Col.3:12c    Humility	6-24-2001
(how-loving-04-2001– Part 04 – Humility)

Is God humble?  

12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 

We found that the key to clothing yourself with love is having an awareness of how dearly loved you are by God.

God can do anything He wants, and of all the things God could have, He takes pleasure in…loving you when you don’t deserve it.

Zep.3:17  The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.
Jer.32:41  I will rejoice in doing them good
Isa.30:18  the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.
Isa.62:5  as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you
In Jer.32:41 God says I will show you love with all my heart and all my soul.

We found that God is compassionate.  God is willing to inflict Himself with pain simply to identify with us in our pain.  

And God is kind.  He showers every human being with kindness.   

People who are pessimistic about whether God will graciously give them wonderful gifts in the weeks and months to come need to re-read Ro.8:32  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

So a profound awareness of God’s compassion toward us enables us to show compassion, and a deep understanding of God’s great kindness toward us enables us to show kindness.

But what about the next aspect of love?  Is God humble?

Defined

humility
Selflessness. The word humility literally means “lowliness of mind” but does not refer to pretending you are more lowly than you are.  Humility is actually lowering yourself beneath your neighbor.   

You humble yourself not by putting yourself down or criticizing yourself, but by washing someone’s feet.  Or cleaning up someone’s mess after a potluck with no thanks.   Or letting someone else receive the credit for something you did.

TT Php.2

God is the ultimate example of the virtue of humility.

CHRIST’S EXAMPLE
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant, being made in human likeness.  8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross! 
Christ set aside His… 
Glory
The Form of God

Jesus was equal in every quality, but the point here is that He was equal in form.  That refers to His glory – the “riches” He gave up (2 Co.8:9)

His eternal blessedness.  His eternal, infinite, unlimited, perfect joy, contentment and happiness.

That was Jesus’ condition before the incarnation.  Infinite happiness, contentedness and joy beyond anything we could possibly dream of, and beyond anything I could even begin to express and describe to you from this pulpit.
It’s the kind of thing that we can only relate to in the most remote, partial, infinitesimal way.  Our greatest, most ecstatic, exuberant pleasures absolutely zero out when placed next to this.

No one in this room has ever experienced anything like this.  

Not only is He happy, but He has infinite capacity to enjoy that happiness.  He is infinitely energetic with absolutely unbounded and unending enthusiasm for the fulfillment of His delights.  And throughout eternity past, nothing existed to hinder that fulfillment.
(tape 52b)

In heaven you will be enthralled forever – but in a finite way.  For Him it was in an infinite way.  Heaven will be blessed beyond description for you, but nothing like what it is like for God.

The pleasure Christ had throughout eternity past, is unfathomable, because there is no limit on His freedom to do that which brings Him pleasure.  And there is no pleasing thing that He does not do.  Ps 135:6  The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth 

Loosened His Grip

6 Christ, Who, being in very for God, (who had all the riches of deity) did not consider equality with God something to be grasped 

He didn’t hold on to it.  That was all His, and it all belonged to Him.  He was infinitely worthy of it, and it was good that He had it.  He owed nothing to anyone – everyone owed everything to Him.
Rights
Paul goes on to describe the long, hard journey of Christ From Heaven to the manger

6 Who, being in the very form of God, did not consider that equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant, 

made himself nothing evke,nwsen  to nullify, to make powerless or insignificant or empty

In what way did Jesus make Himself empty?  We don’t have to figure it out – v.7 tells us!
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very form of a (slave), 
He emptied Himself in the sense that He went from being in the form of God (glory, blessedness) to being in the form of a slave.

It’s not that He emptied Himself of something; He gave Himself away. That’s what humility is.  Humility is not thinking that you are lowly.  Humility is giving yourself away to meet a need, and Christ is the ultimate example of that.

Servant dou,lou  (slave)
One who is subservient, controlled by His owner.  A slave is a person who has absolutely no rights of any kind.  He is not free.  He doesn’t even have the right to life.  

Problem: Jesus was not a slave; He was a free man.  But it doesn’t say Jesus became a slave, it says He took on the form of a slave.

For the last million, billion years He had total freedom to do whatever He desired.  And then He came to earth and demanded no right to anything.

Another thing about slaves is they don’t own anything.

In heaven He was rich, and came to earth and gave it all up, and became poor – so poor He had to borrow everything.  
He had to borrow a place to be born, often had to borrow a house to sleep in – other times just slept outside.
He had to borrow a boat to preach from, or to get across the lake.  
Even at His triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the Messiah He had to borrow an animal to ride.
The great act of putting an end to Passover, and transforming it to the Lord’s Supper He did in a borrowed upper room.
And after He died they laid Him in a borrowed tomb.

He demanded no rights and no things.

He wasn’t a slave, but He lowered Himself by taking the form of a slave. 

In Lk 22:27 Jesus said, who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

This is a contrast with the form of God, which referred to God’s glory and blessedness.    
He stripped Himself of all that He enjoyed in heaven.  He canceled all the privileges, and waived all the freedoms and rights that we re rightfully His.  

This one before Whom the heavenly beings and angels had to cover their faces in His presence to protect themselves from His awesome glory descended into a realm in which he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. 

The degree of difficulty of any suffering is related to what you are used to.  If you have never had a garage door opener, or a microwave, it’s no big deal to live without one.  But if you have always had one, going without is suddenly a hardship.  

If you have lived at the poverty level for the last ten years, then seeing something in a store and not being able to afford it is no big deal to you.  But if your whole life you have lived as a millionaire, and then you are suddenly reduced to poverty, it would seem almost unbearable.

When Christ left the glories of heaven, in our wildest imagination we could never identify with the jolt that must have rattled His very being when He went from that to being a limited, dependent, needy human being.  
At the moment He left the eternal blessedness of heaven and entered the sin-cursed world of humanity, I’m sure there are no words to describe the agonizing, jarring shock to His whole being.
We can imagine, to some degree, the shock of a sudden painful reality.  We can imagine say waking up in the morning sick with the flu, rolling out of the warmth and comfort of your bed right into a pool of ice water.  (Although there is a limit on what we can feel – God made our bodies so we go into shock and are protected from things that would be too much).

You could picture embracing your most precious loved ones, and then suddenly having them ripped from your arms and killed in front of you, so you knew you would never enjoy them again in this life.

As human beings, we can fathom something like having everything that is precious to you suddenly torn away, and having most of it replaced by all the things you despise.

In our worst night terrors we might be able to conceive of some of that kind of pain.  

But none of us – even in our most mind-bending, terrorizing nightmare, ever tasted even one grain of the sand of the infinite desert of loss that God the Son suffered in leaving heaven and coming to earth.

You may be thinking, “Being a human and living on earth isn’t so bad – I don’t mind it.”

My guess is the average fly doesn’t mind being a fly.  But if you had to go from being a human being with a job & family & all your relationships & work, and become a fly – and live the life of a fly, buzzing around looking for some manure to land in…all the time aware in your little fly-brain of what it was like to be a human, you would probably be one sad little bug.

The decent from being a human to becoming a fly would be a finite decent – which makes it nothing compared to the infinite loss Christ suffered in coming into this world – that infinite free fall from heaven to the manger.

People: “I don’t want to go on the mission field – there are bugs and snakes…”  or “I don’t want my kids to go into pastoral ministry – no job security, little $, so much heartbreak…”
I’m glad Jesus didn’t think that way.  “I don’t want to go down there…”

And even if you forget about everything Jesus gave up in heaven – think about what His life was like.  

The thing that gives you the strength to keep going in life is the hope that something good will come of your life.  We all have hopes and aspirations – maybe you dream of something for your future or maybe you dream of something for your kids’ future…

What was Jesus’ life like?  How would you like to live a whole life knowing that the only thing you have to look forward to in life is to eventually, in the prime of your life, come to a violent, bloody end.

Worse than that – to live your whole life with the gnawing pain in the pit of your stomach knowing that at that time you will suffer the full fury of the wrath of God for every sin ever committed by all of humanity.  That you would endure a punishment equal to the suffering of all people in hell for all eternity – 

and that you would suffer that at the hands of God the Father, with whom you have enjoyed nothing but unbroken perfect intimacy forever.

What was it like to live a whole life with nothing but that to look forward to, and in the mean time living in poverty and being soundly rejected by the very people for whom you are doing all this.

This is our example.  This is how we attain unity and harmony in the church.

You say, “Sure would be nice to have more love around here.”  The price is high.  It doesn’t come cheap.  

We will have love when we have humility, and humility is painful, & costly, & difficult, and unfair.  

If you are concerned about everything being fair, you can forget this.  If you insist on getting your fair share, being treated fair – you can forget about ever having peace in the church or in your home or at work or having success in any relationship.

When you have some privilege or right you refuse to give up for others’ benefit, you are saying that that right belongs to you even more than being in the form of God belonged to Christ.

The incredible thing about all this was that it was voluntary.  
Usually the only people who are in the form of a slave are people who have been enslaved by someone else.  Usually the only people who are stripped of all their rights and freedoms and privileges are people who have been stripped of those things by someone else.
Jesus reduced Himself to that.  None of this was forced upon Him.  Though He wasn’t a slave, He took on the form of a slave.  As a free man, both the Roman govt. and the Jewish govt. guaranteed Him certain rights, but He refused to utilize those rights.  

As Almighty God He inherently possessed every right, but He would not cling to that.

The fact that Jesus wasn’t actually a slave is the whole point.  To be in the form of a slave if you have been enslaved by someone is one thing.  But to live like that when you don’t have to – that’s amazing.

For the slave of a household to dress like a lowly slave (with a towel wrapped around his waist), and to wash the guests’ feet is nothing unusual.  But to do that when you are not a slave is the greatest imaginable humility.

Remember - every moment Jesus spent not exercising the prerogatives or power He possessed as deity was a conscious effort not to.  

That requires a lot more selflessness and humility than if He had just given up that power, because it was a constant, 24-hour a day humbling of Himself.

Can you imagine being able to just snap your fingers and have a job done?  Can you imagine being in excruciating pain and having the ability to be rid of it with one thought, and yet refusing to ever use that power?  That’s what Jesus’ life was like.

Remember that next time you think it’s costing you too much to serve someone.
Respect
The Appearance of a Man

7 but made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross! 
The reason form and appearance is emphasized is looking like God in heaven gets you glory.  Looking like a salve on earth gets you spit upon, beaten, mistreated, marginalized and ultimately killed.

The emphasis is on the appearance to us, from our perspective.  There is a reason for that.  

It’s one thing to condescend, it’s another thing to do it without anyone knowing.  Jesus became so human that to everyone who saw Him, He appeared to be only human.

Sometimes we are willing to humble ourselves, but even then we usually want the person to know exactly how much we are sacrificing.  

“Uh, that was mine…but, I guess you can have it.”
Some secretary tells you to get a mop and clean up a mess – “Did you know I’m the owner of this company?  But that’s OK, I’ll clean it up.”

Jesus could have been born with a halo.  He could have walked around with an entourage of glorious angels.  But He lowered Himself so low, He was absolutely indistinguishable from all the other humans.   Almost all His life everyone just thought He was just another nobody.

In fact, He appeared so human, so ordinary, that they couldn’t accept His teaching.  When He taught, they had the feeling they were listening to the mind of God Himself, but then they would shake that feeling off when they took a good look at Him.

So God became a man.  He took on human flesh, and that incarnation is what we celebrate at Christmas time.  The symbol we tend to use to show Christ in His humiliation is that nativity scene.  He began in the highest heaven, and came all the way down.  And how could He go any lower than that – a helpless infant laying in a feed trough, 100% dependent upon a couple teenagers for His survival.  

But that wasn’t the lowest point.  He hadn’t finished His descent yet.
28:16
Freedom
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient 
Obedience is a word that offends most people when applied to them.  
Most people would be embarrassed if characterized as obedient.  

To be a slave is a humble place.  But to be an obedient slave is even more of a humiliation.

You would have thought that at some point short of this He would have said, “Stop.  That’s enough.”

Inevitably, when you are dealing with someone who has been offended, and is mad at someone else, no matter how much you show them the principle of vv.3,4, it has no effect, because they will always say, “I understand that – but this is an exceptional case.  For me to humble myself in this case…that would just be taking it too far.”

How far do we take this?  How far did Jesus take it?   He came from the highest heaven all the way down to earth, all the way down to the manger, and from there kept going down and became a servant, and obedient servant…but still He wasn’t satisfied.  He had to go lower.

Humility doesn’t care how low it has to go – it just does whatever it takes to meet the need at hand.

Life
It’s interesting that for Jesus that was an act of obedience.  For the rest of us death is inevitable.  You will die whether you are willing to or not.

Only for a divine being could death be a matter of obedience.  It was obedience to the Father.  Everything about Jesus’ death was voluntary. Jn 10:17-18   The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-only to take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." 
Freedom
Most precious Relationship
Not just any death.  The most painful and humiliating kind of death they used.

This mode of execution was so horrible that the very word “cross” was considered an obscenity and was not to be uttered in polite Roman company 

Crucifixion was a form of execution that was considered by the Romans to be too degrading for a human being, and so it was reserved mostly for slaves – for people they did not consider to be human beings.

Jesus came so low that not only did He appear as a human, but they regarded Him as less than human.

The shame was a horrible part.  The utter humiliation of hanging naked in front of a merciless, jeering crowd.  The staggering incongruity of the King of kings being subjected tot thtat.  Heb.12:2 says Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him, but it also says He despised the shame that went along with it.

But the worst part about the cross wasn’t the physical pain or the shame.  It was the curse of God.  Jesus Christ led a spotless, sinless life.  He abhorred sin with all His being, utterly hated it, and never committed a single sin in thought or deed or motive.  

But on the cross He took upon Himself all the guilt of all sin, and bore the full wrath of God – the equivalent of the punishment of all human beings in hell for all eternity.  I believe that happened at the moment when He cried out about God forsaking Him.

As He hung on the cross, from below Him came the mocking rejection, of the merciless, vicious crowd.  
From all around Him no doubt Satan and all his host tormented Him to the most extreme degree imaginable – using every conceivable resource of evil at their disposal.  
And worse than all that from above Him came raining down the infinite, unrestrained fury of the wrath of God held back for all the ages.
And from within came the bitter cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
How great our guilt must have been to require this!

Christ set aside His… 
Glory
He loosened His grip on that which was rightfully His.  If Christ is willing to set aside His own glory – His eternal blessedness, can’t we bring ourselves to loosen our grip on the little things we think are rightfully ours?

You think you have rights?  We can think of someone granting you rights in a relative way, but the only absolute right that anyone has ever possessed was God’s right to His own glory.  It was that blessedness that Christ was willing to let go – for us.  

He traded it all for the spittle of man on His face, and a crown of thorns, and blows to the head, and mockery, rejection and death.

Paul’s point is that if Christ gave up all that, I can give up some of my relaxation time once in a while for my family.  

If Christ can leave the glory of heaven to come to earth, I can leave the dinner table to help talk to someone who is in distress.

God provides us with some pretty lofty motivations for our little, tiny responsibilities, doesn’t He?

We think about the eternal blessedness of God, and we consider things that are really too big for our own souls and we are rocketed right into the heavenlies, but it doesn’t take long for us to come crashing back down to earth.

If you are like me, you sit in astonishment at the wonders of the blessedness Christ gave up as an example for us.  

But then just moments later…
“It’s not my turn to take out the trash!  Why do I always have to do everything…
I had plans!  This is my leisure time.  That’s my privilege!  That’s my freedom, I won’t give it up!  I have my rights! I earned it!  I deserve a good night’s sleep!  I have it coming!  It’s my turn!  Treat me the way I want!  I’ve worked for it!  It’s mine! 
You can only say those things if you are not thinking about what Christ did.

It’s not your turn to take out the trash?  That is a benefit that “belongs” to you?  Are you going to hold on to that?  Are you going to seize it?  Grip it?  

Or are you going to look to the example of Christ and loosen your grip?  It starts with the attitude.  Loosen your grip on the things you want.

Christ’s attitude was such that He was willing to let go His grip on that which was rightfully His.

That’s our example.  What are you rich in?  Make someone else rich in that.
Can you just give up some of your puny little privileges?

Are we going to say that we have some rights that are more rightfully ours than God’s glory was rightfully His?

Respect
The Appearance of a Man
If Christ can give up the appearance of God and appear as a man – if He is the Almighty Creator and He is willing to be thought of as some bumkin from Bethlehem, or some nobody from Nazareth – how hard is it for me to just allow someone else to get the credit for something?  

If He is willing to do all that, can’t I forgo being the center of attention or give up some little puny praise or thanks I think I have earned?

If God the Son is willing to be thought of as nothing but an average, marginal human being, can’t we allow ourselves to be pushed to the side?  Or am I too important for that?

If He can set aside the honor importance He deserves, can’t I set aside the respect I think I deserve?
Freedom
If the King of kings lowered Himself to become obedient, why would we resist submitting to authority?  

It’s OK for the Lord Jesus Christ to submit to the rules of a teenage mother, but not us, because we know better than our parents?

It’s appropriate for Jesus to voluntarily submit to the synagogue authorities, but we don’t need to submit ourselves to the church authorities, because we are so wise.

It’s fitting for the King of Heaven to obey the Roman government and pay taxes, but I can’t have an attitude of gracious submission toward the United States Government because I disagree with many of the laws?

If anyone should have been allowed to call all His own shots, it was Christ.  And yet He set aside that freedom.  Can you imagine knowing the end from the beginning, having all knowledge of all things, and submitting to the leadership of sinful, fallible, errant foolish, blind human beings?

If He is willing to do that, can’t we eagerly and with respect submit to all our authorities?

Life
How far are we to take this?  Jesus took it to the grave.  

It may not be that you will have to die, but it will cost you your life nonetheless.  Because having the attitude of Christ will demand that you live your whole life doing difficult things.  It may very well involve living your whole life on a track other than the one you might naturally choose – just to serve others.

The demands of Christ are demands that require our lives.  He never asks for little pieces of our lives – He requires full commitment.  

There is a difference between involvement and commitment.  It’s one thing to be involved, it’s another to be committed.  The Kamikaze pilot who flew 50 missions was involved but not committed.

Most precious Relationship
Nothing is as precious to you as the intimacy with the Father was to Jesus.

None of the brutal physical pain made Jesus cry out, but at one point something did.  We don’t know exactly what was going on spiritually, but it made Him cry out, “Why have You forsaken Me?”  The only time Jesus ever addressed God without using the affectionate term, “My Father.”

What is more precious to you than anything else?  Humility may require even that of you.

Probably not – and we need to make wise decisions about what is worth giving up for what benefit.  But we need to have the attitude of Christ, because our natural assessment of what is too high a cost to serve someone is way off.  

Maybe you will never have to set aside your most treasured relationship, but it’s crucial that you understand Christ did – for you.  The fact that the things we give up are so much smaller is the whole point.

You know those people who are super-easy to get along with?  Everyone gets along with them just fine.  What a treasure those people are.  Do you know how they got that way?  It’s not that they were born that way.  It’s not their personality type.  

They are that way because they have humbled themselves.  Every person in this church could be like that.

What an act of love – to lower yourself down so low that you are unoffendable.    

You cannot have success in any relationships without humility.  If you are selfish, rather than humble, you will find friction in your marriage, at work, in the home, and at church.  

Very often people have what seems to be a terrible crisis in some relationship, and they assume it must be some deeply rooted, complicated, complex psychological issue from the past that might take months of professional counseling to properly diagnose…when in reality, it’s nothing more than a problem with selfish pride.

consider others better (NASB more important) 	
12:13
What a unique community the church is!  Where no one is looked down on, and everyone is looked up to!

And instead of the needy being marginalized, their need becomes the very thing that lifts them to a point of receiving higher consideration.  Since we are all on the lookout to meet one another’s needs, those people with great needs are lifted to the top.

If you can just get yourself past the fear of being taken advantage of, and embrace this way of living – how much superior it is to the natural way of living.  The world says, “Look out for #1.”  So they do, and the result is you have one person looking out for you.

To be a part of the church you have to give that up, and it’s scary.  Because if you don’t trust God, you will think, “If I don’t look out for my needs, they will go unmet.”

But if you can just get past that fear, and trust God, and give up watching out for yourself first, think of how much better off you are.  Instead of having one person looking out for you, and having to fight everyone else who are all looking out for themselves, you come here and you have 100 people looking out for you.

The word consider means to calculate or reckon.  This is not something that is going to come naturally to you.  It’s something that will require you to discipline your mind to place yourself in a frame of mind to treat others as though they were your superiors. 
14:22
more important

It’s the attitude that your needs trump mine.
Your desires trump mine
I have legitimate interests, but yours are the priority for me.
Your opinions more important than mine

…and if I ever hesitate to say any of those things, I have to remember that Christ said all that about me.  He looked down at a vile, sinful rebellious Darrell Ferguson and said, 
“His need for forgiveness trumps My of glory.”
“He doesn’t even want to know or love Me right now, but his need to know Me trumps My eternal blessedness.”
Even though Christ was of supreme importance, and I was of absolutely no ultimate importance, Christ said, “I’m going to treat Darrell’s spiritual need as more important than My own life.”

Notice how in vv.20 & 21 looking out for others’ needs is equated with looking out for Christ’s interests.  You can tell how close a person is with God by how well they get along with people.  There is no such thing as a person who has a healthy relationship with God but who can’t get along with people.

Prayer

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Benediction:  Ro 11:33-36   Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!  34"Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been his counselor?"  35 "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"  36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever!  Amen.