The Battle With Sin: Violent for Humility - Tim Conway

This is Part 2 of the Series on The Battle With Sin.

I'll Be Honest
http://illbehonest.com

6 Aspects of Humility

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5)

“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

John Piper @ www.desiringgod.org notes that God has told us at least six things about humility.

1. Humility begins with a sense of subordination to God in Christ.

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. (Matthew 10:24)

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. (1 Peter 5:6)

2. Humility does not feel a right to better treatment than Jesus got.

If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household! (Matthew 10:25)

Therefore humility does not return evil for evil. It is not life based on its perceived rights.

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps; . . . while suffering, He uttered no threats, but handed [his cause] over to Him who judges righteously. (1 Peter 2:21-23)

3. Humility asserts truth not to bolster ego with control or with triumphs in debate, but as service to Christ and love to the adversary.

Love rejoices in the truth. (1 Corinthians 13:6)

What I [Jesus] tell you in the darkness, speak in the light. . . . Do not fear. (Matthew 10:27-28)

We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. (2 Corinthians 4:5)

4. Humility knows it is dependent on grace for all knowing and believing.

What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? (1 Corinthians 4:7)

In humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:21)

5. Humility knows it is fallible, and so considers criticism and learns from it; but also knows that God has made provision for human conviction and that he calls us to persuade others.

We see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

A wise man is he who listens to counsel. (Proverbs 12:15)

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. (2 Corinthians 5:11)

6. Humility is to believe in the heart and confess with the lips that our life is like a vapor, and that God decides when we die, and that God governs all our accomplishments.

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Driscoll on the Pursuit of Humility

How Truth Humbles Us

By Thabiti Anyabwile @ http://www.newattitude.org

The Apostle Paul spent a lot of time teaching. He taught in the synagogues, in the streets, in the markets, with women by the river, at all night Bible studies where people fell out of windows, and from house to house. The center of his ministry was the proclamation and explanation of the truth about God.

As a teacher of truth, the apostle was an astute observer of the character and effects of knowledge. The church in Corinth was filled with people making great claims to great knowledge. To them, the apostle wrote a gentle rebuke: “We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God” (1 Cor. 8:1-3).

Paul could see that there is a worldly knowledge that puffs up or makes a man proud. That kind of knowledge assumes it knows all there is to know of something. The person with worldly knowledge hasn’t yet learned to be suspicious of their information and conclusions, to temper their judgments with the recognition that they are cognitively finite creatures. And so, they are swollen with pride.

But there is a superior knowledge, a superior truth. Knowledge of the truth about God, in contrast to worldly wisdom, is fueled by love, edifies, and humbles a man. The truth—and particularly the truth about God—humbles us for at least three reasons.

1. Truth teaches us that God is big and we are small.

When reading the scripture, one can’t escape the vastness of God. We are presented with the truth that God rules all things, and He rules them according to His own will and pleasure (Eph. 1:11). He even accomplishes the salvation of sinners in accord with His sovereign mercy (Rom. 9:14-18). There is no place that He is not (Ps. 139:7-8). And there is no being or happening that jeopardizes His rule (Rev. 19-20).

The Lord God leaps off the pages of scripture and we are confronted with this truth: He is the gigantic center of all things and humankind are but role players in the drama of redemption. We are not the main actors we imagine ourselves to be, not even in our salvation. God is the truly big One and we are small. An accurate apprehension of the truth helps us to see this and to humble ourselves accordingly.

2. Truth teaches us that God is holy and we are sinners.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty!” That’s the heavenly song of the angels in the presence of God (Is. 6:2-3; Rev. 4:8). Stephen Charnock once remarked, “Power is God’s hand or arm, omniscience His eye, mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty.”

When we learn the truth about God we are left awestruck by an unimaginable beauty and glory called holiness. Men are prone to project themselves onto God, to make God in our image, to imagine that the Lord is like us only more so. But it is His utter holiness that confounds this conceit. Here’s how A.W. Tozer puts it: “We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God’s holiness is not simply the best we know, infinitely better. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. Only the Spirit of the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy.”

And when the Spirit of God opens our eyes to see God’s holiness and the sinfulness of our sin in light of His holiness, bowing to the dust in humility is the only acceptable response. God is beautiful and we are not. God is beautiful in holiness and we are ugly in our sin. That truth works humility in us.

This is why the gospel humbles us. The gospel joins together the recognition that there is a holy God with the awareness that we are unlike Him and deserving of His holy wrath. And the fact that we don’t merit his love, grace or mercy—and yet receive it freely in Christ—keeps us lowly and meek before the Savior’s glorious face.

3. Truth teaches us that God is omniscient and we know partially.

The Apostle Paul points out that our knowledge is partial and passing (1 Cor. 13:8-9). “We all possess knowledge,” true enough. But it’s the possession of that partial knowledge that should remind us of how little we know. If we’re overconfident that we know something, we are destined for pride. The apostle writes, “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” Such a man is puffed up.

When we recognize that God knows all things (1 Sam. 2:2-3), including the effects and end of sin (Gen. 3:5), the secrets of men’s hearts (Ps. 44:20-21; Luke 16:15), who really belongs to Him (2 Tim. 2:19), and what is hidden in His own secret counsels (Deut. 29:29), then the truth has its humbling effect. Our limited knowledge pales in comparison to the infinite knowledge of God Almighty. Who can boast of knowledge when the truth tells us at every point that we don’t know as we ought? Who can rightly engage the truth and emerge as a self-confident know-it-all? We can be sure that wherever our knowledge puffs us up, we’ve not even begun to know the truth as we ought.

Conclusion
One further thing to humble us. The God of all truth is said to know us. It isn’t finally that we know God, that we have some knowledge of the truth that makes us worthy before Him or grants us access to Him, it is that God knows the man who loves Him (1 Cor. 8:3). God is the Knower, and it is His foreknowledge of us that works our salvation. Our “personal relationship with God,” our “knowing Jesus as our personal Savior,” is really the outworking of God knowing us. The Apostle Paul is careful to clarify this for the Galatians when he writes, “now that you know God—or rather are known by God.”

What matters isn’t what we know or who we know. It’s Who knows us. And isn’t it a tremendous wonder that knowing the sinfulness of our sin, the smallness of our being, and the imperfection of our knowledge that God would condescend to know us? This is why truth, especially the truth about God, humbles the person who finds it.

___________

Thabiti Anyabwile is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman and blogs regularly at Pure Church.

Chastened Certainty- a rejection of teleological reading

Posted by Kirk M. Wellum @ http://redeemingthetime.blogspot.com/2007/01/sin-of-teleological-reading.html

Here are two quotations I have come across that have something to say about certainty.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts". Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and writer (1872-1970).

"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong". G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936).

We live in a day when ironically people are uncertain about certainty! They are suspicious and critical of anyone who is certain in a way similar to Russell quoted above. Just yesterday I read an art critic's analysis in which he prefaced his remarks by talking about "the risk of performing the sin of a teleological reading". A teleological reading is one that has to do with intention and purpose and meaning. This is a postmodern way of saying that we cannot know with certainty what is going on in another person's mind and therefore we cannot know what they are communicating through their work. We can only make sense of our own reality, and interpret the works of others in light of our experience. Anything beyond that is pure presumption. Interestingly enough, this particular art critic and people in general are unable to avoid the "sin" they decry. In spite of their theoretical commitments, they make all sorts of judgments on the views of others and can become quite agitated when others misrepresent what they are saying!

But while there are major problems and inconsistencies with extreme subjectivity, there are also problems with extreme objectivity. Russell is right to some degree. Many times it seems that fools and fanatics are certain of themselves, whereas wiser people are full of doubts. There is a unjustifiable confidence that is frequently attached to ignorance for the simple reason that people do not know any better. But Russell goes too far when he equates certainty with fools and fanatics, and doubt with wisdom, in an absolute way. Much better is Chesterton's statement that certainty is not bigotry provided we understand the limits of our knowledge and the fact that we are ultimately dependent upon God for what we know. Problems arise when human beings think they are a law unto themselves and everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Or when they think that they are in a position to make sense of the universe without divine revelation.

Personally, I have always liked the idea of a "chastened certainty". This concept flows out of the idea that we know, but only because God has revealed himself to us and made us in such a way that we can reliably receive his revelation. This strikes a needed balance between extreme objectivity (modernism) and extreme subjectivity (postmodernism) and it does justice to what God tells us in his word, when that word is properly interpreted with the help of the Holy Spirit. Something to ponder as we prepare to gather on the Lord's Day to worship God by listening to his word and responding to it in faith, love and obedience.

Do Not Be Wise in Your Own Eyes

By Joshua Harris @ http://joshharrisblogson.blogspot.com/

We’re working with our little girl on humbly receiving instruction. On Monday, I had a little special “breakfast time” with her in my office, and we worked on memorizing Proverbs 3:7, which says:

“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.”

We came up with little hand motions to help us memorize it, and also wrote it on two sticky notes. I have one next to my office door, and she has one taped next to her bedroom door.

I trust that this verse will help my daughter receive the instruction of her daddy and mommy with more humility. But I already see the benefit of the Proverb’s wisdom for my own soul. I’ve been thinking about how it applies to me.

I am wise in my own eyes…

1. When I don’t pause to pray for God’s guidance on a decision.

2. When I fail to depend on God’s word and approach it as a daily “lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105).

3. When I assume a decision doesn’t need a second opinion, and I don’t take the time to ask trusted friends for counsel.

4. When I am critical of another person’s practice or perspective without taking the time to understand it and ask questions.

5. When I am lax in fleeing temptation, assuming that I’m adult enough to “handle it.”

6. When I do something right and fail to acknowledge before God that it is only his grace that allowed me to do it right.

7. When I pat myself on the back about knowledge I have that I learned from someone else.

8. When I don’t draw out, or seek to understand, a person who is bringing criticism (whether or not it’s being brought constructively).

9. When I assume that the truth of a sermon is for someone else, not my own life.

10. When I neglect to consistently plead to God for his wisdom.

Until I see God and fear him, I cannot see myself rightly. When my view of him is clouded, when I’m a functional atheist, I will trust and applaud my own wisdom. But when I rightly fear God—when I see him for who he is as the all-seeing, all-powerful Holy One to whom I will answer—I will see myself as weak, dependent, and in need of heavenly wisdom. When I fear God, I will shun the evil of pride and self-sufficiency. By God’s grace I will grow in modeling this for my little girl.

The Fear of Man, Hopelessness, and the Gospel

By Bob Kauflin

Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking at the newest Sovereign Grace church plant, Sovereign Grace Church of Frederick (Maryland), led by Chris Silard. They're only 6 weeks old but had about 180 adults in the main meeting. It was a joy to see how God has blessed them not only numerically, but in so many other ways as well.

I shared from Galatians 2:16 on The Gospel and the Fear of Man. This is the passage where Paul confronts Peter for his hypocritical actions:

For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party (Gal. 2:12).

Paul points out that Peter's behavior was no longer in line with the truth of the Gospel, which says that no one will be justified as a result of obeying certain laws, but only through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. But Peter was more concerned about the approval that came from men than the approval that comes from God through Christ.

I shared that the same root that keep Peter from eating with non-Jews, the fear of man, had caused me to experience a "sin breakdown" a number of years ago. Back in the mid-90's I went through a significant battle with hopelessness. I would wake every morning with this thought: "Your life is completely hopeless." My day went downhill from there. For about three years I experienced frequent panic attacks, itching and numbness, shortness of breath, and a hollow feeling in my chest.

There were a number of contributing factors, but a major root was the fear of man. I "feared" that others wouldn't share the same high opinion I had of myself. I "feared" they would reject me, or think of me unfavorably. Those thoughts, repeated hundreds of times every day, led to bouts with anxiety, depression, and hopelessness.

One morning I was confessing to a pastor and good friend from another Sovereign Grace church that I felt hopeless all the time. He looked at me with compassionate boldness and said, "I don't think you're hopeless enough." At first I thought he was kidding; but then I realized he was completely serious. He went on. "If you were completely hopeless, you'd stop trusting in what you think you can do to change the situation, and starting trusting in what Jesus Christ has already done for you at the cross.

A light went on. I realized that I hadn't been embracing the fact that apart from Jesus, I truly do have no hope (Eph. 2:12). For months following that conversation, every time I would start to feel anxiety or hopelessness, i would say to myself, "I am a hopeless person. But Jesus Christ died for hopeless people." I began to see that my inability to live in the good of the Gospel was rooted in my desire to find hope in something I had done rather than in what my Savior had done. I wanted some kind of credit, some kind of recognition, some kind of acknowledgment that God knew what he was doing when he chose me to be his son.

Fortunately, the Gospel brings better news than that. My acceptance before God isn't rooted in anything I've done or ever will do.

God communicates the same thing to the Israelites as they are about to enter the Promised Land:

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deut. 7:7-8)

What I've continued to learn is this: I never move on from my need for a Savior. The praise I seek from others will never substitute for the righteousness Christ has obtained for me before a holy God. In other words, the only approval that matters is impossible to earn, but is given to us as a gift in the Gospel.

I pray that your life will be increasingly filled with the joyful hope that comes from knowing Christ Jesus, who is and forever will be our only hope (1 Tim. 1:1).

Humility and Unity...

By Dave Marriott

Philippians 2:10-11 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This Sunday as we sang about those verses, I was impressed again with their meaning. I am guilty of not allowing these verses to have the affect in my life that the Holy Spirit intended them to have. Too often I have simply viewed them as future events which only apply to those who are not in Christ. For instance, when sharing the gospel I am often cursed, mocked, and scorned. It is easy for me to think, "One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." This is true - that particular application may be appropriate. However, consolation because of present day rejection of the gospel is not the point/emphasis of the passage, nor is it the primary meaning. I realize this may be tedious, but I implore you to continue reading. I believe this will be a blessing to you.

The greater context of Philippians reveals Paul's intent in the letter. Chapter one screams that we should pursue unity because the gospel is at stake. Paul thanked God for the Philippians' "fellowship in the gospel," while challenging the members of the church to "strive side by side for the sake of the gospel." Further, chapter 4 clearly builds on unity as Paul deals specifically with two ladies in the church that they "be of the same mind in the Lord." Chapter 2 is also a clear call to unity. Paul instructs them to be "like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind." He is formulating a strong argument for unity in the church. Several verses later, we read of the central example of humility, Jesus Christ. We read of his obedience and servanthood - the Lord of heaven and earth humbled himself to a position of subjection to the lords of this earth. What he left we can hardly imagine, but yet his perfect love for us sent him to the cross on our behalf.

Then I read that one day "every knee will bow and every tongue will confess" - I knew it applied to a future situation where all would be made right and Christ would reign, but yet I never saw myself in those verses! What could be more fueling to unity than if each believer would see themselves bowing before Jesus Christ? Desire for preeminence would be replaced by humble servanthood. Respect of persons would be transformed into love for others. We may think we occupy a position of superiority, but on that day, each one of us will occupy a prostrate position before the One who is worthy of all our worship, praise and adoration - Jesus Christ.

The greatest catalyst for unity is humility. As I sang the song this Sunday, one again my heart was moved. I will be bowing. Me. My knee will bend; my voice will cry, "Jesus Christ is Lord!"