Believe it or not, we worship a humble God.

Steve Brown:
Believe it or not, we worship a humble God. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. I’m Matthew, executive producer for the program, and our host is author and seminary professor Steve Brown. The church has suffered under do more, try harder religion for too long. And Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captives free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man, how you doing?

Steve Brown:
Doing good. I’ve had to repent from what I said yesterday, and then Jesus told me I didn’t have to, and you did too. We both said that we were more humble than we used to be.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And that could either be a prideful statement and I don’t think in either of our cases that was true cause there’s so much other bad stuff that’s just not going to go there. But I think you do know it. I think God encourages you by showing you the reality of the sanctification that is taking place in your life. Let me read another text. This is from the 11th chapter of Matthew, and then we’ll talk about a humble God. Jesus said this.

“Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

So that’s Jesus himself saying that he was humble.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Lowly in heart.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
That brings me to something, you had said this before and I don’t know if I understand it. You said that God was humble. What do you mean by that?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s his nature. If he’s calling us to be humble, then it’s part of his character. It’s part of his nature.

Steve Brown:
An attribute.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it’s an attribute of God. Humility, just like patience is an attribute of God as well. And so, he’s calling us to this, he’s humble, he’s calling us to be like him. And so, in humility, you know, you’re stating the facts as they really are, right?

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
So, if I were to say to you, Steve Brown has got an incredible voice and he’s a great communicator. And you would say, well, I don’t know if I’m great, but I’m a good communicator. I’m a good communicator. That’s true. It’s a fact.

Steve Brown:
And that doesn’t make me prideful to say that.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know, you got the voice from God.

Steve Brown:
I know it’s better than yours.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s way better, I’ve asked you for your, when God brings you home, give me your voice.

Steve Brown:
Well, I’ve told him to give me your looks.

Pete Alwinson:
You’re right.

Steve Brown:
If we could put both of those two things together, we’d be a new Billy Graham, but God is humble because God is who he is.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. He’s perfect. And so, but he’s all powerful. No brag, just fact, you know, there was a TV show where that was, years ago that was the line. Walter Brennan, you remember that guy?

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And he used to say, no brag, just fact. And God never brags. And so, when he calls us to worship him, he deserves it.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
He’s perfect. And so, God is humble and so our humility is having a proper view of ourselves in light of who God is.

Steve Brown:
You used the word. What’s wormology?

Pete Alwinson:
Wormology is always saying, well, to be a Christian you’ve got to be humble, so you’ve always got to ridicule yourself. I don’t do this, I don’t do that, I’m bad at this. And a lot of Christians think that’s what I call wormology. You’ve got to be the worm.

Steve Brown:
That’s a form of pride, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
It is, because in essence, people who are always criticizing themselves are drawing attention to themselves.

Steve Brown:
Oh man.

Pete Alwinson:
Always. And so, the guy who is always talking about himself, is proud. And the guy who’s always ridiculing himself is in some sense, insecure and proud at the same time.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s so good. And it’s, now that we’ve established the fact that an omnipotent, omnipresent omniscient God is humble, that shatters a lot of definitions of humility.

Pete Alwinson:
It really does.

Steve Brown:
But there was an act of humility that is incredible. And that’s the incarnation, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
Mm-hmm. It is. And just as you read through the life of Jesus, how he lived his life was a humble life. He was willing to be a man. He was willing to go from place to place. I love the times when the disciples find him, like in the morning. He’s praying. Praying by the way, is an act of humility and dependence.

Steve Brown:
Of course it is.

Pete Alwinson:
Right? And so, they find him in his prayer time and they say, Lord, come on, you were healing yesterday. The people are looking for you. And he goes, Nope, you follow me, we’re going to another place. He doesn’t go back to where he could get people fawning all over him. He goes to another group of people who haven’t heard him yet and need to meet him. He’s willing to take that low road of introducing himself again to a new crowd, to hear his message cause he cares about them.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s so good. You know something, just dawned on me. Humility is an attractive thing to other people, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
It is. It’s very attractive. One of the things I like about our younger generation of preachers, many of them, and you and I have both heard this, is that we have seen these guys in their preaching, in a very lowkey, self depreciating way, deflect from themselves and point to Jesus and point to God. And some of them do it in such a refreshing way.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
They’re not drawing, now you can do humble brags, or you can do, you can, you can try to be humble and draw attention to yourself.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
But a lot of these guys know how to do it and they really are.

Steve Brown:
And they really are.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
That’s so good. And you know it, it explains part of the attraction of Jesus. You know, when he was saying. Come unto me all ye who labor and heavy laden and I’ll make you rich. He didn’t say that. He said, come unto me cause I’m humble.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And people were attracted and still are to him.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Because he became a servant. He humbled himself even under death, as Paul said in Philippians.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh. And it’s a lifelong process of, but humility is not denying, for Christians, it’s not denying your worth.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s not denying your God-given talents.

Steve Brown:
Right.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s not constantly putting yourself down. It is following Jesus and you become a more winsome person like him. That what you just said there is a powerful statement. We want people to like us. Well, if we would listen to them more and like people more, if we would love people more, they would like us more. And, but it’s got to be real love.

Steve Brown:
Oh yeah. It really does. You know, that’s what Jesus was saying, said, if you want to be first.

Pete Alwinson:
You’ve got to be last.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. That’s crazy.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s self forgetfulness.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really is.

Pete Alwinson:
And it really is the opposite of pride. So, humility really is the opposite of pride. And I think that what Key life’s ministry has been so helpful to me and to so many people over the years is that the focus on grace is really a focus upon my identity in Christ. It’s who we are as the deeply beloved redeemed daughters and sons of the most high God. That status simply cannot be surpassed, and so when a Christian recognizes that, how high that status is. It’s humbling. And I don’t have to be insecure.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. Cause you’re held.

Pete Alwinson:
Cause I’m held. And even when I screw up, I can go running back to Jesus and he says, yeah, I know. And I forgive you.

Steve Brown:
You think that the world sees the church as a prideful place? Or at least somewhat.

Pete Alwinson:
Some do. And I think that we will always be criticized as being arrogant and self-righteous to some extent.

Steve Brown:
No matter what we do.

Pete Alwinson:
No matter what. No matter how much we serve. I mean, who started hospitals? Christians.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
You know who?

Steve Brown:
Who built the schools?

Pete Alwinson:
Christians. Who gives to the poor more than anybody else? Christians. The most generous people on the planet are Christians. But we also believe in absolute truth, and that’s I think the basis upon which we get most of our criticism. Because when I, when I say, when we say Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. No one can come to God except by him. We are making an ultimate statement that is deeply offensive

Steve Brown:
to unbelievers

Pete Alwinson:
to unbelievers.

Steve Brown:
And it, but it’s not pride.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s not pride. It’s not pride, it’s not arrogance.

Steve Brown:
And so, a lot of the criticism that is leveled at Christians for being self-righteous and prideful is unwarranted.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s anything but that because all of us have first bowed the knee to Jesus in conversion. And we have just come to see that we were wholeheartedly wrong and he was absolutely right and he is the Way, so we are just sold out. We point people to him and we say that your way is not going to help you flourish.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
Sometimes we get criticism for how we say those things.

Steve Brown:
And sometimes we say it wrong.

Pete Alwinson:
We do.

Steve Brown:
And sometimes we are prideful and sometimes and we need to ask forgiveness for that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yep.

Steve Brown:
And you can do that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Because of who you are, you don’t have to be anything at all.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. What a journey and adventure this is if we will just let grace sink in. And that’s the number one starting point for growing in humility.

Steve Brown:
And by the way, maybe we’ll say a little bit about it tomorrow, but this isn’t all down. This is how you get blessed. This is how you become first. This is how you get strong. This is how Jesus deals with his people. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and Pete. I don’t know about you, but I am loving this special week of teaching on the subject of humility. Once again, our text today was Matthew 11:28 through 30, and we still have one more day of this great conversation tomorrow, so make sure you join us for that. So, it is summertime, you’re traveling with the family, creating amazing memories, staying up late to look at the stars, but then at night you can’t get to sleep thinking, wait, I’m away from home and I don’t know where to catch Key Life and Steve Brown Etc. on the radio here. Or is that just me? Well, listen, regardless, you’re covered. Just go to keylife.org/stations and our station finder tool will point the way. It’s just one of a bunch of cool features on Keylife.org and best of all. All of those features are still free, thanks to the generous support of listeners just like you. If you’d like to donate, just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. If you’d like to send your donation by mail, just go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Or e-mail [email protected]. You can charge a gift on your credit card. You could include a gift in your envelope. And of course, you can now give safely and securely simply by texting Key Life to 28950 and then following the instructions. Again, that’s Key Life, one word, two words. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.