Humility - A Gut Check (for the believer)

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Dear God our Heavenly Father we come before you a lot this morning. We ask you to teach us we are
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Here to learn from you and to be changed by you and Lord We also pray for those who haven't been able to make it this morning
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We pray especially for Eileen and her family or we pray that you be with her and I Restore her and we also pray for the others who can't be here
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I'll be with them Lord and those who are able please bring them in for service In Christ's name we pray amen
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All right, I haven't passed out the handout because I realized some of the questions
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I have have answers in them, so I'll ask a few questions, and then I'll pass out the handout Pastor Mike had a
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An opportunity to meet with Sinclair Ferguson and One of the times he met him he said what do you think
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God is doing right now right now? What is God doing and the
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Sinclair Ferguson gave him a very fascinating answer does anyone here know what? He heard that He's exercising all of his attributes simultaneously
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God in his glory is is Exercising every single attribute that makes who he is who
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God is and that's happening together simultaneously at the same time and It is it's kind of mind -boggling for us.
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We can think of God's holiness We can think of God's mercy we can think of God's love But to kind of put them all together and say this is
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God exercising them all simultaneously is something I don't think I can grasp But it is something that we can understand because by nature
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God is who he is and by definition. He does what he does So that's
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God Now let's think about humans so as humans, how do we
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Demonstrate our godliness or rather. How do we grow in godliness? Keeping this picture of who
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God is and mind. How do Christians grow in godliness? So it's not a rhetorical question. You can answer
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Do we yes Bruce? Excellent excellent, and I'm glad you've got the whole verse there very good
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And you can see that there is a progression there are certain areas in our lives that we need to Grow in and we need to focus on them and develop them in a certain way.
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We will see how that happens today But it is not simultaneously we got saved we come to the ledge and then open our wings and you know
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Exercise all of our godliness under the radiant sky and Sun. Yes Splat what happens and Many a time when we get saved we get so excited because there is something in our lives that's changed
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And we we know that there is God working in us There's a new way of looking at sin and holiness we want to do things that are holy and we feel holy don't we when when you get saved and Because it is true.
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We are changed inside out and we do overcome sin because we have the Spirit of God within us
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But it doesn't take too long before you find out that we haven't arrived, you know When we were justified and there is a progression that takes step by step by step and what normally happens is we we have the
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Word of God that has Shown in our lives when he got saved and as we grow in the knowledge of the word the word illumines our lives
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He says oh You know, there's other areas that you did not know need to be
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Purified and cleansed. Maybe I didn't know that anger was an issue and I got saved I was dealing with lust and I thought oh,
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I I'm not gonna go back this place again. But as the word opens your eyes to what
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Holiness truly is different areas of our lives start to become Under come under the influence of the
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Holy Spirit we get conviction and then by the power of God we overcome and we will grow in Virtue after virtue as we come under the
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Spirit of God and the Word of God convicts us. So our godliness is progressive
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And And the way I want us to think of godliness is we ought to be reflecting Christ So we become more and more in the image of Christ and as we do that we reflect
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God and we become more godly Now one more question as an introduction and then
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I'll have the handouts out Do all of us grow in the same way? So when we get saved
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Do we have a list of you know, here's what godliness is and we say, okay. I've passed level one
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I've been Christian a year level two. I'm getting these virtues covered. Is that how godliness works?
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Why not? Excellent point there are some
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Christians who Remain Sinfully so as immature
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Christians and they ought to be growing. That's one one aspect of it Even in the more positive sense why even if two
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Christians are studying the word and growing will they grow the same way? Or will they grow differently?
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Why not? That is that is true, too
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What I was looking for is this I think CS Lewis was used in illustration He said, you know take a
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Christian and take a non -christian Don't don't put a tag on them and you know, just a
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Christian who's a genuine Christian a Christian who's growing put them both side by side and Compare how they live their life right now
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One of the guys is you know still mean and curly and the other guy is like really pleasant and sweet and You know
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Exhibiting the sweetness of you just want to sit around one guy and not the other Typically you'd you'd you'd assume that the guy who is nice and sweet is a believer, right?
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You ought to reflect the sweetness of God But what CS Lewis was trying to make a point was you know, what you didn't know was this guy who's curly and mean
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Was just this Mass murderer who was in jail and just got saved
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He is just a new believer and his life is going in a different direction This other guy who was nice and lived a beautiful social life his whole life has no idea of who
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Christ is He's just gonna go straight that way or he's gonna go down There is a direction in the life of this believer and each of us here may have certain areas that you struggle with You could be like this unbeliever who has no problem with speaking nicely
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But really don't know the Lord or you could be this Mean old guy out here, but you know the
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Lord and you know when the word shines in this particular area You don't want to stay this way.
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You're gonna be your life is going to be tending in a certain direction So today I'm going to pick one such aspect of godliness the the aspect is
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Humility and you're going to just examine how we ought to grow in this particular area
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Today's study is going to be a little theological, but it's not going to be focusing on the on the
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Study of humility in particular. We're going to be looking at application through questions and it's going to be more interactive but as you as you respond, we will look at the theology behind this specific aspect of Humility, so some of you may be struggling with this area saying, you know
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I'm constantly trip up in this area or others may say I haven't thought about it Which is and others don't remind you that you should be thinking about it, which means you know
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This is not area you typically struggle with but as Christians, this is one of the areas that all of us can definitely grow
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So as we think of humility, give me a few passages passages that you can think of Oh, if I think of humility here are some scriptures that come to mind.
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What are some of the scriptures that you can think of? Excellent.
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Does anyone know the reference to that? James James for thank you.
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Excellent verse humble yourself and he will lift you up any other verses Let me maybe switch it around think of some
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Bible characters that you can think of Okay, if I think of a humble guy or a humble lady in the scriptures Here are some names that come to mind.
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Who are some people you can think of? Moses and why do you say that?
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And why will says so he was one of the most humble men on earth. Let's talk about this a bit Why was
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Moses humble what made Moses humble? Think of some events in Moses life.
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Yes cattle Okay That's a very nice point.
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Actually, we will we will talk about that in the Psalms Humility, especially in the Old Testament talks not just about a hard attitude, but just your state in life
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You don't have some ability like speech in this case Did I hear something else?
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Oh Sorry Paul you just to hold on that for a second. Paul is a great example, too
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When we talk about Moses, so that was one of the abilities he didn't have and humility in one sense is just recognizing that We don't have it all, you know having a humble view of myself because I know that I'm not
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Somebody super beyond who I am. So that's that's one aspect of Moses another aspect of anyone else can think of Moses.
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Yes Excellent point once again
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Pretty much close to son -of -the -king kind of deal had everything and then lost everything now has to recognize who he is and Then this is the best part.
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I'll just finish this. So now you come back as a leader of Israel the guy who speaks with God and who has communion with God and here the people grumble and and Aaron and Miriam come and question him.
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He could have just said I mean if I was him, I would have said surely but He was humble he genuinely saw himself as somebody that God just chose rather than you know
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I'm the leader of Israel. You just better go and shut up, you know He really understood that he was not anybody except for the grace of God.
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So excellent point about Moses I'd like to accentuate what you said a little bit more God said himself
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I speak to other men Excellent point actually
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I was going to do this a little later, but I'll probably speak to this, you know The lesson I have for today
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Can be a non -christian lesson I'm sure there are some non -christians who like to be humble too because it's you like to be around humble people
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What makes Christian humility a little different is that you have encountered
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God and there is a response to the gospel when you are humble. And we will see that in a little more detail.
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Excellent point. You mentioned Paul, right? Did you have something? I just want to say about Moses, when he said...
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Yeah. He writes a few years ago. That's right.
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God tells me to write this. I will. But there is a lot of evidence in his life that we can see.
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And you have to be humble enough to write it sometimes. So we will just take one more example and we will get down.
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So the example of Paul. Can someone think of a few reasons why Paul was humble? He always pointed to Christ.
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Always, wherever he went, he pointed to Christ. And he just exalted
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Christ. He wanted to make himself invisible.
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And he didn't want any special treatment. He was still a tent maker on his missionary journeys. He was constant, just pushing forward
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Christ. Excellent answer. His goal was to exalt
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Christ and not himself. Good examples. Any other thoughts? On Paul?
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Yes. Paul knows?
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Maybe. Okay. I didn't know that. Little one? Yeah. Excellent.
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I didn't know that. So for those of you who didn't know, Paul's original name was Saul, the
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Hebrew name. He had a Roman name, Paul. He lived in Antioch, right, or Tarsus.
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This is why I shouldn't get off my notes too much. He was in the
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Roman Empire. So he had a Hebrew and a Roman name. But getting off your notes keeps you humble.
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Thank you. You know, I was just going to say about Paul, I think, you know, when we just consider the transition, you know,
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Jesus said that salvation.
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And then, you know, things like, look, et cetera.
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You know, everything he brought together, they had to.
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Right, right. That's very good. I'm glad you pointed it. If I had more time, we would spend on Paul. But that's one of the things.
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Sometimes you read Paul's letters and think, is this guy proud? But it's not. When you actually study who Paul was, and we've been going through 1
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Corinthians 4, he treats himself as the scum of the earth, you know, the stuff that you wipe off your shoes.
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And that's the attitude he had, you know, in terms of his own position. But when it came to the gospel, he was like a rabid dog.
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He would not compromise because it was Christ's glory. I had another example. As he grew in his sanctification, as he grew, he saw himself as more of a sinner.
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The more that he grew in his walk, he called himself the chief sinner by the end. He saw himself, the more he saw
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God's holiness, he saw his own sinfulness. Excellent. And that should be, we will see, the attitude that we need to have as Christians as well.
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Because although we may feel more holy when we first got saved, as we progress in our
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Christian walk, as more and more the washing of the word happens in our life, we get to realize that, as Paul does, he talks in 1
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Corinthians 4, that you just realize how much far the distance is between a redeemed person who is still in the flesh and a thrice holy
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God. And that keeps us humble. Excellent point. So let, I'll have the men distribute the handouts at this point.
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So you'll be getting a few sheets. And what I'm going to do is very simple. We're going to look at a couple of verses that frame this concept of holiness.
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And once you get that concept, we're going to look at an application passage.
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I picked a passage from a 15th century writer, mainly because I like to see, have a little laugh early morning.
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It wakes us up. We will look at that passage.
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I think it's pretty biblical. We'll look at some problems if we have time. But the passage,
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I want to look at it as an application of holiness. We're going to do some questions off of that passage and say, all right, if this is true, what ought
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I to be doing? How do I frame this in my own thinking? And how do I live this out?
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So I'll wait until the handouts come out. Any questions so far, what we've just done with the introduction?
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Dave? Not a question, but Paul was able to say. Yes. And do you want to elaborate on that?
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Well, looking at Philippians, we can see but in humility count others more significant than you.
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And, yeah, we will see that particular verse today as well. All right,
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I think everybody has handouts. Do we need more print handouts? Are everybody okay? Do we? You need five more?
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Do we have enough? Okay. All right, so we'll get started.
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Do you have enough or do you need more? Okay, so I'm going to go through the first section now, points one, two, and three.
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This is basically out of the Eastern Bible Dictionary. So any time you want to study something new and you don't know where to begin, pick a
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Bible dictionary. I also looked at a couple of other Bible dictionaries that didn't have humility, so maybe you need to pick a good
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Bible dictionary. Eastern is available online free, so you can get it if you need it.
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So we'll just look at a few verses. There's a bunch of verses in the first point. I'm not going to look at any of them in this context.
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The second one I'm going to look, it is a state of mind well -pleasing to God. Let's actually read that, 1
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Peter 3, 4. Whoever gets there first, can you just read that out loud? 1 Peter 3, 4.
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Who knows what 1 Peter 3, that passage is about? What is it?
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Godly living? Yeah, it's primarily in the context of women.
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It talks about what exalts the woman is humility. For the women here,
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I want you to just keep that verse in mind because when we finish, that will probably be the place marker for you.
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The second verse here, it preserves, and this is something that is pleasing to God, 1 Peter 3, 4.
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When you have that attitude in yourself as humility, God is well -pleased with it.
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The second one I have is, it preserves the soul in tranquility. Let's actually open there,
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Psalm 69, 32, and 33. Because if you read that verse by yourself when you go back home, you may be a little confused.
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Someone who got there, you can read 32 and 33. The context here, the humble and the needy.
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Humble in verse 32 and the needy in verse 33, talk about the station in which these people are.
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These people are humble because they are oppressed, in prison, they are in need of God's help, and it talks about how
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God is going to help them. If you want to understand where this passage comes from, you can either read the whole Psalm, or at least back up a little bit, maybe from verse 22 on to 36.
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You will see the context of the proud oppressors and those who are God's people in a state of humiliation, of humbleness, and the attitude that even this author has.
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In verse 29, he is in affliction and pain, but in verse 30, he's talking, in my humility and my affliction,
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I'm going to be looking up to God. I'm going to exalt God in my state of humiliation. And then in verse 32, you see the humble see this, and they are going to exalt
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God because they are looking up to God, not really looking to somehow exalt themselves in the midst of their trouble.
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And this attitude of humility, connected with your station in life, will be there in many of the other references too.
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We will not see other references, but you can look at them when you get home.
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It preserves the soul in tranquility. So when you are in oppression, how do you have peace in the midst of the storm?
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When you are humble, when you look to God with the right attitude. And we'll cover this in our application.
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The third point here, it makes us patient under trials. Job 1 .22 is the last verse of chapter one.
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What did Job say at the end of chapter one? Paraphrase it. This is after everything has come and gone and he says...
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No, no, just chapter one. Don't go beyond. The Lord giveth and the
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Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And the reason is he says, naked I came from the womb, naked
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I go into the grave. It's God who gave me everything. He has the right attitude in his humiliation.
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He says it's all of God and I'm going to look to God. And so in his trial, it keeps him patient because he's not saying
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I deserve more. And when you think you deserve more and everything is gone, you're not going to be patient.
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You're going to be impatient. So that's an example from Job. So here are a few verses to just put humility in context.
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But look at point number two. Christ has set us an example of humility. Philippians 2 .6 -8.
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In the end of your handout, I have actually copied verses 3 -8 over there.
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And when we think of Moses, he gives us a few examples. When you think of Paul, it gives you a few examples.
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But I think the chief example that all of us should have in any aspect of godliness and especially here in humility should be
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Christ. Because Christ is different than us. In what way? He's perfect.
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He had everything he could in perfection. Everything we could have in perfection.
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And yet his attitude was that of humility. I mean, the specific reference here for humility is that he was
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God, but he didn't treat equality with God as something to be grasped. But when God decreed that he take on the shape of man, he just became a man.
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Imagine that, God becoming man. He was willing to do all that because he was humble, the
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Bible says. So Christ should be our biggest example. A few more verses. I'm going to go quickly through them.
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It says we should be led there too by a remembrance of our sins. If you look at Lamentations 3 .29, you don't have to turn there.
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The idea is, Jeremiah says, I'm not going to complain because if I look at my sin, what do
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I have to complain about? When I realize who I am as a sinner, even redeemed by grace, I'm not going to be complaining.
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And so that's a humble attitude you preserve by looking at who you are genuinely. By the thought of it is the way to honor,
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Proverbs 16 .18. There is no humility in that reference, but it talks about the opposite, which is pride.
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God is not going to honor the proud person, but rather he is going to bring them down and it is a humble person that God will lift up.
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And then the greatest promises are made to the humble. And I think if you want to go back and read any reference, you should read these because this talks both about salvation as well as exaltation of the believer.
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And point number three, it is the greatest paradox in Christianity that it makes humility the avenue to glory.
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Every other religion wants to somehow build oneself up, but the path to glory is always through humility for us.
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And when you look at Jesus Christ, it was the cross. In the cross is the glory for the believer.
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All right. So with a few of these references, let's now get into the rest of our study here.
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I've done introductory questions one and two. We're going to look at introductory question number three.
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Contrast humility as an attitude of the heart and outward action. Let me break that up in two.
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When you think of humility as an attitude of the heart, what comes to mind? How do you visualize it?
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Self -sacrifice as an attitude of the heart. Okay, good. Very good.
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Excellent. So you don't put yourself first. When you think of who you are, you always look at others as more important or the needs of others more important than yourself, and you want to be outward rather than inward and exalting.
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Attitude of the heart. Any other thoughts? All right.
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So let's now come to the outward action. When you see a humble guy, in practice,
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I'm not tongue -in -cheek really, what do you see in outward action? Sacrificing?
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Somebody who wants to serve and help? Did I see another hand? Exactly. So they try not to, even if they have to write,
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Moses was a humble man, they are not looking to say, Moses was a humble man. They try not to get the spotlight.
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Janet? Excellent. So these are some outward characteristics of what happens inside, and that's my second part of the question.
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What is the right relationship between the two? The inward attitude and the outward action? Easy question.
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The inward should lead to the outward. The wrong relationship would be somehow putting up a front of humility when there is no genuine inner humility in the heart.
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God transforms us as believers from the inside out. He doesn't put whitewashed plaster on the outside and make us look good.
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He changes us inside. And that's one of the cautions we always ought to look for when we look at sanctification is, am
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I just trying to do certain things and somehow become holy, which would be sanctification by works, versus is there something that is changing in the inside out?
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So am I keeping my eyes on the Lord? Am I going back to my salvation? Am I looking at the gospel and the power of Christ that changes me and my life is now being transformed because of the power of God in the gospel?
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Question number four, contrast humility in relation to God and yourself. Let me read the full question and then we'll see.
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Oh, maybe not. So contrast humility in relation to God and yourself. Why should we be humble when we look at our relationship with God?
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Right. There's nothing that we brought into that relationship and our lives even now has nothing to boast about.
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Anything else? Excellent.
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So on the one aspect is our sinfulness that ought to keep us humble, but on the other hand is
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God's grandeur in his goodness to us. When we see that he gave up everything and died on the cross for us, that is beyond our minds, so it keeps us humble thinking of the greatness of God.
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Bruce? Excellent point because I think the more we know about God, the more humble we will be and part of this knowing about God is his attributes that he exercises completely all of them at the same time and one of the things is his omniscience.
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Here is this God who knows everything about me that even I myself may not recognize or admit and he knows the motives of every single thing
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I do and before this great God who sees everything, who knows everything, what do
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I need to pretend? I should have this right attitude of falling down on my face before this
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God. Whenever I recognize God, whenever I pray to God, the attitude that I should have is one of humility because he is that great and I am not.
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Now let's kind of break this relationship, not break, look at this relationship with God in two aspects.
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That's the second half of this question. How are they related for a believer in justification and in sanctification?
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Someone tell me what justification is, just quickly. Justified in a code of law, it's a legal term saying not guilty.
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God declares you not guilty, that's what happens when you are saved, when you are justified.
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So you come to a relationship with God, the first thing that happens is God says you're not guilty. Why is that you're not?
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Well, let's come to that in a minute. Sanctification, can somebody give me a one line definition of sanctification?
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It's a process by which we reflect
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Christ more and more as we grow into godliness and justification, one time thing happens at the moment you get saved.
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Sanctification is a process that happens lifelong until you are glorified. The Lord comes back or you die and go to heaven.
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So in your relationship with humility with God, what happens in this aspect of justification?
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What humility was involved when you were justified? That's right.
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You come before the cross recognizing that the only thing I have to bring is negatives and I have absolutely nothing positive.
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That's how we fall before the cross and say, before the Lord, symbolically in the cross, and say,
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I am nothing. We admit in humility. What is a good event in the gospel that reminds you of this?
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Can you think of two people who came before God, one justified and the other not? Yes, Brian. Pharisee and the tax collector.
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Exactly. So the tax collector comes. I have mercy on me. The sinner, he has no need to look at anybody else.
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He knows who he is. I'm in relationship to God. So that's at the time of justification. Now, in the time of sanctification, are we better since that state of our life, in our sanctification, in relation to humility at least?
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How do you relate to God and humility in your sanctification? Does humility have a role? You can't be sanctified.
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You can't do it on your own. It's not a solo bootstrap. You have to totally be sanctified.
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Very good. Actually, when you are justified, why does
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God see you as not guilty? You came humbly, but that humility didn't purchase salvation for you. Christ's righteousness was imputed.
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So God sees you as covered in the righteousness of Christ. That's why you are not guilty. And when you come in your sanctification, it's not all of a sudden we climb out of this garb of Christ and say, okay, now
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I'm going to do this thing on my own. Your sanctification flows out of your justification.
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It's because of who you are in Christ, you are now able to walk this path, and it is all of grace. Yes, Carol?
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You're talking about justification or sanctification? Yes, that is true. It is the spirit of God that is within us, who is within us, and he will enable us, because you will see two aspects of sanctification.
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One is it's all of God's grace. It is the power of God that enables us to live out this new life that we have in Christ, and yet there is a responsibility that we ought to work it out.
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We will see in Philippians 2, work out your salvation that God has put in you because it is God who wills and does what he would in your life, but we ought to live that out.
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But the right attitude should be it is the power of God that changes me, and of my own
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I cannot. In fact, as I get more and more into the image of God, as God's word shines on me,
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I just recognize that I am just a horrible sinner. I keep recognizing that in me is not the power to be holy.
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It is God who needs to change me. So this attitude of humility needs to continue in our sanctification, which is for all of us here who are believers, which is most of us here.
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I always underestimate time. So let's just maybe do the first section so at least we'll have an idea of what this application of humility should look like in sanctification.
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I have a small passage here applying humility. I'll read it and then
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I'll ask a couple of questions. Be not troubled about those who are with you or against you, but take care that God be with you in everything you do.
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Can someone just give me a modern English translation of that sentence? Carol?
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Very good. So from an unbeliever, if somebody is against you, don't be concerned.
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Any other? That's right. So your focus is on God with you.
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Don't have to worry about anything, whether whatever it is that people think is in one sense almost irrelevant as long as you are with God.
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Second line. Keep your conscience clear and God will protect you for the malice of man cannot harm one whom
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God wishes to help. Anyone want to translate that for us? Yes.
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Excellent. If God is for us, who can be against us? And from my side,
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I just need to keep my eyes on the Lord and seek to please him. That's keeping my conscience clear and God will take care.
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Next slide. If you know how to suffer in silence, you will undoubtedly experience
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God's help. He knows when and how to deliver you. Therefore, place yourself in his hands, for it is a divine prerogative to help men and free them from all distress.
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Just summarize it. Proverbs 3, 4, and 5.
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That's for guidance, yes, and especially also in trials. Any other thoughts on this?
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If you know how to suffer in silence. Yes, Bruce. That's right.
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So the silence here primarily refers to what we saw in... Exactly.
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So when you are in the midst of your suffering, look up to the Lord and he will deliver you in his time.
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Sovereignty of God. You can trust in him and he will do what he does best. All right. So let's now ask a couple of questions and then we'll finish.
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We won't go through the whole thing. Contrast humility in relation to yourself and your neighbor.
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So far, we saw the relationship between us and God. How do we relate to God in humility, justification, and sanctification?
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Now, in relation to yourself and your neighbor, so don't look further into the questions, but how should humility characterize me when
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I relate to the people around me? Yes, Carol?
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That's how I used to be. Which is? You look at it that way. Excellent.
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So if you see someone who is sinning or, you know, doing things that you're like, how could they?
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Instead, you say, that's where I would be for the grace of God. I am not. Excellent point.
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Anybody. Yeah. Very good.
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So when you look at an unbeliever, that service which we said characterizes the outward life of humility will come to the point of saying, what can
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I do, you know, in love toward this person rather? So you come under them rather than over them.
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Yeah. Rather than a family situation, we will often say individuals that we know and we will use them as illustrations, teaching them along the same path.
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Are you concerned of doing that?
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That's a good point. Maybe when we continue this, we will look at it, all these tough situations, you know, especially in positions of authority.
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You know, how do you deal in a humble attitude to one who you need to correct or, you know, when you need to speak out and when you ought not to.
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So maybe if we take an example. Maybe can you just. Good example.
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Maybe we'll use that as our final thing to wrap up. So what would be situations where it is inappropriate to say that?
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Yes. And that would be slander. Gossip. Yes. So that's unbiblical.
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And what would be the right response instead of that? What would be? Exactly. So we always and we will see this later, maybe some other time about how we deal with sin in even a believer.
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How do you deal with sin in a believer when we have a heart of humility? And most of the cases will fall in this bucket.
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We will not talk to someone else about another person's sin. There would be some exceptions. We will see that next time when it would be justified to call out someone by name, but that would be the exception rather than the rule.
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All right. Let's just stop here for now. So any questions or anything you want to add to what we've seen so far?
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Ah, within the family.
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Okay. So within like a physical family unit. I haven't actually thought about that.
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Okay. I thought you meant in a broader context. Okay. Right.
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Yeah. Um, you know, let me think about that because I, unless anyone wants to respond, um, because in my family, at least my children are have a big age gradient and I can't use that at this point in time.
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And I need to think to see whether it would be appropriate or not. Actually, that is, that is true because, you know, as parents, we share the responsibility in correcting our children.
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So, you know, if I notice something that my wife hasn't, obviously we sit down and we should talk about what this person has done wrong and how as parents we need to come together and get a correct discipline, help the child come through.
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But I think in the context of siblings, I think that's one of the things. Right. Okay. Good.
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Good. I think I know what you're saying now. Yeah. So, um, let's say that in my family, I have my immediate family.
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I have four people in my unit. There's another family that's related to me that, you know, something has happened and all of us as a family know it.
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So my children, let's say, observe something that has already happened. Uh, definitely because if you don't say anything about it, then the child would not know whether that is an acceptable or an unacceptable response of a
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Christian. And you need to be able to tell your children what they have seen to be able to discern. This would not be right because the
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Bible says this and this. So when the... Because the child has already observed something.
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I mean, I wouldn't tell my child something that she doesn't know. Right. So if, um, and that happens all the time.
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We would... I was just saying, let's say somebody was drinking and driving and you witnessed them drinking and they got in an accident.
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I think it's also the motivation of the heart. It's just otherwise then you become like, love this person.
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They went down the wrong path. They got into an accident. Pray for them. It's also the heart attitude because if you point that out without connecting it with in love trying to restore them or pray for them or help them, then you just set up this...
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Right, right. So it's definitely has to connect with the heart. Right. That's a very good point.
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And I think that is what we've been looking... We've laid the groundwork for how we ought to look at this problem with humility.
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But in terms of how we're going to work out, we will see more examples of how this works out practically in situations like this.
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I didn't think of this particular example, so I've been kind of floundering for the last few minutes. But the bottom line should be that, but for the grace of God, there would
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I go. And the heart attitude should always be, yes, you can always speak the truth. Just make sure we speak it in love.
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And in this context, I think it would be appropriate if they already knew it. All right. So I think we'll close unless there's any other question.
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All right. Let's pray. Dear God, our
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us your son, our
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God, our Redeemer, and our example of humility. Lord, we thank you that you saved us by your grace.
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We thank you that you are changing us into the image of Christ by your grace. And Lord, even this morning, we ask that you would keep us humble and help us to grow in relation to you in humility and in relation to one another also in humility and love.