How to grow in humility.

Steve Brown:
How to grow in humility. Let’s talk about it, on this edition of Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. This is Key Life with practical Bible teaching to get you home with radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Pete Alwinson has been with, and you’re going to be with me tomorrow too. We’re going to answer questions tomorrow.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, that’s called overdosing.

Steve Brown:
Too much of both of us. But Pete came in and cause we were talking about humility and we thought, let’s take a break from Acts and do, and talk about humility for a while. There’s so many books on it, very good books, I must say. Let me give you a verse and then we’ll talk about it because you’ve got to recognize that this isn’t all down. You know, if you become last, you stay last. If you become a servant, you stay a servant. If you give away your authority, you have no authority. And that’s human, sinful reasoning. And God says just the opposite. Proverbs 3:34 says.

Toward the scorners, he is scornful.

But here he comes

To the humble, he gives favor.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Favor, which is grace.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
You want to get grace, grow in humility. And that’s a powerful concept. And we said the other day that humility is a gateway virtue, is that if we will pursue that, then we will grow in all kinds of other areas too.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. We’ll see great favor.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Hey, you had a quote from C.S. Lewis. You know, when I think of a great man who was genuinely humble, it’s C.S. Lewis.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Do you know he gave away a fortune.

Pete Alwinson:
No, I didn’t know.

Steve Brown:
And never told anybody about it.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
The lady who, the letters, the book Letters to an American Lady. He supported her financially. He never met her. And he did that in a thousand ways. And even used a pseudonym on one of his books cause he didn’t want to be prideful about it. He really was a great man.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And a humble man. Give us the, give us that quote. That was so good.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know, I got it out of Richard Foster’s book, that you gave me to read on humility. And it was after a long quote that Lewis summarizes these two things, he says, this is what I pray, he says.

From the longing to be thought well of, deliver me. From the fear of being rejected, deliver me.

Steve Brown:
What a great prayer.

Pete Alwinson:
And Lewis used to pray that. And I just think it’s so helpful to see that we can, grow in humility. In fact, he said, C.S. Lewis also said.

That a humble person we’d probably consider as a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.

Steve Brown:
I like it, man.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, that’s kind of one of the first steps that Gavin Ortlund says.

If you want to grow in humility, listen to other people for crying, start listening. Listen.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Well, since you brought it up, let’s talk about humility and how I achieved it, but let’s talk about humility and how one can grow in humility.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Because that brings, that lands this plane.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And this is the last broadcast on this subject. What are some things, practical stuff that we can do in order to foster humility that we’ve been talking about all week.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. and that first one is, is learning to listen, but learning to listen to people not so that you can just get through what they have to say so you can talk about yourself.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s really being interested in other people and people love to hear their names. I, you know, one thing I tell guys, I used to tell young pastors, nothing people like to hear more than their own name, remember names.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s so true.

Pete Alwinson:
And guys say, I can’t remember names. I say, yes you can.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
My seminary students, you can remember it, if you write it down, associate something with it. And listen to people.

Steve Brown:
You know, I got, I was called to pastor a church in the Boston area. And you know why I got it? Because I told Anna, when we’re introduced to the pulpit committee, I’m gonna remember every one of their names.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
And call them by their name when they ask a question. And I don’t know how I pulled that off, but I did.

Pete Alwinson:
But you did it.

Steve Brown:
And I could have been the devil himself and they still would’ve called me.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, there really is something to that about really listening to other people, practicing gratitude is

Steve Brown:
oh yeah

Pete Alwinson:
another way that Ortlund suggests that we can grow in humility. God answered a prayer for me the other day and I didn’t say anything back. And then a couple days later I thought, Hey, that was an answered prayer.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And I haven’t even thanked you and I, and so I did, but I, I, it’s when you, some people suggest that you have a gratitude notebook where you develop the habit of writing down what God does, so you can not only keep positive, but you can say, thanks.

Steve Brown:
Do you know what Jill Briscoe said that she did, which I’ve loved somebody, you know, she was very lauded in a lot of, wonderful teacher.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh yeah.

Steve Brown:
Magnificent lady, and I loved her. And she said.

I gather flowers during the day and give them to Jesus as a bouquet before I go to sleep at night.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, there

Steve Brown:
Is that good?

Pete Alwinson:
There you go. I love that.

Steve Brown:
And by the way, we’re getting some of this information from Gavin Ortund’s book on humility and self forgetfulness, which we recommend highly. I just thought before everybody said my, you’re so wise that

Pete Alwinson:
We ought to give credit.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. We ought to give credit and be grateful. Gratitude is helpful in this area too.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. We are grateful. And I think we learned from other people. I would say one way to grow humility is hang around truly humble people.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
We tend to want to be around the rich and famous and successful. And there’s, we could learn principles from that, but usually we can’t learn humility from them.

Steve Brown:
You know, it’s true. You know, I’ve had some experience in those areas with some well-known people, and they’re insufferably arrogant. I mean, as if, and they don’t even know it. So, you’ve got to look.

Pete Alwinson:
And then there are some people who are high achievers who are truly humble.

Steve Brown:
That’s very true.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s amazing. And one other thing I think that Andrew Murray said in his book, Humility, which was very helpful to me. He said.

Never pass up an opportunity to, to be humiliated.

And, you know,

Steve Brown:
I’m not listening to that. Listen, God is perfectly capable of doing that to me. If I don’t pass up the possibility, he will set it up for me.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
And I hate it.

Pete Alwinson:
I know, I know. It’s, but the more you get grace, the more,

Steve Brown:
the more you can,

Pete Alwinson:
the more you can. And it takes the edges off of being humiliated. And in actuality, the more you grow in grace, the less people can hurt you.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
They can say anything. And so, what Andrew Murray said to me was this idea that when something is humiliating, walk into it, lean into that, Lord, I’m feeling really bad right now. And why? Why are you feeling bad, Pete? Da da da da. And I can interact with it.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, well, you know, it really hurt my ego. Well. Is he right? Is he wrong? And then, and then it just,

Steve Brown:
of course he is wrong

Pete Alwinson:
right. You know, so there, there has to be that internal dialogue that when I, and I think most of the time I just want to pass that by. I don’t want the pain. And so, I’ll just, and so I think Murray is saying, no, no, no. Deal with it. Walk into it and embrace it in a sense, kiss the demon on the lips.

Steve Brown:
Intentionally.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, intentionally.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s so good. And then of course, you know, there’s something humbling about prayer itself, isn’t there?

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man. Yeah. Why is prayer so humbling?

Steve Brown:
You know, it sounds, again, pious for us. You and I both are men of prayer. We get up early and we couldn’t survive, that sounds so pious that I hate to even say it. But both of us would say that we can’t start the day. That prayer becomes the central focus of who we are.

Pete Alwinson:
It does.

Steve Brown:
And if there’s growth in humility and self forgetfulness, it starts when we remember who is worthy of remembrance. And we go before him, you know, walking into the throne room of God ought to make you surprised, but it also ought to be a humbling experience.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Worship, so here’s, here’s another one.

Steve Brown:
Worship is humbling.

Pete Alwinson:
Worship is humbling. And so people say, I don’t want to go to church. I don’t want to be with those people. No, we need to be in church. We need to be in church so that we can hear a message to learn, to get on our knees, if you have kneeling benches in your church, To stand in praise of someone who is demonstrably and obviously greater than you.

Steve Brown:
And worthy of our praise and our worship.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. I think one other, one other way too is embracing your weaknesses is, you know, there’s just simply, I am weak and as I get older, I’m weaker in things.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s so true.

Pete Alwinson:
But when I can say, you know, Bill, you are way better at that than I am, and I’m thankful for you.

Steve Brown:
Listen, we were glad to help by the way, and you were very fortunate to have participated in this discussion of humility. But all kidding aside, it is the gateway attribute for which we ought to pray and yearn. God, you increase and I’ll decrease. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and Pete. And that wraps up a fascinating week of exploring the virtue of humility and at risk of missing the lesson, I think it was pretty awesome. Listen to any of these episodes and all of our content anytime you want at keylife.org and guess what, Pete will be back tomorrow for Friday Q&A. On tap for tomorrow, is Judas in heaven? Be sure to tune in for that answer. Hey, speaking of questions, here’s one. Are you a jerk? Eh, I am, well recovering jerk, and I’m not alone. In fact, it happens to a lot of Christians. Chad West discusses this phenomenon in an article called Be Not a Jerk. You’ll find it in the latest edition of Key Life Magazine, along with other great pieces by Jenni Young, Kendra Fletcher, and Steve. And bonus in the magazine, you’ll find details on a very cool new subscription service called Key Life Book Box, all of that in our current edition of Key Life Magazine. Claim your copy right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email [email protected] and ask for the magazine. If you’d like to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact for our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of Key Life Magazine. Finally, would you prayerfully consider partnering in the work of Key Life through your giving? You could charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or simply pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 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.