Beacon Sunday Service August 20th 2023

So we'll start by together um saying aloud the confession of sin. So together our King of the Universe the whole heaven in the highest heaven cannot contain thee. You are blessed and only sovereign, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproached life.

We have two now turn again to the bread of life.

He alone can satisfy every longing our hearts. In his name we pray. And now let's pray privately to our Lord, knowing He has um taken the penalty of our sin and He is victorious over the over the grave.

Here is a certain assurance of pardon. And God's beloved, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the richness of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight.

Um for our prayer topic today, um, I would I would love for us to lift up um it's August now, school has begun. I'd love for us to lift up um our prayers, especially uh we have a few educators here, um starting with Sarah, Kathy, and myself. Um it's it's it's difficult uh just year. Um every year is a difficult year. Um we have a new set of students. Um it's not only mentally taxing, it's even physically and sometimes spiritually taxing. Um oftentimes in our school we're surrounded by um ideologies and and and and culture that is against um what we believe as believers and the truth. And so if you guys can uh just lift um us up and the teachers up in prayer uh for the upcoming year, um that we can establish straight relationships with our students and um be a light in in our uh respective uh works.

Uh are still thankful for our teachers and their hearts uh which lifts up.

Lord is it is a very difficult year ahead. Um it takes a toll on on the teachers, um not only physically but mentally, emotionally. But we just ask for uh just your grace um just throughout the year, each and every day.

And that Lord, you can even use us um in our respective um workplaces and um the kids have at the difficult times and difficult moments, Lord, maybe we be there as a light, may we be there as um someone who can show love, um, unconditional love and show Christ like love to them, Lord. Yeah, we ask for continual grace and mercy throughout the rest of the year, Lord, strengthen them and be with them. We thank you, praying each other. All right, um, I will now um at least the cracking release the uh the children to the children's ministry. Um kids, we hope we have uh wonderful time worshiping the Lord and learning about Jesus. And with that, we're gonna go into our announcements. Um that's it's uh it's the same as usual.

We are just looking for um people who are who can volunteer for the children's ministry. So if you haven't already, um I believe there's a sign-up shape in the back somewhere, or if not they can um talk to one of the children's ministry leaders. And then um, as usual, um for our um our our members here, um if you would like to give offering, we have three options Lemo, compassion check. We always ask that you give um out of um what the Lord uh impresses on your heart. And I believe that is it for announcements. Um Pastor today, he is another member of um Lighthouse Community Church. If you remember last week, uh a brother um came um and gave us the word. Um he's actually the brother of that said brother, Kim.

Um this this brother's name is um Kelly Kira. Um just a quick background on on uh our brother Kelly. He has four brothers, one of which uh one of which uh spoke last week. Um Kelly came to faith at an early age, grew up in a Christian household. He's currently married to Shelley and has two children. Um a quick thing about Shelby, which I thought was cool is that she was uh a costumer for uh Avatar, you know, the Avatar movie franchise. So that was cool. I'm really a big movie uh movie fan, so I thought that was really cool. He's currently a lay pastor um at Lighthouse Community Church, and he owns a small graphics design and printing business. So it is with uh my honor and privilege to welcome um past Professor uh Kelly.

Let's give him a warm welcome. Thanks so much. All right, good morning. Good to be here in worship with you today. Um yeah, I think the question that's probably on everyone else's mind is what's it to do with Kelly and Kim and the names and why did your parents name you those names? And it's something that we've got a lot, and what's weird is our our third brother, Jared and Josh don't have female-ish names, and so um, but the thing that they tell us is that we're actually named after guys. So uh a couple friends of my my mom. Uh doesn't help us any with still trust in elementary school. It was what I like to call character building, you know, when you're when you're in local school, you're in elementary school and they they ask you your name, and you can tell them Kelly, and then I like that's the girl's name, and they're like, well, here we go.

Um but it's good to be joining you today, and I I thank you for having me. Um today we're gonna be looking at the idea of humility, uh, and by contrast pride. I think it's kind of a bit awkward for me to come here, and I don't have much of a uh history with you guys, and I'm gonna share with you about the need to grow in humility and and and to fight pride. Uh but please believe me when I say that I speak about humility, not because I've got it licked in some way, but because I've struggled with pride and want so much for you and I both to grow in humility. You'll hear a little bit from my story, from my testimony that pride is something that I've struggled with and needed to constantly remind it of how I need to pursue humility.

The theologian John Stopp writes, at every step of our Christian development and every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy, and humility our greatest friend. And just when it seems like I have a little bit of measure of um growth in the area of humility, a new season of life comes with new forms of pride and new opportunities for humility. Pride affects all seasons of life. I remember as a little boy, I exhibited pride. Um I come from a family of four brothers, as it was mentioned, and and I remember crossing the street with my mom. You can imagine this poor woman trying to hurt the four brothers across the street, and she would say this. She would say, Stay close, stay close, right?

As a father, I I see my mom's thinking in this. You want to be close to your kids to protect them in some way. But being the prideful kid I was, uh, I thought maybe maybe we should spread out. And I I think I said this to her, maybe we should throw it out, right? Like, if we all if we're all together and one gets hit, we all get hit. But if we're all spread out, and they pick off one or two of the little brothers, and hey, the rest of us survive, and good on us, right? And as I've gotten older, there are new areas of pride. The other day we were on our way to church, and we're going to get there a little earlier to kind of string up the offering envelopes and information uh cards in the back of the same short uh back for the pews in the sanctuary.

My daughter Piper, she has autism, and this is the way my wife has figured out that that she can kind of serve the church. Well, I decided to use this drive to remind her why she serves. And in simple terms, we serve because we love God. But we got to church and we're streaking up these cards, and we're finding a bunch of them that had doodling on them, right? Uh drawings, scriple. One kid even started to fill it out where the names was, and he he put magic guy. I don't even know what that means. But you know, all these um cards written on, and and I started to get annoyed. What a waste of these cards that that we've had printed, right? And also means that these kids aren't paying attention in service.

And another thing is they're not even throwing it away, they're making other people clean up after them. I didn't say anything out loud, but inside there's just this grow, grumpy mobile guy. Again, I have three brothers, and the way we really encourage each other with righteousness to righteousness and signification is through shame and sarcasm. And when someone kind of gets up on their soapbox about something, we get we can kind of get on them and we tell them they're being a get off my lawn guy, right? And I think as I get older, there can be a get off my lung attitude growing in my heart. So I always need to have to come back to growing in humility. One of the greatest influences we can have on others is one of humility.

James 4 6 says that God gives us grace to the humble.

And if you're like me, you love seeing others receive the perfect gift. Oh, help others to grow in humility, they will receive the grace of God, it's undeserved beautiful gifts. And as followers of Christ, humility is not an option but a must. So hopefully we can come to a greater understanding of biblically about humility today and why it is so important. So if you can rise as I read our passage today, and then we'll kind of get into it. It comes from Philippians 2, uh, verses 1 through 11. And it says this: So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being in the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

To be nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourself. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Having this mind among yourself, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he is in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a things to be grass, but emptying himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being bound in human nature, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow on heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue can be best that Jesus is the Lord.

Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is the word of the Lord. So again, we're looking at the idea of humility. We all need to grow in humility. Right? From the junior higher high school or a student that privately gets the good grades or makes the team for the praise that it will bring them. To the college student or career adult who is dissatisfied with their significant uh their situation because they feel they're entitled to so much more. To parents who spend time in their minds comparing their families to other families. Even the senior citizen who is unwilling to hear wisdom or receive help from their kids. Remembers remember, brothers and sisters, that others aren't seeing humility in you, they may be seeing pride.

And the Bible warns us of the dangers of pride. It says pride goes before destruction in a haughty spirit before our fall. It essentially says, be humble or be humbled. My life, the Lord has needed to humble me because of my pride. And when I was in high school, uh I was pretty prideful about playing sports. And during my senior year of basketball, my pride was on full bloom. I felt I needed to carry the team, felt it was my ball when we lost, wanted to meet people to see me as the savior or the hero. And problem is we weren't very good. And after one loss, I went into the locker room and I punched a locker. And it turns out bone versus steel, steel wins every time. It's still undefeated. And I'm pretty sure I broke a bone in my in my hand.

And there's still uh this bump uh in my hand, a physical reminder of what pride can do. I didn't get the hand check to God, probably is too embarrassed, probably didn't want to miss any gains. I just nursed it with ice from the cook-up machine at Carl's Jr. after the game. Be humble or be humbled. Beloved, we need to grow in humility. One pastor wrote humility of mine is the bedrock of Christian character and of spiritual unity. The famous cleric and hymn writer John Newton said, I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school cries. And the brightest evidence is that he is indeed our master. In our passage, Paul is encouraging the Philippians to be humble because that will help them to be unified.

He's worried about unity amongst the Philippians, and so he's exhorting them to fight pride and grow in humility. Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but he can in humility count the others more significant than yourselves. The church that Philippi was a pretty stolid church, theologically sound, uh, loving, generous, prayerful, and yet Paul saw the threat of disunity that can be brought on by just a few people. And it's not just the few people in a church who may stir up disunity that need to grow in humility, it's everyone, it's all of us. We all need humility to remain strongly united as the body of Christ.

And we want so much for the church to be united, to be unified. Our unity really shows the world who we are in Christ. Let's face it, the world right now is full of division from big to small things, things like racial tension and political unrest, to small things like paper straws and plastic straws. I'm a very teen plastic straw guy. We don't need more examples of why our world is broken into a million pieces. We see it every day. Again, there are big and small things that cause our fractured world. But we are the body of Christ. And we can show beautiful unity as a church family, and as part of the means to doing that is through humility. But also humility, it's just essential for our own soul, and ultimately as a means of glorifying God.

So again, Paul's exhortation is to humility. Now there's many exhortations to humility in God's word, but the passage we are looking at today is so precious because we get to behold the humility of Jesus.

So today, let us behold Christ. Paul here is saying to be humble, and here's the greatest ultimate example of humility, Jesus. Many in Jesus' day expected and prophesied a Messiah to be a powerful military or political leader, but God's plan flipped that notion on its head. Instead, it was prophesied in Zechariah 9 9 that Jesus would be a humble king. It says, Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation as he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Again, there was this expectation that Christ would just come in might, but his kingdom would be ushered in humbly. A humble baby, born to a humble couple, living a humble life and dying the most humble criminal's death.

So what is humility? Well, in verse 3, when Paul uses the word humility, it basically means lowness of mind. This passage goes on to fill out our understanding of humility. In verse 3, uh it says to count others more significant than yourselves. And this isn't just to act like others are more significant than ourselves, but the idea to count has this idea of a careful consideration that comes to the conclusion that others are more significant than ourselves. Then in verse 4, it says we're to look at the interest of others. We're to be a servant. Give yourselves for the good of others. It doesn't always mean giving others what they want, but what is best for them. Then in the later part of our passage, we see Jesus' humility.

He comes down from heaven to earth and becomes a man. God becoming man is amazing humility. Not becoming a king or prince or general, but on a lower human level as a servant. And then lowering himself even further to be seen as a criminal and then dying a criminal's death. So very simply, I would like to define humility as this to be brought low. To be brought low.

People may want others to have kind of this false humility, right? Someone that says the humble thing. But when it comes down to it, society's message is that I can climb every mountain, I can get, I can make my dreams come true, I have my own back. Essentially, you need to look out for yourself, and you're capable of doing anything you set your minds to. Down Paul's time, they already had a word for humility. It was sometimes used as a good thing, but oftentimes as a bad thing. But here in this passage, the word that they use is not just humility, but again, humility of mind. This is kind of a compound word that many biblical scholars feel that the New Testament writers, likely Paul, came up with.

This really emphasized that humility for us as believers is an attitude. It's not just a state of being. It's not, but it's it's intentional. Humility as a Christian concept is an attitude and it's a good thing. If you're a believer, this is your call. Does humility characterize your life? Brothers and sisters, are we leaving a legacy of humility? Humility is to be brought low. Are you brought low? So why is humility important? Well, humility connects us to God, and humility honors God. It connects us to God and honors God. So today our two major points are this. Come humbly to the cross, come humbly to the cross. And secondly, know your humble Savior. So on to the first point. Come humbly to the cross.

So if we look at this passage by itself without any greater context, we are left with a question. Why did Jesus need to die? Right? It says that he died on this cross, but it really gives no reason for it. So the short answer is because he was being punished. Yes, he was being punished, not for anything he did. But let me back up and explain. You see, God with his word spoke of all of creation into existence. A world that was beautiful in form, and he made people that were perfect in relationship to each other and to him. But then sin entered the picture. The first woman and first man sinned thereby introducing sin into the world and making it the nature of all humans to follow. Sin is a word that you don't often hear commonly in everyday speech.

It's kind of a churchy word. But sin is essentially our thoughts and actions that don't meet God's perfect standard. Remember that familiar verse, Romans 3 2 3, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And at the heart of every sin is pride, a pride that says, I will think what I want, say what I want, do what I want, and live how I want to live. Remember, humility is to be brought low. Pride is an effort to raise oneself up. Essentially saying that I will be the God of my life. The problem of sin is twofold. It separates us from God, and it deserves punishment. The punishment is in hell away from God. Remember, I said Jesus took someone else's punishment. Well, Jesus died to pay the punishment for the sins of all those who would put their faith in him.

He went to the cross for us. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The answer to our devastating sin and pride is Jesus' humility. In humility, Jesus obeyed the Father, became a man, and died for our sins, so that we might receive forgiveness.

When Jesus rose to life, it signaled that his death was sufficient to pay for our sins. You can imagine a person that leaves prison after years, serving his sentence as debt to society paid. Well, when Jesus rose from the dead, our debt was paid. We were set free. Free to live eternally and joyfully with the God who made us and saved us. So how do we receive this forgiveness and eternal life with God? Well, in humility, we need to see our sins before a holy God. We need to see our sin and be brought low. We need to understand that we can do nothing to restore our relationship with God and then come to him for forgiveness, acknowledging that Jesus' death paid for our sins. So many people, they want to believe that their good lives will mean entrance into heaven, but hear me clearly, it does not.

And anything short of perfection does not meet God's holy standard, and none of us are perfect. If you've come today and you don't have a relationship with God, please don't wait. Don't think you have time because no matter how old or young we are, nothing is promised to us. One of our one thing our world has taught us in the last few years is that life is fragile and our lives are but a mist. So come humbly to the cross and place your faith in Jesus, enjoy a mended relationship with God who did everything to make a place in his family possible for you. And if you do have a relationship with Jesus, let the cross bring humility to your life. I think one of the ways we grow in humility is to fight pride.

Pride is sort of the opposite of humility, right? The famous preacher Jonathan Edwards said this. Pride is the worst viper that is in our heart, and the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ. I think part of the problem is that oftentimes we are blinded to our own pride. One of the reasons pride can be so deceitful is that it oftentimes produces good results, right? Pride drives us to practice long and hard, and then we make a team. Pride makes us prioritize grades over everything, thereby getting us into a great college. Pride got causes us to stay late at work long after others have left, and the result is we enjoy career advancement. Pride is a powerful motivator.

Another reason pride can be hard to recognize is because pride is about having too high of an estimation of oneself. But prideful people are the ones determining determining if they are prideful or not. And identifying pride can also be hard because it's not just about pumping ourselves up, but it can be about getting down on ourselves because we're not getting the glory we think we deserve. I've used this illustration before, but when I received the invitation to speak to you today, I could have responded in different ways, both demonstrating pride. I could have privately said, sure, I'll speak, thinking I have so much to offer these folks here. That might have been an obvious depiction of pride.

But I can also be pride and say, No, I'd rather not, because in pride I'm afraid of what others might think of me. In both cases, it's about me and not God. Pride is me focused, and it's a tricky thing. God doesn't want a false humility that is really just a form of pride. Author Randy Alcorn writes, humility isn't pretending we're unworthy because it's spiritual, it's recognizing we're unworthy because it's true. Party part of my journey with pride happened during one of my biblical counseling classes when one of my teachers read a list of the manifestations of pride. And here is some of a few of those manifestations.

Seeing yourself as better than others, having an inflated view of your importance, gifts, and abilities, being focused on the lack of your gifts and abilities, perfectionism, talking too much, talking too much about yourself, seeking independence or control, being consumed with what others think, a lack of service, a lack of admitting when you're wrong, being unteachable, lack of forgiveness, lack of biblical prayer, being impatient, being deceitful by covering up sins, faults, and mistakes, using the attention getting tactics. I remember sitting in that class and kind of being undone by this list. I saw so much of these displayed in my life or a parent in my heart. And it was heartbreaking because it meant that I was really trying to honor myself and not the Lord.

It made me want to grow in humility, and I desired others to grow in this area as well. So I appreciate the opportunities like this to teach about or preach about humility. To fight pride, we need to come humbly to the cross. In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul desires to combat pride with the cross of Christ. One author writes, Paul takes us to the cross, bidding us to feel the splinters of the wood and the steel of the nails. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified, he says.

Pride cannot breathe, breathe, Golgotha's air.

And it's not how powerful. You know, I we always see a cross at church, but to see those nails and to remember the sacrifice. I think that's so important for fighting our sin of pride. When you look at the cross, we are reminded of the payment our pride required. We look at the cross and we see Jesus suffer for our pride. But beyond that, the cross gives us a new and better boast. We may want people to know our exploits, abilities, the positions we hold. But again, in 1 Corinthians, he says, Let the one who boasts boasts in the Lord. We bring nothing to the story except our sin. But Jesus, he is something. His perfect love and mercy and humility at the cross, that is something to boast about.

Coming to the cross crushes our pride by seeing the terrible payment it required, and by having something real and wonderful to boast about. So we need to come humbly to the cross. Our next point is this to know your humble Savior, know your humble Savior. The second part of our passage is just such a beautiful picture of the humility of Christ. Now while we need to be humbled, brought low by our sin and come to Christ for grace. Jesus was sinless, but brought himself low to make the great, to make that grace possible. His humility was not for his sin, but for ours.

So let's take a look at Jesus' humility. Jesus' humility was an attitude. Jesus' humility was that. This was what I mentioned before, but Christian humility is an attitude. Jesus was determined to do the Father's will. No matter what the cost, his heart was set on carrying out the Father's plan. And we need to have an attitude of humility. Verse 7 said that Jesus emptied himself. And this is the idea that even though Jesus is still fully God, he set aside his rights and privileges as God and King and Creator. This was his decision. And we need to do the same. Our minds need to be focused on humility. Verse 5 says, Have this mind among yourself, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Imitate Jesus' mind of humility.

This word for mind has the idea of the will and the conscience, but also of affections. A mind of humility must be one of love. Love for God and love for others. I think it's pretty easy to see that people live out their affections, right? They're driven good or bad by what they love. Jesus' humble attitude was driven by his love for the Father for us. I think one thing that is kind of stunning to me is that as Jesus gave his life for us, he was noticeably quiet. He didn't cry out for mercy or in anger. In Isaiah it says he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is before its shears is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

How could Jesus not call down legions of angels to his defense or rain down sulfur on his accusers? I think the simple and powerful answer is love. Love for the Father and love for us. Everything begins on the inside, whether humility or pride before it makes its way to the surface as words or action. Where Christ was perfectly humble in his attitude, we fail. This failure to be humble again is pride. So how do we grow a humble heart? We grow our hearts in humility through God's word, the Bible. Isaiah 66, too says, But this is the one to whom I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. We need God's word to show us our sins of pride so that we can grow in humility.

God is the stand God's word is the standard, and when we look at our life next to it, we should be humbled to see how short we fall. When was the last time that you prayed like David, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there's any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. And yet in God's word, we see such precious hope in the gospel. Story of forgiveness. In our filth, he loves us and cares for us and walks with us. And I think many of us need to be reminded through the gospel that when we are part of God's family, our sin does not change his love for us. But we also need God's word to show us Christ. Right? A perfect picture of humility like we're doing today.

Our goal in life is to be more like Jesus, and so we need God's word to show us his life. Brothers and sisters, are you growing God's word? We also grow our hearts in humility through prayer. Verse says, I'm not enough. I'm needy of God and his presence and his power. This is an amazing way of humbly serving those around you and displaying humility. My four foot ten, severely arthritic, wheelbound grandmother who was since past, was limited in what she could do physically for others. But I'm convinced that her prayers bore great fruit in the lives of those close to her and in her church. So Jesus' humility was an attitude. But his humble heart led to action. Jesus' humble humility was seen in his obedience.

His humility was seen in his obedience. It says, in being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Jesus was obedient to the Father's plan. This was a perfect plan, certainly, but not an easy easy one. Again, this plan involved coming from heaven to earth and becoming a man. An idea that I think is oftentimes lost on us. Man in his finiteness cannot comprehend what Jesus did and gave up to become man. The God who made the God who made everything became man out of obedience, obedience to the Father. Jesus who created this world would step down into it and experience it. Author David Matthews writes, Jesus was full fully human in our finitude and common frustrations.

Jesus' humanness was seen in how he ate and drank, got tired, felt pain, and ultimately died. Jesus obediently followed the Father's plan at every point. Is your humility marked by obedience? For those of you that are parents today, I can imagine you're not getting into too much trouble, right? Not driving harlies, getting into bar fights, that kind of thing. But are you continuing to grow in obedience to God? Are you obedient in even what Jerry Bridges calls the respectable sins? Frustration, unthankfulness, judgmentalism, gossip, worldliness. I know for me, I need to take a hard look at my life and root out the things that stand in contrast to God's holiness. Are we also growing in obedience to God as we live out the good things he's called us to, like evangelism or giving financially or supporting missions?

Live a life of humble obedience. So Jesus' humility was seen in his obedience, but next Jesus' humility was visible in his service, was visible in his service. Verse 7 says, Taking the form of a servant. Jesus came to serve. And his serving came in many forms, right? In healing and teaching and caring for physical needs. And it went as far as washing the feet of his disciples. John 13 it says this, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hand and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from sup rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

This is a picture of cleansing for sure, but also an example of humility. I think this scene should really shock us. A task reserved for servants done humbly and lovingly by Jesus, God and King for His disciples. Jesus brought himself even lower when he washed the feet of Judas, the one who would ultimately betray him. Author Elizabeth Elliott writes, Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet. This is humbling because in each of us, I think there's always something that we consider beneath us, right? Maybe asking for forgiveness from a child. I know there's been times when I've had to ask forgiveness from my daughters when they were young.

Sitting by the unpopular kid at school, learning from someone younger than ourselves, being in a position of authority and yet sweeping the floor, cleaning a bathroom. One young man at our church a while back said that to be a pastor at Lighthouse, you need to vacuum floors. And this brother has since gone on uh since college has gone on to plant one of our our our church plans, so it's cool. He's be gone on to become a pastor, but I think he he thought that was a prerequisite for being a pastor. There are a million opportunities love each week. How will you humbly serve? Growing up in my household, there was an argument that took place on a lot of nights. My parents would argue about doing the dishes.

And what I mean is this one of them would start doing the dishes, and the other would tell them to stop to tell them to stop doing the dishes or to leave it for them to do later. They were trying to humbly serve each other in small ways. My father-in-law was a very thoughtful guy, and in his wallet, he would keep a list of what each of his daughters, including my wife, would get at Starbucks. So if he knew one of them was coming over, he would be prepared to treat them to one of their favorite Starbucks drinks. And when my father passed, my wife shell.

A reminder of her father's precious humble love and service for her. So Jesus' humility was seen in his service. And finally, Jesus' humility was displayed in his sacrifice. Jesus' humility culminated when he sacrificed his life for ours. And his death wasn't just this sterile, painless, quiet death. It was death on a cross. Romans had a long heritage of execution and perfected it. They were experts in killing. One author writes, Jesus' physical death was an execution reserved for the filest of criminals, and one of the most horrible forms of execution ever devised by man.

And Jesus' impending death troubled his soul, right? In Luke 22, 42, it says, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. What a sacrifice. Not for a lovable people, but for us, breakers of his law, a prideful people who would usurp God's authority by living for ourselves and our our glory.

Humility is costly. Because as we see from Jesus' sacrifice, it's about the needs of others and not about our own needs. Are you concerned about your own comfort or the needs of others? You know, maybe for those of you that are here that are single, is your life about sacrifice? Maybe without a spouse or kids to consider it's easier to let the focus of your life be you. Look to the needs of others, meet the needs of others. Sacrifice time and energy and resources to love others well. I was thinking about my brother Kim, we got to meet last week when he was a young adult. Uh, there were those of us who would encourage him to be a pastor. And we saw in him wisdom and character and leadership.

And we used to tease him about being a pastor. And he would really get hyped out about that. Um he he didn't want to go down that path. And if you hear uh he he, if you've heard his testimony, he was not a fan to say the least of speaking in public. Kind of a prerequisite for being a pastor. So much so that he purposely failed an oral presentation because he simply just didn't want to do it. But we obviously know that's not how the story ends, and it's we just came upon our our 20th year anniversary, and he's still plugging away as our full-time preaching pastor. He accepted this large call upon his life to love through careful study and preaching of the word, and then it hasn't been a sacrifice.

I saw Kim's last computer laptop and noticed that he had typed so much on it that some of the letters were relate r erased completely off. You know, for me, a hunt peck kind of typer, I couldn't even probably use his computer. I asked him how many words are in a typical message, and he said seven to eight thousand. And I kind of did the math, and over a life of our church, he's you know, spoken nearly five point four million words. That does not include the words that are cut from the final message and the toil of overrightly understanding the word of God. That's a lot of love and sacrifice for God and for his people. This is someone trying to love, trying to humbly sacrifice like Jesus. So we need to come humbly to the cross, and we need to know our humble Savior.

To wrap things up, we all need to grow in humility. But it's not that I I want you just to be saved from the pain and sorrow of pride, but uh to know the real beauty beauty and grace of humility when I want my daughters to try a new food. It isn't just because I want them to eat healthy, but I want them to experience something wonderful and different. Humility is the right way to live, but it's also the better way. Again, the humble will be recipients of God's grace. At the end of our passage, it says this about Jesus and what happens after he humbles himself. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.

Jesus humbled himself, and the Father exalted him. You know that when we humble ourselves are brought low, God will in time exalt us. Peter 56 says this, humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he might exalt you. This exalting may come in the present as we overcome sin or suffering, or it may come in glory as we are rewarded for our earthly humility. Christianity is full of things that seem counterintuitive, right? The way up is down, be brought low and he will lift you up, humble yourself, and he will exalt you. Brothers and sisters, want the best for those around you, friends, siblings, spouse, nieces, nephews, and model humility. Leave a legacy of humility.

Remember early in my message when I kind of got bent out of shape when these kids were doodling on our information cards at our church. Well, back in the day at the church where the brothers grew up at, before I helped to plant the church we're at now, I was a kid sitting in service when the preacher looked up at me, sitting kind of in the back, probably a couple rows in the back, and said, Kelly, what are you doing? Right? And I looked up in shock. Because I was doodling. I was that kid. Uh but the wonderful thing about the true church I grew up at, and that particular speaker is that instead of being like me and getting all bent out of shape, they humbly gave me opportunities to use these doodling gifts for his glory.

That preacher would go on to start our creative arts ministry and gave me and others a place to use these maybe not so traditional abilities. They allowed me to create backdrops for vacation Bible school and design t-shirts for our shirt church. And this is a powerful picture of race and humility in my young life. My hope is that you, beloved, will continue to grow as a people of humility. Continue to do as it says in Isaiah, walk humbly with your God. It will be a grace to your soul, but most importantly, it brings honor to our deserving God. Pride is natural. Humility is hard, but remember that we have a savior that died so that our penalt the penalty of our pride can be paid for, and to leave us a beautiful picture of what humility looks like.

And just this reminder what you did in sending your son Jesus, how he humbly obeyed you and came to this world and died the most awful death for us, Lord. May we preach that gospel to ourselves each day. May it work itself out in our lives in humble love to others.