Would you turn with me in the Gospel of John to the first chapter? I want to read to you verses 1 through 18. John's Gospel, chapter 1, verses 1 through 18. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. May the Lord bless the reading of his word to our souls. Now we're continuing this evening in our studies on humility as the prerequisite to honour. And we saw last time that pride is an enormous problem in our lives. It always has been a problem in the lives of people throughout the world in every age. And so we set the scene with the problem of pride. This evening, we're going to be looking at the topic of humility, just introducing what humility is and how humility looked in the life of Jesus Christ. And then in the next couple of sessions we'll be considering humility before God, how that is to be displayed, and humility before others, before we continue on another set of three sessions looking at how humility is to be developed. It's to be developed by the renewal of our minds. It is developed through the providence of God, and it is developed through self-discipline. And then we'll conclude this series of studies on humility by looking at the relationship between humility and honour. So this evening we're looking at humility and an introduction to what humility is. You may recall the words of Charles Haddon Spurgeon that I quoted to you last week. That demon of pride, he said, was born with us and it will not die one hour before us. It is so woven into the very warp and woof of our nature That till we are wrapped in our winding sheets, we shall never hear the last of it. And so pride needs to be eliminated and the elimination of pride from our lives will not be a once in a moment. endeavour but it will be an ongoing endeavour throughout our lives as the seed of pride is so difficult to kill and in different stages of our lives then pride rears its ugly head and when we think that we've mastered it in one area and because of one issue we find that it seeks to gain advantage in another area And because of another issue. And so, to counter pride, we need to clothe ourselves with humility. And so we need to ask the question, well, what is humility? What is humility? If we were to look at the dictionaries for their definitions, well, the Oxford Online Dictionary gives the definition of humility as the quality of having a modest or low view of one's importance. The quality of having a modest or low view of one's importance. And as far as it goes, that's a good definition of what humility is. The question is though, how do we have that modest or low view of our importance? And in what sense are we important or unimportant? How are we to compare ourselves in order to have a right understanding of who we are? And that's an important question, because in the end, pride and humility have to do with comparison. A comparison with those around us, a comparison with God. And it's that comparison with God that Wayne Mack, in his book on humility, places the burden of his definition. on a comparison with who God is and who we are. And he gives three responses, three answers to this question, what is humility? And the first of those is that humility is the sense of one's natural insignificance compared to God. The sense of one's natural insignificance compared to God. So Wainwright wants to make this comparison with God, with the Creator. Because we're looking at this subject of pride and humility in the Bible, as Christians. How are we as Christians to clothe ourselves with humility? What does it mean for us to be humble? What does it mean for us to put pride to death in our lives? Well, we must begin then with God. We must begin with who he is and how we are in relation to him. And so we are to think of humility as a sense of one's natural insignificance compared to God. You may recall Abraham approaching God in prayer, even as he was contemplating the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as it has been told him. And in Genesis chapter 18, And in verse 27, where Abram enters into conversation with God, pleading with God for mercy, he begins in verse 27 with a second exhortation to God to be merciful with these words. Behold, he says, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord I who am but dust and ashes. I who am but dust and ashes. Abraham has in his mind who he is before God. Who is God? Well, God is the great creator. God is the one who brought all things into being by the word of his power. He is the one who called light out of the darkness. He is the one who separated the waters. He is the one who called forth every green thing to grow upon the earth. He is the one who formed the creatures. He is the one who moulded man from the dust of the earth. And Abraham acknowledges in his conversation with God, I am but dust. You are the creator. You are the judge. I am but dust. And that is a right sense then of who we are before God. We are but dust. God is the creator. And we are the creature. And when we understand that, then we will have a sense of our insignificance compared to God. What are we compared to God? Or we could turn to the story of Job and Job's encounter with God. And Job, of course, had been afflicted by Satan under God's sovereign providence. And for a length of time, having lost his family, having lost his wealth, having lost his health, he had endured the foolish advice of his friends, which he was unable to countenance as being true. It didn't... fit with his understanding of life, or his understanding of God, or his understanding of himself. And he was right to question his friend's advice, but then God comes to him, and God speaks to him, and God answers Job's complaints with a series of questions, a series of questions about the world around him. about how it came to be, about his knowledge and understanding of this world. And at the beginning of chapter 40 of the book of Job, the Lord said to Job, shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it. And Job answered the Lord and said, behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer, twice, but I will proceed no further. Job has a sense of his insignificance compared to God, having heard God's questions, having been challenged in his own understanding and knowledge. Job has begun to realize that however much knowledge he may have, he doesn't have the knowledge that God has. And whatever understanding of his circumstances he may have, he doesn't have the understanding of the world that God has. And so God has revealed to Job his greatness. He is the Almighty God. And who is Job? Job says, well, I'm sort of small account. I am nothing. I am so insignificant compared to you. And so both Abraham and Job teach us to understand who God is, if we're to have a right sense of our own place in this world. We think about who God is, we think about the fact that God is omniscient, he knows everything, and that really is what God had challenged Job about that he, Job's knowledge, Job's understanding was so limited, whereas God's is transcendent and infinite. He is omniscient, he knows everything. Not only is God omniscient, but he presents himself as the all-powerful God. Shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty? God is omnipotent. He can do everything. Nothing is able to thwart him, stand in his way, or hinder him. Whereas Job, well, what is Job? Job is a man who had been so wealthy, and so happy and so blessed and yet it had all been stripped away from him in a matter of hours and days. And he could do nothing about it. There was no way he could stand in the way of the forces of nature that had destroyed his crops and killed his animals and even his children. And so these events had overwhelmed him and he could do nothing about them. And God is the almighty God. He is the omnipotent God. He is the one who does all his holy will. And he is full of wisdom then. And he has authority. Whereas we are limited. We make foolish choices. And we have limited authority. And so when we compare ourselves with God, in our nature, We are insignificant compared to God and as we understand that then we must humble ourselves before God. We must have this sense, a right sense of our natural insignificance compared to God. But then Wayne Mack goes on to a second point that he makes, and that is that to have true humility, we must have a sense of one's moral insignificance and sinfulness compared to God. A sense of one's moral insignificance and sinfulness compared to God. Not only are we of small account before God, Not only are we but dust and ashes before the Creator, but morally we are inferior to him. Morally, we are sinners and rebels against him. That is the reality of our lives. And we need to have that sense of our moral insignificance as well as of our natural insignificance. We need to have a sense of our sinfulness compared to God. If we do not have that, then it is questionable whether we really know God. whether we've really encountered God, whether we've really been in the presence of God. The prophet Isaiah encountered God. He came into the presence of God and he records for us in the sixth chapter of the prophecy that bears his name. In the year the King Uzziah died, he says, I saw the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. When Isaiah saw God. When he was confronted with God in all of his holiness and glory, Isaiah was lost and undone. He was full of woe. How could he endure? How could he survive? For he says, I am a man of unclean lips. This is a prophet of God. He was already a prophet of God. He had already been summoned to speak for God and yet now he's being sent on a mission by God and this mission comes in the aftermath of his own encounter with God in this way. And so as R.C. Sproul says, of all the men in Israel at this time, Isaiah was probably the most righteous of them all. He was faithful to the Lord. He was a servant of the Lord. He was a prophet for God. He spoke the words of the Lord to the people. And yet his testimony when he encounters God is, woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips. He recognises and understands that his own life is tainted by sin. The thoughts that pass through his mind affect the words that he speaks. And they're not clean. They're not pure. They're not good. Even as a prophet of God who proclaims the word of the Lord, he himself is a sinner. And compared then to God, He is insignificant and sinful. He cannot approach God without this fear, for he has seen the King, the Lord of hosts. As a sinner, he must be condemned. And this sense then of one's moral insignificance and sinfulness compared to God is what humility is. And he was not the only one. to have this sense of insignificance and sinfulness compared to the Lord. This is the testimony of the Apostle Paul as he writes to the church in Rome in Romans chapter 3 in verses 10 through 18, he's actually quoting from the Old Testament scriptures when he says that, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace. They have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And this really was the Apostle Paul's own testimony. This is how he had been. before the Lord. encountered him on the road to Damascus and stopped him in his tracks and opened his mind to the reality of Jesus' identity and of his glory. And Paul realises then that he had not understood, he had not truly sought the Lord. He was not righteous, though he had the righteousness of the Pharisees. He was not doing good. And this is true of us, is it not? We're not doing good. Not in comparison to the Lord. Not when we are confronted with the holiness of our God and the purity of His ways. There is a sense of moral insignificance and sinfulness that overwhelms us when we come face to face with God through his word. This is what humility is. And then there's a third way in which Wayne Mack defines humility or describes humility. And that is to attribute to God supreme honour, praise, rights and privileges. You see, a proud person is a self-centred person, has a self-centred mindset. Their thoughts are upon themselves, upon how they can elevate themselves, about how people should think of them. whereas a humble person is God-centred and has a servant mindset, wants to attribute to God all honour and praise and rights and privileges, wants to acknowledge that God and God alone is the one who is to be served. Later on, as he writes to the church in Rome, in Romans 11, and at the end of that chapter, after these 11 chapters, really, of theology and doctrine, in which the Apostle Paul has taught the Christians in Rome about their God, about his holiness, about the salvation that he has provided, about the Redeemer who has come, and his patience with sinners. says at the end of that theological portion of his letter, for from him, from God, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. From him, through him, to him, are all things. Everything is for him. For God. We are for God. We have come from God. We have been made through him and for him that we may give glory to him. And that is the focus then of a person who is truly humble in the biblical sense, they will give glory and honour to the Lord God. Writing to the church in Colossae in Colossians chapter 1 and in verse 16, Paul wrote, by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And so the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, and our Father in heaven are to receive all glory and praise and honour. That is their right, not our right. And so the humble person will have a sense of his own insignificance compared to God. His own natural insignificance compared to God. He will also have a sense of his own moral insignificance and sinfulness compared to God. and he will desire to attribute to God supreme honour, praise, rights and privileges. And so Wayne Mac gives us a description of what biblical humility looks like. But there is another aspect of this, even as that description of humility helps us to to rightly understand the Oxford Dictionary's definition of a quality of having a modest or low view of one's importance, and our view of ourselves in comparison to God. The scriptures also teach us that we're to be humble before others, and we will look at that later on in this series. But it's perhaps of value to recognize that another dictionary, the Webster Dictionary, defines humility in a slightly different way from the Oxford Dictionary. It says that humility is the quality or state of not thinking you are better than other people. Well, whoever wrote that definition had been reading the Apostle Paul, because that's exactly the kind of language that Paul uses in his exhortations, not think of oneself more highly than he ought, to think of others better than yourself, and so forth. Because humility is not only vertical between us and God and how we view ourselves before God, but humility is also horizontal and how we view ourselves in the presence of others and before others. Either way, we are to have a right understanding of our natural insignificance, our moral insignificance, and the fact that all glory and honour and praise belong to God and God alone. Well, having answered that question, what is humility? I want now to think about what humility looked like in Jesus. What did humility look like in Jesus? Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus shared the divine nature, yet he also clothed himself in our humanity. He came into this world and he lived in this world. And part of his life in this world was to be an example to us. I have given you an example, he said to his apostles, that you may do the same. And so we have an example of humility in the person of Jesus. And what did that humility look like in Jesus' life? Well, let me give you three ways that Jesus expressed humility in his life. And the first was that he gave total submission to the will of his Father. He gave total submission to the will of his Father. God the Son, clothed in our humanity to be our representative and saviour, was totally submissive to the will of his Father. I'd like you to turn with me to the Gospel of John, and I'm just going to go through various verses in the Gospel of John and read them to you to emphasize the way in which Jesus was totally in submission to the will of his Father. We read in John chapter 5 and verse 19, Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, that the son does likewise. In verse 30 of the same chapter, he says, I can do nothing on my own, as I hear, I judge. And my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me. In the next chapter, in chapter 6, and in verse 38, Jesus went on to say, I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. In chapter 7 and in verse 16, Jesus said, My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. And in verse 28 of the same chapter, Jesus proclaimed, You know me, and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. In chapter 8 and verse 28, Jesus said, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. In verse 42 of John chapter 8, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and he says, If God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. In verse 50, he goes on to say, I do not seek my own glory, there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. Moving on in the Gospel of John to the 14th chapter, in verse 10 he says, Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. And in verse 24 he said, whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. And so in all of those passages, Jesus is emphasising that he has come. He's come into the world sent by the Father. He's come into the world to do the will of the Father. He's come into the world to speak the words of the Father. And every step of his life, every action that he performs, every word that he speaks, is done under the authority and by the will of his Father. And that is an example of what humility looks like. It is total submission to the will of his Father. Now, Jesus was doing that as our federal head. He was doing that as our legal representative before God. And he was doing it as our federal head because our first father, Adam, had failed to be totally submissive to the will of God, his Father. Adam had sinned. Adam had rebelled against God. Adam had listened to the voice of the serpent rather than to the voice of God. He had become proud in his own understanding and thought that there was a better way than God's way. And in doing so, he brought the whole of humanity under the curse in rebellion against God. Our first federal head, Adam, failed to be submissive to the will of God. And so another federal head, another legal representative came into the world, Jesus, who was totally submissive to the will of God. He became one of us. He emptied himself, as it were, of his glory and of his honour and clothed himself in the insignificance of humanity in order, as a man, to represent us before God and to reconcile us to God through his own submission to the will of his Father. The humility that Adam flung away, Christ clothed himself with. And he has become an example to us then of what humility looks like. Humility is total submission to the will of the Father. The second way in which Jesus showed humility was in a complete disregard for the praise of men. a complete disregard for the praise of men. He deserved the praise of men. It was his right, but he did not seek that right. In John's Gospel, chapter 5, verses 41 through 44, Jesus said, I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Jesus is expressing the fact that he, as the Son of God, he as the sent one from God, has come into this world and they have not known him. As it was expressed in John chapter 1, they did not receive him. He came into the world, the world didn't recognise him for who he was. But in all of his earthly life, while Jesus had the right to be glorified and honoured, and he rebuked people for their dullness and their rebellion and their blindness, he never sought the honour and the glory from men. In John chapter 8 and verse 54, Jesus said, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God. Jesus wasn't promoting himself. He wasn't pushing himself forward. He wasn't saying to the people, look at me, honour me, worship me, glorify me. His testimony was that at the right time, in the right way, God himself would glorify him. And so, in John chapter 17, on that fateful night in which he would be betrayed, Jesus prayed. And he said in chapter 17 in verse 5, Now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Glorify me, the time has come for you to glorify me. And that glory was to come through his sacrificial death, through his resurrection and his ascension into heaven. And God would glorify him. But Jesus never sought the praises of men. when we think about the one incident in his life when men were full of praises for him on what we know of as Palm Sunday. Jesus entered into Jerusalem and the people were singing praises of this man who was come to be, as they said, king. They wanted him to be king. And in chapter 12 and verse 13, they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. Verses 18 and 19. We're told that the reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they had heard he had done this sign that was the sign of raising Lazarus from the dead. They had seen that sign and so they came to meet the crowd and they praised this king of Israel. Well, this was something that Jesus was aware of. The signs would produce a degree of honour. In chapter 2 of John's Gospel, verses 23 to 25, when he was in Jerusalem, it says, at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Well, what was in man? As these men and women lined the road into Jerusalem, singing, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. All was in their hearts. Well, they were responding to an amazing sign that they had seen. They didn't respond with understanding, not with knowledge, not with truth. And so, just a week later, recorded for us by John in chapter 19 and verses 14 to 16, we read, it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, that is, Pilate said to the Jews, behold, your king. They cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. The chief priests answered Pilate when he said, shall I crucify your king? We have no king but Caesar. And this is what is in the hearts of men. and Jesus knew it, and he didn't pursue them for the glory and praise that was rightly due to him. This was his humility. As our federal head, he had come into this world not to strive for honour and glory and the praise of men, as he lived out his life in this world, but he came to strive for obedience for us, to live a life of loyalty to his God, a life in which he immersed himself in the Word of God and lived his life in obedience to that Word for the glory of God. And he had a complete disregard for the praise of men as he lived his life in this world for the glory of God, knowing that one day he would receive glory from God. And that is a picture for us of humility. We shouldn't seek the praises of men, but we should seek obedience to God. that one day we may receive his praise. So humility looked like this in Jesus. Total submission to the will of his father. A complete disregard for the praise of men. And then thirdly, a self-denying service for God and man. A self-denying service for God and man. In chapter 13 of John's Gospel, verses 12 through 17, Jesus said, after he had washed the feet of his disciples, Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." Jesus was demonstrating the kind of life that people should live, that his disciples should live, of self-denying service for God and for men. Jesus Christ, who had humbled himself, emptied himself, became nothing, took on the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death on the cross, did so in service to God, his Father, and in service to us, his creatures. in order to save us, in order to reconcile us to our God. This self-denying service for God and man characterised Jesus' life. He came as our federal head. to be the ransom to set us free to serve God. He came into this world to live a righteous life that he might clothe us with garments of righteousness. He came to give his life as a sacrifice for sin, to take away the condemnation, the judgment that we deserve so that we might be reconciled to God. This is what humility looked like in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ subjected himself to the authority of the Father, and so should we. Christ didn't seek the praise of men, but looked to God, and so should we. Christ willingly became a servant to do good to others, And so should we. Let's pray. Our Father, we do ask that you would help us to understand what humility is. To have a right sense of our own natural and moral insignificance compared to you, our Creator and our Redeemer. And to attribute all honour and praise and rights to you. Lord, help us to view ourselves rightly, we pray, and then to clothe ourselves with the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ, to live lives of total submission to your will, to completely disregard the praises of men, and to give our lives in self-denying service, for you are God, and for those around us. Help us, we pray, to put pride to death and to clothe ourselves in a humility like Jesus. We ask in his precious name. Amen.