February 16th 2020 - Brother Jeremiah Shipley

Good morning If you have your Bibles go ahead and open up to Philippians We're gonna be in chapter 2

Let's open up in prayer Father God, we love you help us to love you more

God we honor you Show us how to honor you more Lord Lord bless the work of our hands for the work of our hands may bless you

Father the field is ready for the harvest the Lord let the harvest come Let us be the laborers the tools in your hands that you use

In your name I pray amen All right today we're going to be talking about humility

We're gonna be talking about three things when it comes to humility. We come out humility of mind in our own mind

We're gonna talk about humility and others in other words how we Treat talk and deal with others and we're talking about humility before God So first of all, we're gonna have to talk about Humility and what that is, but also we're going to talk about what it's not

So we're gonna be in Philippians chapter 2 verses 3 and 4 The first thing we have to understand is that humility is not shame

Humility is not shame. It is not a Down -looking as if we are bad

And in fact scripture speaks quite the opposite in Hebrews chapter 12 scripture says that Scripture said let us run with endurance

The race that lies before us keeping our eyes on Jesus the source and perfecter of our faith

Who for the joy that lay before him endured a cross and despised the same

People often preach this verse, but I feel like they leave out that last part that that Christ despised the shame

What does that mean? What does it mean that he despised the shame? We brother

Andrew just had us just read a verse that said that anyone hung on a tree is cursed That is a shameful thing to do

It is a shameful act to be hung on a cross naked and beaten and mocked

This is a shameful disgraceful Dishonorable thing that the

God of heaven went through and the shame of that We will have to face in small part the same and it says that Christ despised the shame and so in the same way

We must also despise the shame Often time in our lives.

I feel like shame will come and try him and put itself in our mind May that be through friends

Christian friends made that be through Our own sin our own desires made that be through though Sometimes we throw this around too loosely the fiery darts of the enemy because we should not also pretend

Ultra -baptist that that doesn't happen Right, well, it's not also pretend like there's not such thing as spiritual warfare

Don't swing two way too far one way on the pendulum So we must also remember that that this shame that comes to in our mind.

We must despise it We must reject it and the question how do you do that?

How do you despise the shame that comes in our life The shame of doing what is honorable in the face of everybody else the shame of doing what is right when you're alone

No one else is there The first way you do is by speaking truth into your own life

You have to speak truth to yourself Pastor Ben Pastor Ben talked about this one time and I never forgot it.

He really hit home We're talking about the whenever anxiety depression fear Insecurities when these things start coming to your mind if you do not speak truth

To yourself then it's going to be a perpetual cycle that you're going to go through You must speak truth to yourself

You're like, yeah, but you need go get help. You need you won't allow yourself to go and get help

If you don't speak truth to yourself first You won't allow yourself Lies seep into your own head and your own lives are always the most deceptive

Your own lives are always the most convincing Your own lives are always the ones that will take you the farthest and leave you hung out to dry so it is our shame and our lies that we have to speak truth into and recognize first and Without that recognition

The second thing is is should be a little more obvious is that after we speak truth?

Then we must have to act on this truth Because according to first John Truth without action.

You're just a liar if you say I love my brother and yet hate them in your heart

Well, then you're just a liar And you are not a child of God So let us read verses 3 and 4

Philippians chapter 2 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit?

But in humility Considered others is more important than yourselves Everyone should look out not only for his own interest, but also the interest of others

This is almost if you will allow me to make a correlation. This sounds almost like a proverb

It makes one statement and then it immediately makes a contradictory statement like instead of this do this, right?

So The opposite of humility if you will is doing something out of selfish ambition and doing things out of conceit so so Flip it around.

It's the same thing flip it around. So we must rid ourselves of Selfishness and conceit and consider others as more important than ourselves

One other thing I want to address before we move on is another way that I believe shame

Affects us and shame holds us back and that's in worship That's in worship and let me explain what

I mean by that Is you'll say something like this you'll say I don't

I don't need to worship right now Mean God aren't on good terms.

I Haven't I haven't repented How can I go before God and worship when when

I haven't repented I'm not ready to repent I don't I can't I can't do That right now First of all that shame lying to you

Second of all, there is no such thing as worship without repentance

Because you have to understand what worship is worship is the Recognition of the holiness and greatness of God.

You can't do that without recognizing your own failures in your own sins You can't look at Isaiah when he stood before the throne of God before the presence of God in chapter 6

He said the first thing he said was what woe is me. What a man of unclean lips

I am The first thing he said was I'm a man of unclean lips Before he recognized how good

God was Before he recognized how loving God was how powerful God was the first thing he recognized was how unworthy he was

So when when you come in here or in your own time in your own car, whatever of worship

There's no way Not in my mind, there's no way you can worship without repentance

In my mind, that's impossible It's impossible to truly worship this

Holy God and not repent She's trying to worship.

Okay Moving forward we also have to think about humility before others.

So the first one is humility in our own mind and That includes recognizing the shame that comes that includes recognizing false humility

Which is shame that recognizing that not allowing that to to speak lies into our life

Let's rather we have to speak truth Right. The second thing is humility before others.

See it says value others is more important than yourselves This does not mean

Or this does mean putting their needs above mine this does not mean that your needs aren't important though This is another ad attribute of shame that we want to talk about is that sometimes humility means oh, well,

I'm not important What's up, you okay? Yeah, I'm good. Don't worry about it's not important.

No, no, no, no, no No, no, no, no, we want to say well, don't worry about me.

My problems aren't important go help someone else What I'm going through in my life, that's not important.

No big deal. Go help someone else That's false humility. You are not being humble there.

That is not humility Humility is more of hey, I am struggling.

Um, I need help That that's humility It's not putting yourself down.

It's putting others first Scripture says the last shall become first that doesn't mean last by sitting there and doing nothing.

Let everyone walk over you That that's not putting yourself last that's not how that works

Putting yourself last means as I'm walking forward. I'm gonna push everyone else ahead It's not putting myself last if I just sit here and do nothing and let others walk ahead and walk over me

Then what fruit am I bringing to the kingdom? What good for the kingdom am I doing? It's selfish there because the only thing you're worried about is yourself

The only thing you can do is yourself if I sit here and my own pain

Then how can I help you with yours? See, it's not about us.

I tell the youth all the time. They don't like hearing it I said what you want does not matter What you want is irrelevant

And guess what what I want Really doesn't matter It really doesn't it's

Real relevant like 95 % of the time. It just doesn't matter Because if we did what we wanted all the two what we wanted to all the time, then we wouldn't have a job

We wouldn't have a job We wouldn't have very good marriages or kids or parents.

We wouldn't have very good friendships Right if we did what we wanted to all the time our life would be a sham

But for some reason when we apply this to God, we want to ignore that and put that to the side we treat the tangible as of a reality while we treat the holiness of God as it as A falsehood as as something that's intangible.

And so we're just not going to treat it real Is it not create the most?

Intangible thing though is the most real thing The truest thing is a thing that's above us

So we have to remember this speak truth into our lives and reckon this that recognize that and put that into action

The next thing is we have to remember that It's about submitting our own lives.

John 15 13 says this Greater love of no man than this when the man lays down his life for his friend

You cannot do that value valuing your life above someone else's if You value your life so much.

How can you lay it down? Christ is that's what

Christ did for us He laid his life down for us not because he valued his life so much because he valued ours

He valued our life that much So that we could come to him

So the question here is how much do you value your life and the second part is how much are you valuing someone else's?

Not that you're putting yourself down, but that you're raising others up. We had a meet -and -greet time in here

How many strangers you go greet? There's a brother right back there.

How many people know his name? Third row glasses He's been coming here on Sunday nights and a couple

Wednesday nights Tuesdays and Thursdays name is brother

Steve How many people know that because you value your time

You value your time and your opinion Above everyone else's, you know, it's crazy.

You don't know what someone else is going through You really don't let me tell you the story.

I was at I Was at the BCM which is the University of Memphis Baptist collegiate ministry and this dude would just walked around like Eeyore I mean he was just walking around like this depressed, dude

And like I just walked up to my say hey, man, how you doing? Good to see you, you know, whatever Not even thinking anything of it and he just looked at me said

Thank you so much, man And I'm just like like whatever like I got him.

Whatever. I just said hi to you But for me, I realized then I was like man

Some people don't get encouragement. I Told that story to a brother of mine and he told me he said before I came to this church.

I never got encouragement He said my family didn't encourage me. My brothers. They only dogged me.

They didn't encourage me He said my friends they didn't encourage. I never got actual encouraged.

I'm like, hey, you're doing good. Keep going And that just kind of took me back.

It's like How often do we take for granted what we have and then because we take it for granted we're not willing to share it with others

Right because we take for granted we don't focus on we assume that everyone else has it

We assume that everyone else gets it. We assume that everyone else understands. They don't

They don't I think it's hilarious some of the greatest critics of Christianity are the ones who know nothing about it

And so sometimes we criticize others and or assume that they know something.

We know nothing about them We assume because they have this or they have that That they got it together.

They have a lot of money. So they're good. They don't have a lot of money. They're bad That's not how that works. Ladies and gentlemen That is not how that works

At all. I I know a counselor who works for Lakeside and has her own practice on the side

She's at my number one customer is straight white males That's my number one customer

Straight white males She said because they are the biggest ones who will hide it and cover it up and go and buy a whole bunch of stuff

And fool everyone else, but inside they're dead She's not even a Christian she's not even a

Christian and She recognizes this Humility is not putting up the facade.

Ladies and gentlemen humility is bringing it down and showing your scars And note the difference between a scar and a wound a wound means you're still hurting a scar means you're healed

Don't be scared to show a scar a scar means there's been healing a

Scar means hey, look I made it through a Wound means I'm still dealing with it and healing

Know the difference and don't never be ashamed to show either but especially a scar because that's a victory of Jesus Christ All right, let's moving on which so we have humility of the mind and ourselves talking about shame and false humility

We have humility before others talking about laying your life down putting them ahead

It's not about us sitting around and letting others walk over but it's about pushing them ahead, right?

It's not about thinking of ourselves less but thinking of less of ourselves, right?

So humility before others last one is humility before God and will be done Humility requires vulnerability though Humility requires vulnerability

Insecurity and vulnerability are opposites The two cannot the two cannot take up the same space if you're insecure

I Guarantee you you are not being vulnerable There are two people you have to be vulnerable for number one vulnerable for God and number two vulnerable for others

You have to be vulnerable for God and you have to be vulnerable for others, let me explain My favorite example of this is babies

Kids children. I don't think that there's a better Visual of us to God than a father or mother to a baby

Because if you really are true with yourself, we are so helpless We are so hurting.

We are so in need Just like a baby is to the father to the mother

It is insane to me that Ava will do something stupid

Josiah will come over and spank the mess out of her She starts immediately crying and screaming and what's her first reaction

To run right back to the dad who spanked her and have him hold her. Is it is that not insane?

That the father who just punished me and hurt me both a physical emotional

I'm now gonna run and cling to that person for my security That's being vulnerable and that's what we must do with God that's being vulnerable

It's not hiding away when the Lord comes and speaks to you. Sometimes he Sometimes the

Lord will put pain in your life To turn you back to him and let me and let me qualify it like this

If he didn't put that pain in your life, how far would you have kept on walking for you realized? How far would you keep on going on your own track on your own path and Not turned around if that pain that hurt that the tragedy whatever had not come into your life

There's no telling There's no telling you'd gone on forever Because the pastor always says sin will take you farther than you don't want to go and keep you longer than you want to stay

So sometimes things come in our lives to make us realize and turn around So we can go back to him.

That's a blessing When that happens though, your response is key

Do you get angry and bitter towards God? Do you accept his learning and keep going?

You accept the teaching keep going. I Didn't learn this not too long ago Pastor Jeff taught this and I don't know probably none of you remember do you remember?

Then the gospel is the story of the disciples going on the water and facing the storm that happened twice

That happened to two different accounts because they didn't learn the lesson the first time They didn't learn the lesson the first time so God said fun.

We'll try again We'll try again And the first time they did it

Jesus calm the storms this is what the disciples said they said What kind of man is this who can control the wind and the waves?

The second time they did it it says they fell down in fear and worship and they said truly you're the

Son of God Now you understand Now you understand first. You said what kind of man is this?

Second time it was the recognition of truly truly. This is the Son of God So when you come to that place in your life

Your response is vital and key that you have to humble yourself before God and become vulnerable

Before God you have to come to him in your deepest darkest times If you don't set a time aside to for prayer with God, then how can you be vulnerable for God?

you have to set a time aside and you have to come to him and Allow yourself to be vulnerable.

Sometimes you'll say this why do my white home this God already knows of this But he wants to hear it from you. God already knows my sins here.

He knows my problems. It doesn't matter He wants to hear it from your mouth How many times when you're in trouble with your parents, but they still wanted to hear from you

It didn't matter that they already knew he still wants to hear it from you

Because that's a personal relationship Relationship it's a personal relationship

How often do you go to God don't use the dumb excuse of what he already knows

No It doesn't work like that The second thing is you have to be vulnerable for others

You have to be vulnerable for your brother sister in Christ without that There can't be healing guys

Confess your faults one to another so that you may be healed Without confession to one another how much healing do you expect to get?

You confess with your faults one to another healing will come you don't confess your faults one to another

There's wisdom in the counsel of many God made the church for a reason you come here on Sundays And then you don't use it for the reason

God made it you use this as a social club As a place to hang out

Not as a place to get accountability and wisdom and guidance and health and stability and security

So when you don't be vulnerable for the people of God, you don't get wisdom guidance stability

You don't get accountability. You don't You don't get these things That's pastor says the church is

God's plan a for reaching the world and sanctification of his people He doesn't have a plan

B He doesn't have a plan B. It's the same reason why you shouldn't say well,

I'm praying on the lake Don't worry about it I'm gonna go on vacation this week and I'm gonna go to Nashville or st.

Louis and I'll do my worship time on the road It's not the same It's not the same and don't try to lie to yourself and definitely don't try a lot of me and tell me it's the same

Because it's not It's not You're not allowing yourself to be vulnerable before the people of God You're not allowing that You must allow that so you have to be vulnerable for God.

You have to be vulnerable for people last point will be done you have to be humble

To the will of God and Submission of God's will

So two things here. We're gonna read in Philippians chapter 2 Starting in verse 5.

So just next verse down Adopt the same attitude that of Christ Jesus Who existing in the form of God did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited?

Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant taking on the likeness of man and When he had become a man

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even a death on a cross you have to humble yourself to obedience

Now we'll have another sermon will become a more in obedience later But you have to be humble enough to even allow yourself to obey

Because if you think in your mind that you know, what's best you will never obey the Word of God You will never submit yourself to the will of God if you think you know, what's right?

You can try it your way or you can try it God's way. You've been trying it your way for how long now

How do you try something else? You've been trying it your way for 15 20 25 years, how do you give

God's way a try? Just give it try see what happens Tell me if I'm wrong

You submit everything you have to the will of God and you tell me how that works out

The God of you of the universe came down became a man and humbled himself

To obedience to even to death pastor preached last week revelation 1211

And we'll overcome by the blood of the lamb the word of our testimony and we loved not our lives

Even to death and we'd love not our lives even to death

That's obedience That's humility That's not my life as much as I value the will of God That's not valuing my life more than I value the

Word of God Last thing that will be done is submission to God Brother Andrew go ahead and come on up y 'all don't have to turn there, but Daniel chapter 3

Daniel chapter 3 Shadrach Meshach and you know Abednego or however you want to pronounce it.

They're all they're all about to be thrown into the fire Y 'all folks real quick last thing they're about to be thrown into the fire

And this is what they look they look at King Nebuchadnezzar the man who holds their life in their hands and They say hey

King We just want you to know this that we know that our

God has the power to save us from your hand and bring us to life afterwards but even if he doesn't

We still will not worship you see that's a submission a humility to submission that's

Far beyond what we know we have to understand that and reach that It's that hey

Even if God doesn't save me even if God doesn't heal me

Even if God doesn't bring me out of this pain Even if God doesn't heal my marriage even if God does even it

I will still choose to serve him I will still choose to worship him. I will still choose to praise him.

I will still choose to follow him in all things That your life circumstance is irrelevant to what your action should be

Because what you want doesn't matter your life circumstance is

Completely irrelevant to what we should say and do It's completely irrelevant

So as brother Andrews about the saying you need to ask yourself. What humility do you need today?

If you say well, I'm good. All right. Well, you're just gonna sit there and worship. Are you gonna repent during that worship?

Because if you're not then there's probably not any real worship there Are you being vulnerable before God?

Are you being vulnerable before his people? If not now's a good time to do that because I wouldn't suggest trying to do it later.

We're not promised later What I promise I mean is this ain't a scare technique.

That's just how it is. We're not promised What is it you need to do today