Main Idea: Humility is not only okay, it’s Better
Scriptural Focus:
Proverbs 22:4 Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life. (NIV)
“Humility and the fear of the Lord”:
- Humilityis a proper view of oneself, recognizing one’s limitations and dependence on God.
- Fear of the Lordis a proper view of God, characterized by awe, respect, and submission to His authority.
- “Are riches, and honor, and life”:
This part outlines the rewards that come with humility and fear of the Lord.
- Riches: This can be interpreted as both material wealth and spiritual abundance.
- Honor: This refers to a good reputation and respect from others, as well as the honor of being part of God’s family.
- Life: This can be understood as a long and meaningful life, as well as eternal life.
- Humility is a quality of the heart- What does this quality look like? Synonyms-Modesty, meekness, lowliness
Our Scriptural example is found in Numbers 12: 3-8 Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth…. “When there is a prophet among you,
I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams.
7 But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face,
Moses- How did he get here?
- Can I get some of that? If humility is the path to wealth, honor and life, and Moses was the called the most humble man on the face of the earth, then give me some of that.
Part 1 Having a proper view of ourselves
- Shaky beginning- Exodus 2
- Born to enslaved parents- But God had a plan
- Received a death sentence as a newborn- But God had a plan
- Rescued by an Egyptian princess- But God has a plan
- Raised in Egyptian culture – But God had a plan
Egyptian Culture- polytheistic, centered on numerous deities believed to control nature and the cosmos, with rituals and offerings aimed at maintaining order and securing a favorable afterlife. The pharaoh, as a divine intermediary, played a crucial role in sustaining the gods and ensuring cosmic balance.
- Shaky beginnings don’t mean a dern thing!
Point: When we lean into our origin- humility is recognizing those limitations as, only potential limitations.
- Process it with God-Psalm 139: 13 For you created my inmost being you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
(14) I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
We must also recognize it was those limitations that presented us with opportunities to see our dependance on God.
- Humility and dependence go hand in hand. Recognizing we have need.
- Proverbs 11:2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom
- It is humility of heart that brought us to salvation. Jesus said it like this” Matt 18:3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
- Unless you turn from your sin- unless we first agree with God about our condition as sinners- having a proper view of ourselves led us to receive salvation. Jesus used the example of children.
- “Unless you become like a child,” he wasn’t advocating for immaturity, but rather emphasized the need for humility, trust, and a childlike openness to God, qualities essential for entering the kingdom of heaven. *
- as children are often more receptive to learning and less prone to pride or self-importance. Bible Gateway Quote*
- What is more vulnerable than a child
- It takes humility to receive the gift of salvation
- Admitting that we are wrong, and that God is right
- Admitting that we have broken God’s law, and we need the Savior
One obvious blessing of humility is salvation
- Yes, he had a shaky, rocky start in life. We can’t control where we came from, but we can control how we process it. The blessing of processing our past with humility is to accept the sovereignty of God over our past.
- Eventually, Moses had an identity awareness- Exodus 2: 11
One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”
14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”
- The scripture doesn’t tell us when moses learned his true identity.
- But here we see that ONE DAY, Pastor says “Any day can be a one day, that dramatically changes our lives”.
- One day something rose up in him as he saw a cruel Egyptian task master beating a Hebrew slave.
- Next, he saw 2 Hebrews fighting and reproved them. Then he ran toward his destiny. He processed who he was-and then accepted who was. No he wasn’t’ the prince of Egypt, he was the son of slaves
- He recognized and accepted where he came from and who he was- This is humility- having a proper view of oneself
- We can face the facts with God
Part 2 Having a proper view of God
- Moses’s encounter with God– Exodus 3– Read 1-4
“When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
- Remembering that humility and the fear of the Lord brings the blessing.
- Fear of the Lord means we approach God with a proper view that is characterized by awe, respect, and submission to His authority.
Moses said, “Here I am.”
- Here I am
Son of slaves
Survivor of a death sentence
Former worshipper of false gods
Murderer
An outcast
An asylum seeker
Here I am!
Read- further-
5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. Seeing God as God is humility- our scriptural focus in Proverbs tells us that Humility and the fear of the Lord is where the blessing is.
10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
- Moses remembers- back in Egypt there were many gods. So should I say you are god of the water, sun, flies, rainbow? God answered, Yes
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[d] the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
- Moses had questions and excuses. Who am I that I should go? Later he brought up the fact that he had a speech problem
Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
- The conversation between God and Moses tells me that the path of humility is a journey. It is constantly facing the fact of who we are or are not and then reconciling those facts with who God is.
There’s a lot that happens but in Exodus 33:11 we read these words.
“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. “
- Humility is Yielding to His sovereignty
- It is accepting His Yes and His NO. Yes, Moses I am sending you. No Moses, you don’t get to sit this one out- But know this- I will be with you!
Part 3-The Blessings of Humility
Riches, Honor, Life
Moses reaped the blessings- Exodus 15: Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:
“I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.
2 “The Lord is my strength and my defense[a];
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
3 The Lord is a warrior;
the Lord is his name.
- We Read earlier- God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you (Moses)that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” The Journey with you is my Resume’.
- Humility and the fear of the Lord bring riches, honor, and life
- Acknowledging the sovereignty of God, when we don’t see how He can be sovereign, allows God to write His Resume- as we go. Lord, I don’t know how this, whatever this happens to be. I don’t know how this will turn out, but in humility, in reverence and awe of you, I yield to your omnipotence, omniscience, your promise to be with me.
- Before you know it, you find that God has a list, with You, of His mighty and powerful acts.
- He is building His Resume’ with you.
- I imagine that when Paul and Silas were locked in that prison, what got them to singing was their history with Jesus. Sitting in that dark, musty, rat-infested prison, after being stripped naked and beaten, for preaching Christ-they began to pray, and to sing…
- It didn’t start there- Maybe it started when Silas told Paul about how Jesus sent them out 2 by 2- with nothing but the clothes on their backs…
- What is on Jesus’ Resume with you? Were you supposed to even be here today? The gift of this wonderful community of believers- God has been faithful to me. Did people count you out, tell you you were not going to amount to anything,
- Paul said, I delight in my weakness, because it proves that it is Christ’s power is at work in me.2 Cor 12: 9-10
- Jesus- our example of humility
- He willingly took the humblest position possible- He became man- a vulnerable man at that- coming to this world as a baby.
- He made himself nothing
- Philippians 2: 5In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
- The Blessings of humility
“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people, he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.” – Isaiah 53:7-9 (NIV)
- Ephesians 4: 2 tells us to Be completely humble
- The humble life- a life of acceptance and reverence
- Humility leads to us seeing the face of God.
- I want some of that
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