The Path to Honor
If we are to be truly honored
by God and others, we must first of all
demonstrate a true spirit of humility.
Here's Gene:
Proverbs 15:33 focuses on the
importance of humility.
The importance of humility
in its relationship to the fear of God
and to wisdom that results.
Because the fear of God
and wisdom are interrelated in Scripture.
And so here in this proverb
we read--chapter 15, verse 33:
The fear of the LORD is what wisdom teaches,
and humility comes before honor.
You know, in the New Testament,
James wrote something that really
relates to this Old Testament proverb:
Humble yourselves [James wrote]
before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Peter elaborates on basically the same truth.
Notice the relationship:
Humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God,
so that He may exalt you at the proper time.
It doesn't mean that the 'may' is
something He may do or He may not do.
But if the 'may' is based on the fact that we have
set the stage for God to exalt us--
during the time when we humble ourselves.
It's a powerful statement.
Listen to Paul when he wrote to the Philippians.
Probably the greatest passage
on humility in the New Testament:
Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit,
but in humility consider others
as more important than yourselves.
Everyone should look out
not only for his own interests,
but also for the interests of others.
Now here, Paul acknowledges
we have our own interests. But he says:
Don't look out just for your own interest.
Don't be self-absorbed.
But look out, more importantly,
for the interests of others.
And then he goes on in this passage
to relate to the greatest example
that we have had and will ever have--Jesus Himself.
He says:
Make your attitude [your own attitude]
that of Christ Jesus. . . . .
He humbled Himself...
This is talking about the Lord of the universe.
The one who was with the Father.
Didn't cling to that position.
Became a servant.
...He humbled Himself
by becoming obedient to the point of death--
even to death on a cross.
His humility began when He was born
and laid in that manger.
When He was born of this little girl
in Bethlehem by the name of Mary.
And no notoriety.
Just a humble little place.
And He was born in humility.
Grew up in that little town
as a carpenter with Joseph.
Not everybody knew Joseph.
I mean, he was just a carpenter.
And through His life,
He humbled Himself by serving.
But His greatest act of humility
was death on a cross.
And the challenging thing is that
we're to love as He loved.
And we are to demonstrate humility
in our relationship to others.
I don't know about you, but that's convicting.
The Reflection and Response is:
Why it is so difficult to practice true humility?
We could have a great discussion, couldn't we?
Well number one, we're all born in sin
and sin causes us to be self-focused.
That's just natural.
Two plus two equals four,
And children very quickly
become self-focused.
Hopefully they grow out of that
as they see others focused
illustrated in our lives. So they begin to
think of others and to feel good about
the fact that they share.
They grow into that through modeling.
But sin continues to work on our lives.
And so it causes us to be self-focused.
And we never get away from the
power of sin in our lives,
except that we can be victorious over it
because of the power of God in our lives.
But the fact is, sin is always going to be there.
Always going to be there--
the presence of sin, the effects of sin.
Even though God's forgiven us of our sins.
When we become Christians,
we don't become totally new
and freed up from our sin nature.
We're given a new life
to be victorious over it, in Christ,
by living by the Spirit.
So we should understand
the impact of sin in our lives--
all of our lives.
There's another interesting insight here.
And that is that I've noticed that
often times insecurity will breed pride.
It's a conundrum almost.
It's ironic but many times people
who have the most difficult time with pride
are insecure people who do not know
how to respond maturely to positive strokes.
They overact because they
are so needy in their lives.
They struggle with pride.
And that says a lot in terms of
meeting the needs of children
and youth as they grow,
so they have a good self-image.
God wants them to have a good self-image.
If they don't have a good self-image,
we make them vulnerable to pride.
They can't handle positive strokes appropriately.
People who are mature find it very easy
often to handle positive strokes
without becoming arrogant.
By being able to turn that around
and give honor to God--in rather than
just taking honor for ourselves.
And it's not wrong to feel good
about our accomplishments.
But God does not want us to
be arrogant in the sense
of those accomplishments.
So as you watch secure people,
people who have developed
a sense of security--
the other side of that is
security with arrogance.
That's a horrible deal.
Most of us can recognize that.
That people feel so good about himself--
we have people on television
who exert that kind of confidence
and they come across
as extremely arrogant.
That's the other side.
But secure people, if they really know Christ,
will admit their failures.
People who are insecure
have a very difficult time
admitting their failures
because they feel so badly to begin with.
And so that's an interesting dynamic
that we need to understand.
But the path to honor--here is is, the Principle:
If we are to be truly honored
by God and others, we must first of all
demonstrate a true spirit of humility.