Chicago papers would write about him, Milwaukee papers would write about him, and they were describing him as the next Jim Brown. He had all that talent, they said. And that's why it was just big news when this home state boy decided to go play for the Wisconsin Badgers. And you know, they couldn't wait to see him get a chance to run the ball as a Badger. And you know what? He was a good running back for the Badgers. But he wasn't excellent. He was no Dane train. And he went on to play in the pros, but not as a starter, not even as a backup. He was on the practice squad for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He never really made it in the NFL. And you know what his problem was? He was an... I don't know. Could have been. Could have been a pride problem. But physically, he was an upright runner. He couldn't get low. And you can kind of see that in the picture. He just couldn't get low. And I remember reading the description of him in high school, this phenom saying, you know, he's only got one flaw in his game, and that's that he runs upright. But you know what? When he gets to college, they can fix that. Guess what? Never got fixed. He got to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Never got fixed. And guess what? He never saw the field. But I think that's a great spiritual analogy for each of us, that we need to stay low. You know, it doesn't matter what your natural talent or ability is for the Lord. The world might look at you and think, wow, if that guy, you know, he's really something. And in the Christian world, we might say, boy, if that guy ever got saved and became part of the church, wow, could the Lord really use him? No. You know what the Lord delights to use? The foolish things of this world, right? Those who walk humbly before their God. Those are the people he uses. Whether John Clay was proud or not, I don't know. Let's not judge him. I don't know his heart. But I think you get the point. Now here's something else we need to remember about the meaning of humility, that we shouldn't define humility from the world's point of view. You know, the world can have a perspective on what humility is, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a biblical perspective. Having a proper biblical perspective of yourself before God, that's humility. Because we can have a wrong perspective of ourself where we think we're humble, but we're really not. Somebody asked me just before we started this, looking at the title of the handout, can you be proud about your humility? I don't know what that's like. I can't relate to that. Of course we can, right? You can be proud about being humble. You can think you're humble and then get proud about it. That's our flesh as well. That's why I like this old Pace diagram. If you look carefully here, what does it say right below the guy's head? Everyone that is proud in heart. We can see ourself in one way, But God sees us, here's the reflection of what we really are in the mirror of His Word. You know what it says down here? As the Word of God pictures Him. And what does it say right here in the little shimmering of the waves? Can you read that upside down? Is an abomination to the Lord. I'll just put a marker here. We'll come back to the New Testament. Look at Proverbs 16 for a moment. Proverbs 16, in verse 5, that's the verse that's quoted right up there in that picture. It says, everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. So we might think we're really humble by human standards, by our own standard, but if it doesn't line up with the Word of God's understanding of humility, it's actually an abomination to the Lord. Because we can think we're humble, but actually be proud about it. And we know that pride stinks before the Lord. You see, by nature, the Word of God tells us, Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Ecclesiastes 7.20, there's not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. Romans 7.18, for I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. And we need to keep that perspective of who we are by nature so that we see ourselves as constant recipients of God's grace. By nature, there's a huge chasm between us and God. We should let God be the standard of measurement when it comes to true humility. For we are every day in need of Jesus Christ and the cross. And His work, I'm thankful, applies to us each day as well. Now, as we think of what genuine humility is not, I say this because The world sometimes has these concepts of humility, and I grew up a Roman Catholic, so I'm pretty familiar with this example right here. And I actually went to Catholic seminary for a while. One year, that was it, and I wasn't saved, but fortunately the Lord got me out of there soon. But had I gone on to my fourth year, I would have been required to take temporary vows. before you become a priest after a minimum of eight years, then you take your permanent vows. See, they don't want to invest in you for further training in years five through eight if you don't take your temporary vows. And what are those vows? Of celibacy, obedience to the bishop, and poverty. You vow to let the church just provide whatever it decides to give you. But there are some, not diocesan priests, but They call these priests of orders. And here, I don't know what these are, if they're Franciscans or Dominicans or what, but they're part of an order of priests. And they're like monks, and they live off of whatever people provide for them. They're beggars. And there's a mentality with this particular type of monk or priest that says, you're more humble if you just beg for everything that comes to you, and you live with virtually nothing. And so they walk around and they make a show of their so-called humility and piety. And you know what they end up doing? They end up drawing attention to themselves. And that's really just plain out pride. Reminds me of a story I heard about Socrates back in ancient Greece. There was a guy named Antisthenes, I think I'm pronouncing that right, who thought he was humble and Socrates saw right through him. And he called him out one day and he said, Antisthenes, I can see your vanity. And Antisthenes said, how? How do you judge me like that? And then Socrates said, because I can see it coming through the holes in your cloak. He had put on this poor, poor garb as a outward show of humility when in fact his pride was seeping through. You know what? We can be like that too, right? We can look like we're humble on the outside, But on the inside, we don't have a grace perspective. And thus, we're proud. Here's another one maybe you can relate to. As we think of pride and humility. You ever had the kind of woe is me attitude? I can't do this. I can't do anything. I'm just a failure. Oh, you're so humble. No, you're not. You're full of yourself. Did you hear all the I's? I, I, I, I. Why did you think you could do it in the first place? I thought that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You should have had that attitude. It's kind of like stopping with 2 Corinthians 3.5. I am not sufficient of myself to think anything is of myself. Woe is me. I'm just not sufficient. If we stop there, that's pride. The Lord wants us to go on to verse 6, which says what? Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. but our sufficiency is of God who has made us able ministers. And to not lay hold by faith of the ability that God gives us is pride. To grovel in our feigned humility is actually pride. It's perverted humility. And really, it's Paul in Romans 7. Remember when you read that chapter, what did he have? He had an eye problem, right? I can't do this and I can't do that. No, you can't. But Christ can do it in and through you if you would yield to him in light of your identification in him. So that's the meaning of genuine humility. Let's move on to the mandate here. The mandate we have when it comes to humility. Is humility absolutely necessary among all God's creatures? Yes. It's mandated because of his character and glory. It's mandated simply because of who he is by his own character and his glory. Now, you've seen this PowerPoint slide of God's attributes many times, right? You've probably got it memorized by now. And we're not going to go around the three sides and name them all. But do you see glory here anywhere on the attributes? I thought the Bible says God is a glorious God. Why don't we have glorious on here? Ever wonder about that? What is God's glory? Why isn't it on here? God's glory is something unique from his other attributes in this respect. That all of his other attributes of sovereignty, justice, righteousness, so forth, all contribute to His glory. His glory is something that is a composite of all His other attributes that set God apart to make Him unique so that there's none like Him, that makes Him uniquely worthy of worship. That's His glory. And that's why it's not one of these attributes per se. I guess you could say that His glory is a composite of His other attributes in that respect. What does it say in Isaiah 42.8? God says, don't steal my glory. I am the Lord, that is my name and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images, i.e. idols. Idols. You know, we have a tendency by nature to rob God of His glory, don't we? Think of Satan. Who was the first one to rob God of His glory or attempt to rob God of His glory? Let's put it that way. Lucifer, right? Isaiah 14, what does it say there? Remember the five I wills? Satan says, I will do this and I will do that. And one of his five I wills is, I will be like the Most High God. And why was that an attempt at robbery? Because none is like God. No one's like Him. He's unique. He's set apart. He's distinct. None of us will be like Him in that regard. He's the only one worthy. That's why He's qualified uniquely to be worshiped. And what does Satan ultimately want? He wants other people to think well of Him, to worship Him. That's why it describes in the end time when the Antichrist comes on the scene, what is He going to demand that the whole world do? Worship Him. He is a prideful being. And you know what, dear brothers in Christ? At times we can all be little Satans ourselves, right? Look at me! Instead of, look at Christ. To Him be the glory, right? That's why when it comes to what the Lord wants of us, what does it say in Micah 6, 8, great verse? He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? We know that the walk of faith is a walk of humility. When we see ourself in light of who God is, and by comparison, we know that we stay down here, right? That's why I like what Andrew Murray said years ago. He actually had a very helpful little booklet on the subject of humility. He said, humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is from the very nature of things the first duty and highest virtue of the creature. The creature, the duck out on the water, the fish under the water, the birds in the air, the eagle up in a nest, they're all dependent on their creator, right? should we think that way as well. We oftentimes think that, oh, I don't need this and I don't need that. The fact is, even the unsaved live in absolute dependence upon the One who created him and the creation all around them. You take the most independent man on planet earth, you know, the guy who can figure out anything in any situation. The Harry Houdini, the Swiss Army knife guy, you know, the MacGyver guy, the brilliant guy, the resourceful guy. You take the best guy on planet Earth like that today, and you go put him on the planet Venus. Drop him on there and see how he does. I guarantee you he will be out of his league when it comes to resourcefulness, which shows you that all of us on this planet are ultimately dependent on who? Our creator, right? We owe everything to him. And so the first duty of every creature from the amoeba to the elephant in mankind is to stay humble and rest upon our Creator. The opposite of humility as well is pride, of course. And this is something that God says He hates, and it's an abomination to Him. Now, it says this flat out. Another passage that you already know, Proverbs 6, 16 and 17. These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him, and the very first thing mentioned is a proud look. Proud look, because pride robs God of the glory that is due to Him. And guess what? When it comes to being proud, if you want to be proud, what do you have to do? We're all masters at it. Give me some suggestions. What do you have to do to be proud? Be yourself. Who said that? That was good. You should be proud of that answer, Josh. You just have to do nothing. You're just born into this world a sinner, right? From birth. A child of Adam. Thanks to Adam, we're all prideful, sinful beings. but thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ who gives us victory and shows us to learn from him, to walk in humility and have victory over pride. So what are all believers commanded to do with respect to humility? Since we don't have it by nature, we are to put it on like clothing, Colossians 3.12. As the elect of God, holy, beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering. Put it on. And 1 Peter 5.5, likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Boy, that takes grace, doesn't it? Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility. For God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. All of you be submissive to one another. You know, there is a sense in which, though there is a chain of command in terms of authority in every sphere of life, But there is a sense in which even those who are in leadership positions are to submit to people under them, too, in a sense. You know what it is? It's those who are entrusted with more responsibility and greater authority should be greater servants as well, have a servant's mentality. Because even our spiritual head, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, came not to be served, but to serve and to give himself a ransom for all. What an example. By the way, I can see you're all clothed here tonight. Thank God. That wouldn't be pretty, would it? Me too. But let me ask you, did you leave home today without the clothes of humility? We just read two passages that said, put it on like a garment. So did you put it on today? By seeing yourself before God in light of who you are by nature and in Christ by his grace. I think due to time sake, I've already exceeded my 30 minutes. We're pushing 40 here. And I think this would be a great place to cap it off. We've seen the master's invitation. to be humble before him and learn from his example. We've seen the meaning of true humility. We've seen the mandate for humility. And tomorrow morning, we'll look at not all the biblical principles on humility versus pride, but we'll look at some of the major ones, 11. And that means I have, on average, less than three minutes per point. So good luck with that. We'll save that for tomorrow. I think we've got enough to apply tonight, huh? Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your Word and these rich principles we see in it and the wonderful example we have of your Son. If the Creator and the Savior humbled himself to such an extent as he did, then who are we not to walk in humility before you and towards one another as well? So Father, I pray we would just have that mindset, the mind of Christ, as we go through tonight and this camping trip. And as a result, that you would be honored and glorified and each the other would be built up. We pray this now in our Savior's name.