Today we'll turn first in the New Testament to Matthew chapter 18, and also in chapter 19, and then over to Psalm 131. Matthew chapter 18, the first six verses, and chapter 19, verses 13 through 15. Let's pray and ask for the Spirit's help as we consider God's word today. Oh, Lord, our God, as we have sung these psalms and especially the word of God as an answer to prayer to establish us in your ways. Lord, you've proven it sound in terms of the miracles that testify to it, in terms of the fulfillment of prophecy itself. But Lord, most importantly, that all that you've spoken of concerning your son is yes and amen. Everything is fulfilled in him. And as we come to read it and to hear it preached today, we ask that the same Holy Spirit who authored it and brought it forth and has preserved it all these generations since the time of its writing, that he would bless us with understanding of the word of God. and a true reception of it in our hearts, not merely hearing it with physical ears, but with spiritual hearing. Lord, help us to hear what the Spirit says to us through these passages we'll consider. And we ask that in the end it would conform us to the very image and likeness of Christ, that you would strengthen our faith in him, that you would call any who have not believed on him in truth, And Lord, bring all glory to Christ as we ask for your blessing in these things. Hear us for his sake, we pray. Amen. Matthew 18, reading verse one through six. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and said, who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And he called a child to himself, and set him before them and said, truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. And over in chapter 19, verse 13, then some children were brought to him so that he might lay his hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, let the children alone and do not hinder them from coming to me. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. After laying his hands on them, he departed from there. And over in the Old Testament to Psalm 131, David says, O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty, nor do I involve myself in great matters or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul. Like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord. from this time forth and forever." And this far in the reading of God's word today. Do you consider yourself a humble person? Do you or don't you? Isn't that a rather difficult and tricky question to answer? Because if you think about it, if you say, yes, I am a humble person. Aren't you putting your humility in jeopardy or aren't you calling it into question? Couldn't you be seen as priding yourself in your humility or at least running that risk? And if not, is it possible to be proud of the fact that you're humble? Are you a humble person? This is a difficult subject to consider. When it comes down to it, God calls us in many ways and by many verses to be humble people. Humility should mark us. He would have us to be and to be known as humble people. However we may feel about saying so, knowing that it's always better for someone else to say that we are humble on this matter, our consciences should not convict us of not being humble. That's about as humble a way as it could be put. The Bible gives us many well-known verses. You may know of some of them even as I read them this morning. The Bible tells us, for example, of Moses. Numbers 12 verse 3, now the man Moses was a very humble man more than any man who was on the face of the earth. You notice that Moses never says that of himself, it said of him. The Proverbs tell us that God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God said through Isaiah, to this one I will look, to him who is humble, and contrite of heart and who trembles at my word." Those are three passages among many. Psalm 131 can be added to that number. If we were to put Psalm 131 as an animal, it would not be the peacock. Psalm 131 might be which animal? Can you think of one? Maybe the koala bear. Psalm 131 is a psalm of humility. But Psalm 131 sets before us something more specific than just humility. It's more direct, it's more difficult. It's not about humility generally. Specifically, it is about the issue of self-humbling. Listen to it again. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul like a weaned child against his mother. My soul is like a weaned child within me. Self-humbling. Is that not what our Lord calls us to as his disciples? Unless you are converted and become like children, You will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again, whoever humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Self-humbling. Is that not what God told Solomon after the inauguration of the temple? If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." Self-humbling. Is that not therefore what we read of King Josiah, after the book of the law had been found? Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God, when you heard these words against this place and against these inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before me, tore your clothes and wept before me, I have truly heard you. Self-humbling. Is that not what the Apostle Peter calls us to when he says, clothe yourselves with humility, one toward another? And like James, he says, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time. Once again, self-humbling. And is that not what is written of our Lord himself? Who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. Being found in the appearance of a man, he, here it is, humbled himself by becoming obedient even to the point of death. And so Psalm 131 is not a psalm about humility in general. It's about the specific and the difficult topic of self-humbling. Self-humbling. And so again, I ask, do you consider yourself a humbling person? Or maybe the question should be, how is it going for you in terms of your self-humiliation? Everything you and I need to know about humility and about this topic of self humbling is found with Jesus. It's found in his life, it's especially found at his death, the death at the cross. It's found then at Psalm 131, which is why we're gonna consider two topics about it, two points about it, two features of it. The first one is the haughtiness before the humility. The second one is the hopefulness or the hope after the humility. The haughtiness before and the hopefulness after the humility. First off, the haughtiness before the humility. The psalmist David mentions his not being haughty, verse one. But you notice he doesn't mention really his humility. He speaks in terms of what has happened to him. And as he does this and saying, Oh Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty. We may read verse one as sort of bragging. and haughtiness in itself. Or verse two, in terms of his not being a man who's given to complex things, but who's composed and is quieted in his soul, we might think of this man as though he's saying, look what I did. Look at the kind of person that I am. And we might say that these are anything but a humble man, are they not? Isn't it a haughty man after all? But verses one and two read in terms of this is no longer the case. There's been a great change about this haughty person. What he's saying is, I am no longer proud of heart. I'm no longer haughty and boastful and looking down my nose about myself. There's been a great change that's happened. Verse one is, I no longer am like this, but into verse two, I've passively become, I've been weaned. I am now composed. I have quieted myself, but it's something that even as I'm involved in it, it's a passive thing about me. Just consider the picture of a child who is weaned. Well, this child is no longer restless. no longer fidgety, no longer bothered by certain things either inside or outside, but this child no longer demanding a certain toy or no longer demanding to be pushed away from the mother. This child is now composed, rather like Phoebe here this morning, just rather content. and very much at ease, very much happy, somebody who's satisfied, somebody who's simply delighted in being in the position that he or she is in. There's being placid, being calm, being at rest. How does one humble himself? This matter of self-humbling, how do you and I go about what is involved in self-humiliation? How does this change happen? Well, I would say, first off, we move from haughtiness to humility by seeing the source of haughtiness. At verse one, haughtiness, you see, is a heart matter. It is a seeing matter. We have to see the source of our haughtiness. It's our own heart. It's the way that we look about and at ourselves. That's what haughtiness has to do with. It's about ourselves. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul says that knowledge puffs up. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And when you think about love, love has to do with another person, properly so. There are people that love themselves and they are so full of themselves that they never love another person. But from what we learn of who God is himself, God is love, that means that love is always focused on another person. And in that knowledge puffs up, but love edifies, it is a being filled with a knowledge that has to do with lifting yourself up before other people. has to do with self-knowledge, what you know of yourself, what you see about yourself, what you even love about yourself. If we're haughty people, then that means that we know ourselves in an inordinate way. We're full of ourselves. Romans 12, verse three says, do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. You see, it has to do with thinking. It has to do with self-assessment. There are people that, as it were, stand in front of the mirror all the time in life. And they look at everything from their own perspective. They're not teachable people. They're not concerned on giving. They're concerned in terms of receiving and being congratulated. There's the kind of person who thinks that he or she can do anything, ought to receive everything. And when you think more highly of yourself than you ought, you're putting yourself high up into the position where there's going to be a fall. And when that fall happens, like the tallest buildings of the world, when that fall happens, there's a tragic fall. There's a hidden blessing in being humble. Because that means when you fall, it's not quite as hurtful. It's not as tragic. Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. That marks haughtiness. Romans 12, 16, do not be haughty in mind. It has to do with thinking. Are you better than other people? Are your gifts superior? Romans 11, 20, do not be conceited but fear. And so when we see the source of haughtiness, we see scripture teaching us that it's ultimately rooted in how we think of ourselves before God. Do not be conceited, but fear God. A haughty person doesn't fear God. They really don't fear anything. Matthew 5 teaches us about the source of haughtiness. In the Sermon on the Mount, let's say the first three Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. This helps us to see our haughtiness because what is our Lord here doing as he begins the sermon is that he's putting his finger on the very nerve of our pride. And he's saying, if you are to be my disciple, if you are to know the truth of the scripture and the Old Testament, its point, if you're to know the gospel of grace, you have to come to terms with the very fact that the kingdom of heaven is for these kinds of people. It's not for the rich, it's for the poor in spirit. That's about as low as you could get. These are people who have a sense of self-bankruptcy. They don't have anything. They're paupers, they're beggars before God. They don't have anything that they can come to God and say, here, accept this. They're broken people. They're people that see their sin, their poverty of spirit. They're bothered by their sin and therefore they mourn. They're not sad about world events. They're not sad about outward things so much as they are mourning, lamenting their own sinful condition. And Jesus says that's the kind of person that will be comforted. Can you comfort a happy person? Need you comfort somebody who's all excited about life and self-righteousness and is haughty about their own place before God? That person doesn't even need any comfort. But it's those who mourn their sinful condition. Haughtiness has to do with not seeing your sinful state. And therefore, it's the meek. It's the lowly. It's the humble, often translated as the gentle, who will then inherit the earth. And so on all this matter, Jesus is teaching us that humility is esteeming ourselves small. We're lowly. We have nothing to commend before God, nothing to brag about before other people. We see ourselves small because we are. That's who we are. Psalm 90 verse 8, as the people of God were considering themselves under Moses' writing and how that generation in the wilderness faded away into death, it says that you put our secret sins in the light of your presence. How would you feel if your life and all your secret sins became an open book and was published online? Our secret sins are put into the presence, the holy gaze of God. How would you feel then? You'd feel demoralized, ashamed. You'd feel humble. Self-humbling sees yourself before the holy presence of God. And in that reality, says I will put my hand over my mouth like Job, and I will repent in sackcloth and ashes. Who was I to say or even think myself great in any way? All of my estimation before other people, now that it's there before the very presence of a holy God, I am nothing. I am less than nothing. Woe is me. We have to see our haughtiness and the source of it is our own sin. You see, the psalmist here at Psalm 131 is not concerned so much when he says that I don't involve myself in great matters or in things too difficult for me. He's not saying to the effect, yeah, philosophy is probably not my major in college. He's not saying, Yeah, politics is pretty complex. I don't think I'm gonna follow politics. I just don't have the mind for it. Or any other department of life. The psalmist is not saying, I tend to steer away from those things because I'm just not interested and I'm not good at it. No, the psalmist is saying, I do not pride myself in any moral category in relation to God. Oh, Lord. My heart is not proud. My eyes are not haughty. I don't pretend to be like you at all in these things. I am merely a humble sinner. I am merely a creature, yes, but I am even worse than what I was created. I've been restless. I've been like a beast before you. To quote another song, I've been haughty. What the psalmist is speaking of here is a right relation to God in terms of Jesus Christ. Could we say that he's echoing what we hear throughout the scripture? Let's take John the baptizer. When he viewed himself in relation to the Messiah, what does he say of Jesus Christ? I am not worthy to even unlatch his sandal. What do we read of the centurion when it seemed that Jesus was going to come to his house? He said, Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof. What did that prodigal son say when he returned to his father? I am not worthy to be your son. You see, the psalmist is getting at this very refrain. I'm not worthy. I have nothing to boast about. May it be that I would boast in nothing. but the cross of Christ, to which I've been crucified and the world has been crucified to me. The secret to self-humbling is justification in Christ and self-condemnation about ourselves, that we have no resting place in ourselves. We've tried it and it's only made us fidgety, but when we come to rest on Jesus Christ, we become humbled. and composed and quieted from our warfare against God. That's one way. Another way is that we listen to the humble Savior. We not only see our own haughtiness, but we listen to our humble Savior and we hear Him saying, come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke from me. Put it on yourselves because I am gentle. I am lowly of heart. I am humble. And you will find rest for your souls. David is calling us in Psalm 131 to see that his experience is in relation to Jesus Christ. And as you and I read Psalm 131, and we think in terms of our own haughtiness and our lack of humility, we have to, as it were, be put on the lap of another person. We need to be put onto Jesus' lap, if we could say that. By faith in Him, we are humbled. We're composed again. We're calmed. We're put at rest before God. Augustine makes some interesting applications here. I'll just tuck them in in terms of listening to a humble Savior. And it is that we have to listen to our mother. God is our Father. Who is our mother? Our mother is the Church of Jesus Christ. That's his bride. Galatians 4, 26, Jerusalem above, she is our mother. The church is your mother. You've been put onto the lap of the church of Jesus Christ. You are at one time separate from the church of God, separate from the promises, separate from Christ's body. And by virtue of faith in Christ, you have been, as we could say, put onto the lap of mother church. The church of Jesus Christ, she's become your mother. And so when you're in the church, you are being fed by your mother. And so if you're listening to a gentle and humble savior, that means that you have everything to do with the scripture and the ordinances by which God feeds you. Yes, it is a place for people to be members of the church of Jesus Christ. That's why We read of, like newborn babes, in the language of Psalm 131 and 1 Peter 2, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow with respect to salvation. Don't push away from the church. There are many people, it's common today, never was in times past, but they push away from the Church of Jesus Christ, and they don't publicly unite with the Church, they don't take membership vows upon themselves, they are treating the Church as though it's a gas station. And they pull in and they get their gas and then they go on their merry way. And well, maybe they'll come back to that gas station, but then again, they'll just go to another gas station, or they'll go to a church over there, or they'll visit this one. And there's no, like a plant being well rooted and established and a relationship with this mother so that they can grow. Jesus would have us from the psalmist to be preached that we have to have a right relation to the church. It's one of Augustine's good applications from this psalm. And in that Jesus says, come and take my yoke upon you. That leads us to see the importance of growing in relation to the church, listening to our humble savior. If you listen to him again in Philippians chapter two, as I already mentioned, that he emptied himself, he humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death, death at the cross. If we name the name of Jesus Christ and we see the source of our haughtiness and we're listening to our humble savior, then we are a people who recognize our Lord's example, that we be obedient people. that we lay aside our ways and we obey the Lord. And as for Jesus, where that led him to the cross, that will lead us to not only die to ourselves, but having died in Christ, to then go forth and say whether it's suffering, or whether it's persecution, or ridicule, or just warfare with that remaining flesh in my own heart, I'm going to go in the way of obedience. Humble people. Like our Lord Jesus are those who say, I have come to accomplish the Father's will. I've come to do his will. And that is my food. Self-humiliation is voluntary. Our Lord emptied himself, was obedient to the point of death, death at the cross. Our Lord not only by this paid for our sins and took the wrath of God on him, But our Lord, as Peter says, left us an example that we would follow in his steps. Are you a humble person? Well, in evaluating ourselves, we look at how we're doing with obeying God's commands. Is there a voluntariness about this? Or is there a sense that it's just, oh, I have to, oh, I must? That's not self-humbling. Self-humbling is, I may, and therefore I will. That's the person who has composed and quieted himself. All of this leads to the beauty that a man may be humbled and yet still not be humbled. There are many people whose lives have come crashing down and they've been humiliated, but have they been humbled? Maybe not. True humility is voluntary. It's voluntary. And true humility comes not out of self-love or our own haughtiness. True humility comes out of a sense and a conviction of God's love. It's that you have been loved by God through Christ and his death at the cross, that therein being forgiven before God, I may, and therein I will obey God as my father. I will compose myself. I will quiet myself. I've been put at rest by the nourishing grace of Christ, the ministry of the gospel in the church, and therefore I'm calm. I'm at ease and I'm strengthened by God's feeding me in this setting that I may and I will voluntarily walk in obedience. So we see the source of haughtiness, we listen to our humble Savior, but we learn from the humility teaching Savior further when he says in Matthew 18 about this matter of the children. Here are these disciples that are arguing among themselves as to which of them is the greatest. And you can see Peter here saying, well, I'm the one that is the first. And you have James and John saying, well, wait a minute. The three of us together are who the Lord often calls to himself. And then you've got Maybe Philip saying, well, Peter, I'm the one, or Andrew saying, I'm the one who brought you to know the Lord. And so you've got this skirmishing and all these haughty minded men wondering which in fact is the greatest among them. They all think they know it. And then Jesus takes this child, this bystander, and puts them in the midst of that. Now we don't know the age of this child, could be a very youngster, could be a 10-year-old, we really don't know. But Jesus puts the child in the midst of them and he says, guys, unless you are converted, Unless your turn, I think Jesus was saying not so much that you'll be born again, but when you guys turn from this ridiculous idea of thinking that you're the greatest, when you guys leave that off and come back to what you're supposed to be thinking, when you come back, you will see that it's being like a child. When you come to this stature, In this disposition, then you can enter the kingdom of heaven. It's a complete reversal. It's not the first, it's the last. It's not those who think themselves the greatest, it's those that, surprisingly, are given the spotlight and are the lowest. Jesus here focuses on the child. And I think the lesson here is simply that the child is the humblest of everyone there. The bystanding child, Jesus suddenly puts his attention on the child and puts the child in the midst. And what is this child? You can picture maybe a reddening face and blushing and insecurity. But that child never ran back to the parents. That child had a sense that Jesus' purpose in calling that child and setting that child, that in his presence there was a restfulness. He could be used, she could have been used as the example to teach. And everything was in its right place to simply stand there and have the Lord teach in that reference. That's the wonderful thing about children. There are many wonderful things about children that could be in view of that Matthew passage about their being teachable. But children are receptive. Children are those who are simpler. They are those who are, could we say, passive. They are dependent. They are at the call of another. And Jesus puts that simple, humble, receiving, teachable child there and says, this is what you need to be like. You men are not listening anymore. You're too busy talking. But this child is following and is hearing, and this is what you need to be like. A heart that believes like Christ will be humbled like Christ. Jesus came as but the child. We have to become like children. So all of that is to help us see the haughtiness before the humility. This is what we are like by sin. This is who God calls us to be by grace, which leads us to the second point of the hopefulness after humility or the hope that we have after our being humble. You notice the progression here in Psalm 131. It goes from haughtiness to a place of humility. And then at verse three, the psalmist says, after all of this progress and change about him, O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. Haughtiness led to humility, and out of that humility came a sense of hope and a new outlook. We don't hear David here mention it, how this experience happened. Maybe it was after the running from Saul incidents. Maybe it was after the sin evident in his family, his sons. Maybe it was after his own sin with Bathsheba. We don't really know. But David's own haughtiness even though he was a man after God's own heart, worked in him humility such that whatever his experiences were, he then turns it as a way of application and says to those under his rule, oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. Are you a haughty person and proud? The Lord humbled me. And I say to you that you don't give up and think that it's over. It's actually a new outlook and a new beginning. Hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. Whatever David's situation, it is enough that he's been brought to this point. Maybe you look back on your life and say, I never would be at the place that I am in Christ if the Lord hadn't humbled me. I was a haughty person and I was living in the boastful pride of life. God was gracious, and now I have an everlasting hope in Jesus Christ. Isn't that enough that you're at that place? We don't need to know all of David's history here. The main thing is that forgetting what lies behind, I press on to what lies ahead, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. What began as, O Lord, in Psalm 131, ends at verse three, O Israel. God can use our hard-learned lessons of humility to make for hopefulness, both for ourselves and other people. A couple inferences that we can draw from the Psalm is that our spiritual haughtiness, and anything about our haughtiness, is inconsistent with hope. Think about that. If you're haughty, that's inconsistent with hopefulness. We might liken it to a man who is so engorged and stuffed, maybe out to dinner, at a feast, at a banquet, he's utterly stuffed. He has no room in his stomach for any more food. That man is self-satisfied. He's resting content, feeling rotund in his belly, But then there's the hungry man. And that man is not full of himself. That person wants to be filled. And so he's hungering and thirsting, could we say, for righteousness that he may be satisfied. That's the distinction between haughtiness and humility. Haughtiness means I'm good. Maybe you've had people say that as you go to witness to them. Oh, I'm good. I'm this, I'm that, I'm the other. I don't need the gospel. That's somebody who's stuffed. That's somebody who's satisfied. A humble person says, tell me more. I have questions. A humble person wants to receive. A haughty person says, I'm good, no thanks. Spiritual haughtiness is inconsistent with hope. And you will know your haughtiness by really not learning anything in your Christian life. You don't care to read anymore. Preaching's kind of boring now. It was exciting once. Bible study, not as interested. Reading Christian books, not as much. That's a sign that haughtiness, like weeds, are growing back. Humility. is what will foster a hopefulness, to say, I want more. There's more ahead of me. And so spiritual haughtiness is inconsistent with hope. And I think we see that in the direction of the psalm, where he goes from haughtiness to his humility, and then ends on the note of hope and hopefulness. You're a humble person when you say, I want more of this grace. There's more. A second inference is that humility begets hope and humble people then are the more likely to be hopeful people. Humble people are hopeful people. We could liken it to being in a valley as opposed to being on the mountaintop. When you're in the valley and you're humbled, the only place to go is up. It can't get any lower. The valley is the place where everything looks grand and large. Stars, being in a darker place, are more bright. Being in the shadows of the valley is where when you look up and the sun is still shining. In the valley, in the place of humility, is where the things of God become largest and more huge to us. Humble people are more likely to be hopeful people. Haven't some of us known that in grieving the past year or so? God brings us into a valley, the death of a loved one that's gone to be with the Lord. And what do we want? We want to see them again. We want glory. We want the resurrection of the body. Humbled people are made more hopeful in their outlook. Humble people are the only ones that are given the inheritance. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit no less than the earth. All things are for your sake. Do not be afraid, little flock, Jesus said. The Father is pleased. to give you the kingdom of all people, this little flock. Humble people are hopeful people. Lastly, hopefulness then fostered by humility is therefore going to entail hardships. A lot of H's today. Haughtiness to humility to hopefulness, which assumes hardships. Romans 8, verse 24 and 25, who hopes for what he already sees? You don't have it yet. So with perseverance, Paul says, we eagerly wait for it. That hope that's before us, as David is here urging the people to seize, they hope in the Lord. Remember that this is a psalm of ascent. This is a psalm like 120 through 134, that are Psalms written for a pilgrim people. These are people that are taking footstep after footstep, making their way to Jerusalem with all the other people of God to worship together, to leave behind all the temporary things of their life and journeying toward the celestial city. There's gonna be hardships, potholes along the way, possibly thieves, Many things that could happen to us on the journey, wrong detours, bad paths, choices made, hardships. And therefore David says, hope in the Lord from this time forth, even forever. The Christian life is no cakewalk. It's not a stroll in the park. Humble people say, this is not gonna be easy. but I have one who's given me a yoke that is easy. And it is that I take step after step in light of the word to make it through my hardships. 1 John 3, 3, whoever has this hope on him purifies himself even as he is pure. And in that this is hard, I'm going to seek the route of sanctification. I will not take that path over there with the questionable sign that says quicker, easier, happier. I will take the road that my Savior says, holiness, Christ-likeness, even though it says hardships, beware. I'm gonna take that path because I'm humble. I'm not haughty. So as I began, I conclude, do you consider yourself a humble person? A humble person is the one who is represented in these words. David Dixon says, the humble man must be content to be handled and dealt with as the Lord pleases, and to submit himself absolutely to God's dispensation, God's ways. He must depend upon his care and favor and wait for the manifesting of it, when and how it shall please God to dispense. And this most of all proves humility. Are you a humble person? As we come to a conclusion this morning, these three variously abide. haughtiness, humility, and hope. And the greatest of these is, let us pray. Father, we're thankful for what we've heard today. And we confess that we are a people who have our moments, our times, our ways that are proud. And Lord, we think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We pray that you would humble us by your grace, that you would only then lift us up at the proper time and make us to wait upon the Lord from this time, even till the end of our lives into eternity, that our haughtiness being dissipated by greater humility in Christ would lead to greater hopefulness for all that you're calling us to be, to bear his image. And Lord, as we take our steps and we face our hardships, as we endure our trials and even stumble in our temptations, Lord, remind us that even this is a humbling experience to see that Christ and his death is sufficient for us. Christ and his spirit is sufficient as our guide in this life. Make us then to be humbled beneath your word and composed in such a way that we would know how much we've been loved how much we've received in the gospel, that we would then walk as with a father who loves us and cares for us through the church. We ask, Lord, that you'd bless this word to us and conform us to the image of Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.