Humility and how we attained it.

Steve Brown:
Humility and how we attained it, on this edition of Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus in the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Because life’s hard for everyone, grace is for all of us. Our host is seminary professor and author, Steve Brown.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re going to do something, we’re going to take a break from Acts and do something a little bit different. Pete Alwinson, as you know, is one of the voices of Key Life and he comes in every Friday and we’ll do that this Friday. And we spend the whole broadcast answering questions, but sometimes we get to talking about a subject and thought, you know, it would be great if we spent a little bit of time teaching on the subject. And so, we’ve decided to do that. We’re taking a break from Acts, and we’re going to spend this week talking about humility and how we attained it. Listen, before we turn to that particular subject, let’s pray. Father, thanks for your kindness and your goodness to us. Thank you that you’re sovereign and that you’re good all the time. Thank you for your Son who died in our place, and thank you for the promises that will all be fulfilled. You know everybody who’s listening to this broadcast, the hard and soft places, the joy, the pain, the laughter, and the tears. Remind us that you’re God and you’re sufficient for every need that you join us in our laughter. And you taste the salt of our tears. Father, we now turn this broadcast over to you. Ask that you would oversee it and bring truth from your word to your people. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Hi Pete. Thanks for coming in.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man, it’s good to be here. Good to see you. And boy, I appreciate that prayer. That’s powerful.

Steve Brown:
We’re going to talk about humility. It’s hard to do that, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
It is, but what I’m learning is that it’s easier than we think to talk about it and to grow in it.

Steve Brown:
It really is. And a lot of good books, that have been put out recently on this subject. I guess that’s what got us thinking about it.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Richard Foster, who’s one of my heroes, has a great book Learning Humility: A Year for Searching for a Vanishing Virtue. And then both of our friends, Gavin Ortlund, the son of Ray, has a great book on humility, The Joy of Self Forgetfulness. And Tim Keller, oh man, has God used, he wrote a book called The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. And Andrew Murray in 1961, humility and the Beauty of Holiness. We could go on and on and on,

Pete Alwinson:
I know

Steve Brown:
but we’re here to correct all of those books, to make sure that they get it right and we’re going to spend a week talking about humility. Hey listen, let’s start with a text and then I want you to talk to us about it. It’s from of the 20th chapter of Matthew, and it’s where the mother of two boys comes to Jesus and asks a request, starts at the 20th verse of the 20th chapter of Matthew.

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him. She asked him for something. And he said to her, “What is it that you want?” And she said to him, “Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” And they said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and my left hand is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
Pretty convicting, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
It’s so convicting a text of Scripture.

Steve Brown:
And it’s so human. You know, that’s what mothers do. You know, my mother thought way higher of me than anybody else did.

Pete Alwinson:
Thank God for mothers, right?

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And she said bad things to me, but if you said bad things about me, she’d break your face.

Pete Alwinson:
Now, I never got to meet your mom, but I would love to have met her. Oh my goodness.

Steve Brown:
Listen, talk about this text. This is really a good text for us to begin our discussion of humility.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is. It’s a great jumping off, it doesn’t use the word humility, in fact, it uses the word greatness because the disciples are really wrestling over that. And I always wonder in this text, you know, what put her up to that? Or was she just that kind of person? I mean, James and John are the sons of Thunder, right?

Steve Brown:
They’re motorcycle gangs.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
These are not wonderful kids.

Pete Alwinson:
So, these are dudes, strong dudes and their mom might have been that strength, that fire in their belly. But you know, it really is interesting from one standpoint, and you know, the ministry that we do to men, we talk about how God is about building great men as he defines great.

Steve Brown:
Oh, and here he defines it.

Pete Alwinson:
He defines it. So, we really see that this internal desire for greatness is a part of our human nature, corrupted by our fallen nature. But he defines what greatness is. It’s service to other people. And if you’re going to be a servant of other people, that means that you can’t see yourself as being in first place or the most important.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And isn’t that really the context of what humility generally is dealing with?

Steve Brown:
Somebody has said that humility is not thinking too much of yourself, but thinking of yourself not at all.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
When you talk about humility, what are you talking about?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. No, and in fact, you know, that’s really a C.S. Lewis, you know, you taught C.S. Lewis some things. And that’s really, that idea. He said it this way, he said, you know, we’re more likely to think of a humble guy as a really nice chap who was more interested in talking about us than in talking about himself.

Steve Brown:
That’s good.

Pete Alwinson:
And I like that.

Steve Brown:
I do too.

Pete Alwinson:
I think, you know, kind of flushing out. So, how would you define humility? I think we ought to have a definition of what humility is.

Steve Brown:
Well, you know, it goes in a thousand directions.

Pete Alwinson:
It does.

Steve Brown:
I would see it as humility is assessing yourself the way God assesses yourself.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s good. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And in that, that means you’re not, not valuable, you’re very valuable. You cost God the blood of his own Son, so that makes you precious. But also it reminds you where you came from, the dark, where you were, and everything that you have is from him. And it places you in a proper measurement of what it means to be his servant.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. So, it’s comparing ourselves to God and not to others. And we tend to do that in order to gain our sense of self-esteem and all that. So, one way of just summarizing what you said is to look at humility as having the right opinion of ourselves, in relation to God, not so much in relation to others.

Steve Brown:
It’s hard to do though, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man. Because we know God’s superior. We know he’s infinite, immortal, invisible, powerful, loving, perfect. And so, I’m going to compare with you, and if I go to a church and I’m a preacher and I’m listening to some other preacher, I’m gonna compare my preaching to his.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Right.

Pete Alwinson:
Or looks or athletic ability or whatever.

Steve Brown:
You know, the opposite of humility’s pride. And pride is pretty much at the center of it all, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man.

Steve Brown:
I mean, it’s all about me. It’s all about how I measure up. It’s all about what I do. It’s all about how gifted I am. It’s all about how I part my hair and then God took my hair away and I can’t even be prideful about that. Do you think God in his sovereignty humbles us?

Pete Alwinson:
I do. I do. I think that’s one of the major processes of what God is about in making us more and more like his Son. Jesus was incredibly humble, is incredibly humble as he came to be the Savior. And that’s what the him in Philippians 2.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, a servant.

Pete Alwinson:
And taking on the form of man first was a form of humiliation and humbling. So, Jesus really models it and yes, I deeply believe that God is about that process. And hopefully this week we could talk more about how he does that too.

Steve Brown:
All right, that’s good. Meanwhile, you’ve got plenty to think about. So, you think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and Pete Alwinson. What a cool side road we’re going down this week with both Steve and Pete exploring the subject of humility. As Pete pointed out, humility is certainly challenging, but maybe not as hard as we imagine it to be. And again, our text today was Matthew 20: verses 20 through 28. So, as you may know, Pete is usually part of this program on Fridays with our nearly world famous Friday Q&A. And it’s so interesting because sometimes the harder the question, the greater our opportunity to know God more deeply. Questions like, does God exist? Am I really forgiven and free? If all of this is truth, then why don’t I feel different? Well, Steve is no stranger to doubts and questions. In fact, he wrote about these things in a mini-book called Faith and Doubt: When Belief is Hard. May we send you this mini-book, for free? Just call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that mini book or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact for our mailing addresses. Just ask for the free mini-book called Faith and Doubt: When Belief is Hard. And finally, would you prayerfully consider partnering in the work of Key Life through your giving? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950. And as always, if you can’t give, we get it, believe us. But if you would, please do pray for us. Okay? Needed and appreciated. 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.