This month at Ladies Aid we are going to discuss humility, the Bible topic of humility, and going to use as our guide a lesson from the life and teaching of John Calvin. This is the 500th year since he was born. You see there John Calvin's life is dates of birth July 10, 1509 to May 27, 1564. This is just a few tidbits based on the book there, The Legacy of John Calvin by David Hall, and some other things from my personal studies. Just a few tidbits from his life that show he knew what it was to be humble. We all have some situations like this, but these are some unique things in his life that First, we should realize that sometimes we just think about the names of people in history, and we fail to remember who lived when and what was going on at that time. We just know they lived a long time before us, and we think they all lived at the same time. That's not exactly. Martin Luther was older than John Cowan. eight years old when the 95 species were nailed to the door at the Church of Wittenberg in Germany, and the Reformation started, you could say, on October 31st, 1517. So while John Cowan was definitely a child prodigy and blessed uniquely by the Lord, at eight years old he was not yet a pastor or a priest by any stretch of the imagination. So he was a second generation reformer. He came up, and guys like Martin Luther, who was older than him, and Ulrich Zwingli, and others who had done a lot of the work already, and had been the first to get saddened, and sometimes killed for their faith. These were people whom he admired, and viewed as forefathers in the faith. He'd seen what had happened to them, and what was happening to them, and yet he willingly joined the cause. He didn't view himself as a competitor to them, or as rivals to them. Another thing about his life, you may or may not know, this is much later, well a little bit later, he's been living in Geneva, Switzerland, born in Neuil-en-France, which is not, France is not Switzerland, but he could not live in France because he was so heavily Roman Catholic, Anybody who belonged to the Reformation was heavily persecuted and martyred for their faith, on again, off again, for the next hundred years in France. It was very difficult. So Don Kellum could not go back there for most of his life. So he had to live in Geneva, which is sort of an international city where everybody who didn't stay anywhere else lived in Geneva, Switzerland. ugly, very corrupt, very immoral place. That's where he lived. The city leaders kicked him out. I won't go into all the details of that, but they kicked him out, and yet he did not hurl insults at them. They were persecuting him for things he was doing to the church. He did not hurl insults at them. He could have. In fact, after they begged him to come back a few years later, and he did, You might say, what's he going to say on that first Sunday back? Absolutely nothing, except he started with the Bible verse he left off at three years earlier and started preaching there. So he knew something about humility and put that into practice in his life. He also gladly served in the church, and he did not aspire to political power or church power. He was very involved in setting up the way the church was organized. He set it up so that he had more control or more votes than anybody else. When he was nearing his death, he evaluated his accomplishments and all the things he had done in his life with great modesty. That's just a few little tidbits from his life. Now let's go on to five specific things, ways in which we can understand humility from the teaching of the scripture. are some of these teachings specifically highlighted in John Calvin's life. And when you look at these teachings on the knowledge, how we know God and ourselves, God's sovereignty, elections, law, politics, none of these things have the word humility in them. But the way that he taught about them, what he taught about these things, shows that humility is really at the core of of the Christian faith and the Christian life. John Calvin taught that in being a Christian. Let's look at number one, humility in our knowledge. Let's turn to Acts 17 verse 28. John Calvin opens up his The best place to go to find out what John Calvin taught about is what Coulson mentioned about it. We have a couple copies over here in the church library. I have one at home. The Institutes of Christian Religion gives a doctrinal statement to Christians about what the Bible is all about. He begins that by saying humans cannot know about God, they cannot know about themselves, apart from looking to what God says in the Bible. One of the scriptures he quotes is Acts 17, verse 28. Diane, can you please read that for us, please? For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of our own poets have said, for we are also His offspring. The Apostle Paul there writing in Acts and saying, This is all human, we only exist and have our being, existence, from God. Nobody knows anything except God tells us who we are and where we came from, and how it works. Now we know what unbelievers do with that, but Romans 1 says they twist and corrupt that knowledge that God gives them, and they try to suppress it in unrighteousness. But what we do know is only what God has told us in this picture. That requires humility, doesn't it? Because if the only way you know and understand anything in the world is to go to God, that requires humility. It's a different Bible doctrine, but it requires humility. To believe that and to do it. Humility comes along with that. Any questions on that? I think that makes sense. Let's go on to the next one. more clearly. Humility, we should have humility, we must be humble as Christians because of God's sovereignty. Now what does that word sovereignty mean? Anybody want to take a guess? It is control of sovereignty. If you're sovereign over something, a king is sovereign over the people in his land, and God owns their living, so he is sovereign over Here's a few quotes from some things from Calvin. He says, "...people, humans, or Christians in particular, ought to lay aside ambition and thirst for worldly glory. Since God is at work in all things, there is only so much credit a man can take." because at work and everything there's only so much credit left for us. And here's another quote from Calvin. The story of Job overwhelms men with the realization of their own stupidity, impotence and corruption. He doesn't necessarily mean to insult himself and everyone with the word stupid there. He was To some degree he does, but it was a common way he means ignorance or lack of knowledge. Stupidity. Do you remember how God answered Job after Job and all his friends were trying to understand what was happening? It starts in Job 38. Anybody remember roughly, paraphrase? Out of the world? Right, out of the world. What are some of the things that God said to Job? Where were you when I created the world? Who are you? Were you there when God created us? That kind of thing. Yeah, so what's he pointing out to Job there? And Job and all his friends, they might think they know something. They don't know anything. They don't even know where it all came from or how it all got put together. And now they're complaining and arguing about the way things happened on a particular day in their life. don't even know how they came to be in existence in the first place. And so when we start to understand that God's at work in all things, the story of Job then overwhelms us, as Job was overwhelmed with his own stupidity, and the corruption of his soul and his heart, and he's complaining against God, oh, woe is me, these bad things are happening, when he doesn't even know the things that are happening, where they came from. And who is he to argue with God about how God's running things? Humility, then, is required. When we think about the fact that God is sovereign over all things, who are we? He says, who are we over all these impacts? The Book of Job is a favorite of John Calvin. You can see that it shaped his life and consequently I think if we had to take a poll of which are your favorite catechism questions, I bet along with question one, most of you would probably either quote or refer to questions 27 and 28 about God's providence. That's because you're Calvinist. That's also because you're Christian. Because sitting under God's sovereignty requires humility and understanding that The good things and the bad, the riches and impoverishments, sickness and health. God is in control of all of these things. It is a comfort to me to understand this God's promise. I can be thankful, and prosperity, and patient in adversity. I know for what is future, I have good confidence. I am faithful in having a father who knows what he is doing. and He will take care of me and work all things together for my good. You believe that stuff and those things are precious to you that expresses the humility of your heart and your life because that's what God says in His Word and by God's grace that such a stress to you and such a pivotal point to who you are, to your own personal story, because that's what it is to be a Christian. And we can thank people like John Calvin for pointing these scriptures out to us. Let's look at another aspect on the teaching of humility. Number three, we should have humility because of election, because of the fact of election. But the elect cannot take pride for their salvation before God. The fact that God does not save all humans, spurs us on, encourages us to be humble. Why me is the question that we all should ask. Not, why doesn't God save this or that person, but why does he save me? that I don't deserve it. That's the kind of question that the Bible teaching of election should focus us on. Well then, and the Bible teaching of election is the one Bible teaching, it's not the only thing in the Bible, and therefore as a Bible teacher it's not the only thing John Calvin taught either, just in case you were confused on that. Why then, I have on our study sheet, why then do so many people reject the Bible teaching on election. What do you think? Because they are too self-centered. Because they are too self-centered? Any other ideas or thoughts? Because a human might want to think that they are a little bit in control instead of God choosing them. They want to think that they might have had a little bit to do with it. Yeah. People want to think that they had a little bit of control, a little bit to do with it. And instead of the way this is worded, that why me in the respect of, you know, that we are the chosen ones, you'd go the opposite way and say it's not fair that everybody, you know, doesn't have a chance type thing, I think. That, I think that's one of the, was the, It's not fair if they only pick certain ones, and they can't do anything about it. Maybe it's how they interpret certain verses of the Bible, or take some verses out of context without looking at the whole thing, like John 3.16, 3.14, 3.15, for God's love of the world, and it goes on to say that whoever believes And people would take that first and it would be by itself. And if they're interpreting it that that means everybody, then they would say, well, of course, it can be everybody. So is that part of it, the interpretation of how they're looking at some of those things? Well, that's a good question, yes. My question here is why? Do so many people reject the Bible teachings on election? Is it because they misinterpret something? And my question is even behind those two, the reasoning behind that. Why do people read some scriptures and misinterpret them? And it goes back to, we've already actually had the answer. It goes back to the absence of humility, which the opposite of humility would be what? Pride, arrogance, self-centeredness, which is very familiar to all of us, myself included, because that's part of the basic sinful human nature. Seeing Adam and Eve in the garden. Who is God to tell me that there's only one way to learn about him? I can eat at this tree. and learn about him my own way. Thus Adam and his wife, and all of us, fell into a state of total depravity. Let's look at Psalm 115, verse 1. Cindy, can you read that for us, please? Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory, because of your mercy, because of your truth. This is to be the cry of the Christian, a humble cry, not to us, but to God, to Him be alone, to Him alone be all the glory, and the doctrine of election, we are saved only and purely and completely by God's grace, give all the glory to God. And if I'm not saved, if I have a little bit to do with it, my own free choice, the faith that I have is not entirely a gift from God, then I get a little bit, even if it's a little tiny bit, some kind of credit or glory. And that's enough. Maybe that's enough for some people. Even if it's a little tiny bit, that's just enough to soothe their sinful ego and think that, okay, I can maintain just a little bit of pride and still love Jesus. But God's consistency would require us to say, no, not unto us, but unto thy name be all the glory and all the praise. Okay, so people read certain scriptures on John 3.16. There's another subject we can look into those, but you can't read John 3.16 by itself. It does not require the conclusions that that people will come to is that you drive the driving force behind every Bible verse. Nobody reads the Bible verses with a completely blank heart. All of us have things and ideas ahead of time before we go into any subject. We're already thinking and making conclusions. So if we're already thinking behind the scenes, we don't even realize it, about how to defend ourselves and our own ability from our own definition of what fairness and justice is. Our own ability to somehow reach out to God. Then we're going to start putting all the scriptures through that pair of glasses. We can take those glasses off and put them on the glass of the scripture. Psalm 33 says, a favorite verse of John Calvin, in thy light we see light. In the light of scripture, that's where we see light. Alright, let's look briefly at Lessons 4 and 5. We should have humility before the law. Okay? We should have humility before the law. John Calvin does teach according, on the basis of scripture, that you can learn some things about what's right and what's wrong from nature and from natural law, but these things do not give us enough info on how to please God. The very fact that God does publish His law in the scripture and the commandments, this very fact calls us to humility. Because we don't know enough how to please God until God tells us, this is what pleases me. Therefore, we need that further knowledge. This kind of fits in with number one, God's humility. But another reason, also we might say, as we read the law of God itself and what it says, what else do we see in that law that would drive us to humility? What else about the Bible teaching about God's love drives us to his melody? Take a guess. You don't mean the law of God, the Ten Commandments, you mean the whole Bible as the law? Right, that's the whole. No, let's just think about the Ten Commandments. What do you think about the two commandments? Love for God and love for Andrew as a child. Why does knowing what God's commandments are call you to humility? It's a mirror, and you look in that mirror, and you look at what you see reflected in the mirror from your own life, and it's not a pleasant sight. God's law is pure righteousness. The reflection you and I see in the mirror is unrighteousness. To put it bluntly, or mildly rather, unrighteousness, lack of holiness, corruption, filthiness. And Romans 3 verse 20 says that by the law comes the knowledge of sin. For by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. The fact that God had to tell us what the law is means we need to be humble because we don't even know what makes God happy. So how dare should anyone say it? Many people say, look, I'll live my life, I'll follow whatever religion I want, and God will be happy, I'm being a basically decent person. Well, who said? What's your standard of decency? Well, I don't need to listen to what God says in this world. I can figure it out on my own. No humility, pride there. The second layer of humility is when we do read those words, we see how sinful we are and unrighteous we are. We realize, wow. God saved me, knowing who I am compared to what pleases him. And I want to be humble when I come to him in prayer and in worship. I've got no right to be here on my own. I have not been faithful enough. I never could have been faithful enough. OK. And then just one other kind of thing there. Also, David Hall points out that humility applied to political leaders. As John Calvin was applying in his commentary of Samuel 6, where the Babylonian rulers are getting angry at Daniel, and they try to steer the heart of the king to write a new law so Daniel can get thrown into the lion's den. Calvin comments that it will always be deserving of condemnation when we find men selfishly pursuing their own advantage without any regard for the public good. That's what these rulers were doing. They were being selfish political leaders. John Calvin then went on to say in his in his commentary, that there are rulers like that in the church of his day and in the political leaders of his day who are also proud and pompous. So it's not a crime, it's not a sin, it's just a good example here to apply difficulty, shame, and humility to ourselves and to those in the world around us. This is what God would have us to do. Now I ask a last, kind of closing thought here, that the detailed and careful study of the scripture, as John Calvin has done, And as you and I have been trained and confirmed in and believed in as members of the Church of the Reformation, does all this doctrinal knowledge lead us to pride? Hopefully not. It's only by the grace of God that we would, that we or any of us are in a position to have heard any of it. Right? Yeah. But it's important, I don't know if you understand, but many people I don't know if you've heard, if somebody studies too much of the Bible, then they go off and they say silly things, and so it's best for us not to know very much, otherwise we'll get too big for our riches and too proud. I've heard people say that, even members of our own church say that sometimes. People think that learning about the Bible and being careful about doctrine, it's inevitable that you will become proud and arrogant. But we go here to somebody who is at, there are many other people throughout history who studied Bible teaching. We were talking about one here, John Calvin. Was he a sinner? Was he proud on time? Certainly, right? But we see here that what really consumes his life and his heart and his teaching was this concept of humility. So if you're going to be consistent about the Bible teaching of God's sovereignty and election and all these things, you can't do well with the law, so you have to. If you're listening to what you're saying, what you're preaching, you have to be humble. Well, wouldn't it be true, and you study the Bible a lot more than any of us in this room probably, is it true with that, that just like anything else, the more you learn, the more you know you don't know? Yeah, it's very true. The more you learn, the more you... The more that you learn, the more you understand how little you know. So that's sort of what, not exactly what the catechism is getting at, but when it says, I forget the question, that even the holiest of men in this life have become only a small obedience. And so that the person who's studied the most, or the oldest and most pure and wise of Christians, you can think of whoever that is, that you know about, they understand how little they really know. Well, I want to show you a quote with that thought. I have a quote here from another guy who summarizes John Calvin's life. And he says, this is a modern theologian, Jack Packer. He writes that John Calvin was not opinionated. He was consistently dependent on the Bible. I mean, all of Calvin's, he was someone who was proud of his own will to say whatever he wanted. He wanted people to get a following. He wanted to be famous, right? That's not what we read about in John Calvin. Amid all Calvin's intellectual gifts and handling of theological and moral controversies of his time, Calvin never says, this is my idea. He only ever says, this is what scripture teaches. His only intellectual interest is to be a loyal servant of the Word of God. And that is why we're still talking about him today. There's a lot of people who weren't loyal servants of the Word of God, and they're not being talked about today. A lot of people who were loyal servants of the Word of God, we don't know their names either. But the people whose legacy and joy we'll be talking about 500 years later are the people who are loyal servants of the Word of God. And most importantly, people who are loyal servants of the Word of God, whether or not they're a pastor, whether or not they're a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, these are the people whom the Lord has their name written in the Book of Life. They will experience his reward for eternity, which is much longer than 500 years later. Father, we thank you for helping us to learn from the hall of faith in church history, and especially from your word. Help us not to be proud, but to realize that at the very core of the Christian religion, the very core of the doctrines of our precious Reformation, is humility. Help us to be humble, and to desire that others would also know the grace and the sovereign love of Jesus for our hearts. In his name we pray. Amen.