Humility - A Gut Check (for the believer - part 2)

We are going to be continuing our study on humility.

We're going to see what the Lord has to say on this subject. And like I said last week, this

Sunday school will be a little more focused towards applying it, figuring out how we live this humility out in our lives.

So before we get started, why don't we pray to the Lord? Dear God, our heavenly father, we thank you for this morning.

We thank you for the extra hour all of us had of rest. And we thank you for bringing us here safely,

Lord. We commit this entire morning into your hands. Be glorified, oh

Lord, in all that we do. And even in this hour ahead, we pray that you would teach us, you would speak to us of how we as individuals can reflect

Christ in this aspect of humility. In Christ's name we pray, amen.

How many of you are here, weren't here last week? Okay, a few of you.

Let me actually open this up with a little bit of excitement because the subject can get a little painful sometimes.

Imagine that tomorrow you're going into work or if you're working at home, you're meeting somebody that you know and the person just walks right up straight to you and then gives you a full handed slap on your face.

What would be your response? All of us would have different responses.

We know what the Bible says when something like that happens, don't we? What does the Bible say if somebody were to slap you on your face?

Okay, we often get the spiritual meaning behind it that we ought not to give retribution, but rather we ought to do what?

What was that? I heard something.

Yes, excellent. And we all know that spiritual theological point very, very well.

And the issue we're gonna struggle with today is how does that work itself out? How does it actually work out if you really did get a slap?

I really hope none of you get one this week, but sometimes it's surprising after we do a study on a certain subject how the

Lord would bring things our way that we didn't have before. But when you think of a slap, we can always say, okay,

I know what Christ said about that subject. I know what the theological basis of my response should be.

And even though I might struggle with it, I at least know what I should do, right? For the most part.

But when life comes our way, it doesn't always come in a very simple, you know,

I got a slap in the face and I know what I should do. I just turned my other cheek, does it? It always comes in with a curve ball here, with a fast one there, and it comes with a mixture of so many different things.

You are figuring out what attributes of God should I need to collect to respond to this particular thing that has come my way.

It's normally, it takes a little while for us to even understand what God would expect me to do in any given circumstance.

So I'm going to give an example now. When we finish our study, we'll come back to this example. So yesterday

I was at the library. This young man comes to me. He has got a pained look on his face.

And he says, I just had a baby. My wife was in the car and a newborn.

We are stuck without gas. I need to get a gardener. I was in the library for a very short while.

I'm out of home for a few days. So I was going to go back home quickly. I promised to take my wife somewhere.

I didn't want to spend any time more than I needed to outside the house. And I'm thinking one of two things.

If you're like me, you're thinking either this is a genuine case of need, which we need to serve, or this is a scamster who's looking for money.

I'm short on time. But I am a representative of Christ in this situation. What do I do?

What would you do? We will get to that when we finish our lesson this morning.

All right, so everyone have one of these? Okay, if you don't have one, there should be copies near the doors.

So let's quickly review what we've seen and we'll get into new material. So if you look at the beginning of your handout, there's a couple of definition.

What exactly is humility? What does humility look like in the Bible? We see it by definition, it is a prominent

Christian grace. It's something that all of us as Christians need to grow in.

It says that it is a state of mind well -pleasing to God. If we have humility, a mental, a heart attitude of humility,

God is well -pleased with it. One of the verses there is 1 Peter 3, 4. Pat, could you read that please?

This is, please go ahead. God loves a humble person.

It says that it preserves the soul in tranquility when you go through trials. How do you have peace in the midst of trials?

It is when you are humble. We see that in Psalm 69. It keeps us patient under trials.

When you recognize that you are nothing like Job did, I came naked from the womb. So when everything goes away, you can be patient because you didn't deserve it anyway.

God is the one who gives, and he is the one who takes away. But we also saw that humility is not just an attribute that we wanna work ourselves up into.

Humility by itself means nothing. And our chief example is Christ, Philippians 2, 6 -8.

We look up to Christ and there are certain aspects to it. One of them is when we remember our own sin, we don't feel like we deserve so much more, and that keeps us humble.

And recognizing who we are, we just bring sin before the table. God is the one who gives us everything that is good.

Proverbs 16, 18 talks about the problem of pride. Pride takes you down.

On the other hand, humility is the way to honor. And then the last section there, the greatest promises are made to the humble.

A bunch of references. Can I have 1 Peter 5, 5? Thank you.

So we just read a couple of verses so we know what the scripture says. We'll quickly run through those first four questions.

We said God exercises all of his attributes simultaneously. How do we grow in sanctification?

You can answer. Do we all, like I said, let's step out of that ridge and then spread out our wings and exercise our godliness the moment we get saved?

What happens for us? It's a process and we grow.

Yeah, we grow in Christ one attribute after the other.

Bruce, last time, was that from, what was that verse you quoted, Bruce? 2

Peter 1. Can you repeat that again? No, add to your pay.

I think it starts with patience. Thank you.

Just needed the starter. So in our own lives, we need to grow in each of these areas that reflect

Christ. We need to work at it as Christ works in us. The second question, the passages of scripture.

We looked at Moses and Paul last time as examples of humility. Leaders who are humble when they followed

Christ. Question number three. We saw that humility should first begin as an attitude of the heart.

It begins inward and then it works itself out in outward action, whether it is service or the way in which we treat one another.

But it has to begin with the heart when God changes us inside out. And then finally, we saw, how do we relate to God in humility?

We looked at it in the aspect of justification and sanctification. How do we deal with God in humility and justification?

In what way are we humble before God when we are justified? We had nothing to do with.

We have nothing to boast about. And we just fall face down before the cross and say,

God, I'm a sinner. I am the sinner and I need salvation. So that's the state of humility before God in justification.

And we also said, having begun that way, we don't somehow become proud of our self -achievement as we grow in sanctification.

It is through grace. It is by God's strength that we are sanctified. And therefore, humility should characterize our growth in Christ as one by one, we reflect

Christ in all these different attributes that God has shared with us. All right, so with that, we are almost caught up and I'll have, can someone who can read aloud, read that first section of applying humility, the one that's abridged from campus?

Yes, Brian. Thank you.

So we've seen already how we relate to God and now we're gonna start applying it. We're gonna use campus as a foil in terms of how this applies in each of our lives.

So I'm gonna have a few questions. We're gonna interact with this subject and then we'll go from there in relation to our neighbor.

So let's talk about it. How would we look at my neighbor keeping this attribute of humility in mind?

Just let's throw out some thoughts on this. How would I think about humility when

I relate to my neighbor? Yes, Kyle. By the great, okay.

So if you see somebody who's in a, yeah, yeah.

One of the things that I wanna pick from that is it is very easy for us to just compare, put myself and my neighbor on a scale and say, oh yeah,

I'm doing better or look at that person. How could he? But when we have

God in this relationship, when we always look at things through the eyes of God, we will resist that temptation to somehow say, yes,

I am better than that person or that person is worse than me. We will have the right attitude about who we are.

Yes, yes.

And when you look at your neighbor, one of the things that comes to mind is not what can they do, but rather what can

I do to them? Because Christ came to serve and we all also ought to be servants.

We look at some of those passages today. Excellent.

So when, and I had these verses for later, but I think we should talk about that now. So the two great commandments, love the

Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. When we look at our neighbor in relation to God, we want to love

God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And when we do that, we will pour ourselves out in loving our neighbor.

We will not be looking at them as a judge or as an indifferent person.

We would rather look at them to say, how can I love this person that God has put in my life?

Excellent point. All right. So let's keep going through this and we'll come back to this passage that Brian just read.

So we already saw the first question. Why must one's view of his neighbor flow from one's view of his own relationship to God?

Because, yes, right.

Yeah, that's what Carol was saying. You know, that's by the grace of God, there would I be, right? So that gives us a humility to say,

I'm no better except for God's grace. And the focus, we'll come to that in evangelism.

How do we want to love them with the gospel? So let's now come to the second question.

And at this point, we're gonna get into nuts and bolts. How do you deal with these three circumstances?

The first one is a neighbor who is unbelieving. I think we kind of already answered that. When you see an unbelieving person, we've just heard, you want to first recognize that, but for the grace of God, that's where I would have been.

And there's nothing they can do to save themselves. So let's expand this a little bit.

So what do unbelieving people do? They do what comes naturally to the carnal man, which is sin.

So when I see a person who is in a state of unbelief and who does things that are in the state of unbelief, if he is 10 blocks away,

I may not be as concerned, but if he's right next door to me and keeps doing those acts of unbelief, it gets a little hard, doesn't it?

And I don't know how many of you have neighbors who are stellar, exemplary neighbors, who you just, are coworkers.

Yes, whether it is next to your house or next to your desk in your office, people that you just live with or interact with on a daily basis, people who do not know

Christ and people who act like they do not know Christ. Actually, I shouldn't say deal.

The question should be, how do you see them? How do you see people whom you see living in this way all around you?

Let's now talk about what really happens. What normally comes to our heart when we see people like this around us?

Sadness, yes, because you can see where that path leads to for them, which is destruction.

What else? Yeah, when you're scraping that stuff off of your lawnmower, it's not fun.

Yes. And so, because normally when people sin, it is not in isolation.

Sin, we know, has a way of, you put that stone in that pool of water and it is gonna ripple.

There is gonna be some impact in your life when people sin around you. And one of the responses would be anger.

And we will see this later. The reason is, there is a sense of justice that is broken, isn't it? When somebody does something that is wrong, they are breaking some law, the law of God that governs the universe, and we feel violated.

So that would be one response that we would get if humility were not governing our thoughts. Any other thoughts before we move to the next?

Yes. Yeah, and once again, just a sense of holiness that comes to our mind.

We know who God is, and when we see unholiness, we should rightly discern and see that this is wrong.

But sometimes the way we think that through may not always be glorifying to God. Good point.

All right, so let's table that for a minute. We're gonna deal with each of these categories. The next one is a believer in sin.

When you see another believer, let's just say another person in BBC. You know this person well. They are saved, justified, they know who

Christ is, they read the Bible, they pray, they come to church, but they are sinning. How do you view that person when you see someone like that, a believer who is sinning?

Grieved, similar to sadness. For an unbeliever, you know the path that goes down. For a believer, excellent answer.

So she said, you grieve, and then you also have concern because if a person, a believer, continues to remain in sin, then you know that they need to probably examine their own lives to see if they are genuinely believers because a believer cannot continue to live in sin.

So you would want to approach them and... Yeah, and excellent.

Now, we will explore this a little bit further, but let me see if there's any other thoughts on this, believer in sin.

Yes, Deb, excellent.

I think Pastor Mike spoke about this a couple of months ago, James 5. You know, we ought to be very understanding that, but for the grace of God, that's where we would be as well.

So have that sense of humility as we approach people who are in sin. Any other thoughts?

So for ourselves, you mean? Yes, right. We're gonna cover that too in a minute.

All right, so let's leave that too. So that's the second category.

And the third one, someone just disagreeing with you. You know, someone who's not necessarily a matter of right or wrong, just someone who just constantly, you pick this, they pick the other thing.

You know people like that? That no matter what you try to do, they would just disagree with you.

How do you view that person when you interact with them? What are the thoughts, emotions, responses that come to your heart when you see somebody like that?

Okay, well, you know, some of us are very analytical, you know, and I always try to figure out, you know, what is going on here?

You need to fall in one of these categories, but either way, you know, that's right.

Sometimes plain old disagreements have a, right, you can agree to disagree.

So it's okay to disagree on things. You don't have to all love the same vanilla ice cream. Exactly, exactly.

And one of the things, because disagreements are one of the best ways for sanctification for us, because this is not right or wrong.

You don't have an obligation to correct their opinion because it's their opinion. And you have a great opportunity to say,

I'm gonna set aside whatever it is that I think I like or do, because I love this person and we need to do something together, which we disagree.

And those are great, great opportunities if you have the right attitude, how we wanna deal with them.

We will see some examples too. So let's now come to the third question and we're gonna spend here the rest of our time and then we will finish the rest.

How do you deal with suffering from your neighbor? We talked about this a little bit before, a sinning person, sinning neighbor, an unbelieving neighbor who causes you suffering, a believer in sin who is in your life and causing some kind of suffering and maybe even a disagreement, not necessarily right or wrong, but causes you pain.

Now, how do we deal with each of these? I think Steve, you mentioned a good example that I think we can use to jumpstart this.

So you're driving to work, you're late, you're hopefully at the upper end of your speed limit and you barely have enough time to get into work.

And the next thing you know is there's a couple of cars zigzagging in your rear view mirror and before you know it, they're in front of you and they're cutting each other off and they're breaking, accelerating, turning, no lights.

You know the picture. Typical day at Deer Glen, yes. So we all have ample opportunities for growth here.

So how, or maybe if you're not the driving kind, yes,

Brian, very true.

Actually, both examples are very good because in Job's case, there was no agent.

I mean, there were agents, but agents beyond his control. You know, if the whirlwind comes and flattens your house, you can't go chasing out of the whirlwind.

And if Nabataeans come and ransack all your goods and they're gone, unless you have an army, you can't really go after them.

Whereas if in Joseph's case, oh, we're gonna get to this. We'll keep the brothers for later because that gets really tough.

But think about his master faithfully serving him but throws him in prison.

How would you, what should be your response? I think you gave us the broad answer already, providence of God.

Joseph had God's hand under him. So there was nothing that was gonna happen to him that would take him out of God's will ultimately, but he is walking through life.

He doesn't know he's gonna be in jail only 13 years, only 13 years. Now, how would we, let's take some practical examples in our lives, keeping

Joseph as an example. When someone sins against you, patience.

Why would we have patience? You're giving me two answers, but I wanna pull that a little further.

Yes, and I wanna get, let me hold off on other answers.

We'll take this and then we'll take to the next level. Just let me make sure I put this in. Yes, actually that fits in with what

Carol was saying. The first thing we need is when we say we need patience, there is a sense of justice and that's inside every one of us.

No matter when we are in the wrong, that will just come out because we are made in God's image. We are meant to understand justice.

And in this particular case, if we don't wanna look bad in front of others when we really are not bad and somebody is maligning us, and justice is a good thing.

And I think we shouldn't suppress that and say, oh, you know what, I don't care about justice. And just make me look, put a smear campaign and I'm just gonna be happy.

Do more, I feel really good about it. That's not the point. Justice is good. We want to have a righteous understanding of what is happening.

That is good. But there's something even more important and that is that we reflect

God's glory in that particular circumstance. And sometimes it may lead to a certain action that will let the justice roll out.

And in other times that justice will remain hidden, like in Joseph's case for 13 years before it comes out.

But that's God's prerogative and you need to know what your role is to do that. The first thing that is vital in any trial of this kind is our connection with God.

Why would you have patience? Why would we have patience? Exactly, so,

I'm sorry, Peggy, just gave an example of Christ suffering on the cross as a supreme example.

And I think, I can't think of any better example than that when we go through trials is, he is our example.

And if we are living here because of Christ, if my existence on this planet after being saved is because I live for Christ, in Christ, because of Christ, then that should be my supreme focus in everything that I do.

So the more you spend time in the word, the more you know your

God intimately and richly, the more you know that he is sovereign, he provides for everything that I do, the more you love this

God, you're gonna say, okay, I have God's agenda here and I have Pradeep's agenda here.

Pradeep's agenda says, vindicate Pradeep, right? When suffering comes. But when I have God's agenda,

I'm saying, you know, I want to do this, but I know

God's agenda. God is to be glorified in the circumstance. And when my heart is so wrapped around God, I'm able firstly to go to God in prayer because many a time when

I get cut off, my first response is sinful, followed up by another sinful thought, mushroom cloud.

Okay. Wow, okay. Because that is the flesh in all of us believers.

No matter how much we know the scripture, till we actually go to glory, we're gonna struggle with the flesh. But one thing

God has provided for us is his word and his spirit. And as we grow in the knowledge of the word, as we grow in the grace of the spirit, as we are more and more intimate with our

God, we are turning to God in prayer quicker than we would have in the past.

And I wanted to qualify this class before we started. I don't want you to take these examples as single cases because every single one of us will fail in all of these cases, some point or the other, but rather what

God desires in us is a pattern of growth. So wherever you are, you want to be looking at how can

I be closer to what God would have me do? And the crux of it is your relationship with God.

When you are close to God, you will do the right thing. So we talked about cars. Let's turn up the notch a little bit.

Maybe we'll, actually this example is probably better from Joseph's, where his master, maybe we've already covered it, when his master actually puts him in jail, right?

So here is a man who does everything, sincerely works his master's fortunes grow.

He puts him fully in charge of everything that he has. Joseph is in control of everything. The master's wife comes in private, tries to seduce him.

And he knows that he has to love his God and love his master and he rejects that. The woman falsely accuses him and the consequences are severe.

He should have been killed in the customs of that time. If he had done something that severe, his master should have pretty much killed him.

And his master had a big position in the government. He was not like a nobody there. He could have done anything he wanted.

And that's the situation that he faces before his master. And the master,

I think, probably knew what was going on, but had to say, do what he could politically and saving his social graces and does something which he probably knew was wrong, but saves

Joseph's life. How about the boss that passes over your promotion?

The boss that is threatened by your skill and is really not so keen on giving you a good review.

I think it is review time in corporate America. Or maybe, I don't have young people here, but sometimes parents can be similar to bosses.

You're all parents here, so watch out. So how do we respond to those trials?

And I think we kind of covered it. Any additional thoughts on when people are over you who sin against you, how are you to respond,

Brian? Very good.

Actually, I think for those of you who didn't know that example, that's a great example of Paul's humility when you think about what

Paul actually did in his entire life. And there's a reason why I didn't actually spend too much time on different texts,

Brian. The reason is many of us know it. Many of us know these scriptures. The problem we have is how does that work itself out in our day tomorrow?

Tomorrow, when we actually get there, we're not gonna be jailed to a Roman jailer. Because, and that's same as a slap.

We know these circumstances very well, but we need to get to that thing that you mentioned at the beginning, which is

God has a purpose and that is our character, our godliness, our, in this particular case, humility.

And we wanna focus on how can I reflect God in this particular aspect? And my goal in this class is that we would actually talk about those thorns that God has put in our flesh, those instances which

I want us to grapple with. I want the spirit of God to just work in us and say, maybe

I haven't thought about this area that much. I've seen this boss thing as a fate.

God is sovereign, fate. You know, there is an active and a passive way we respond to life.

And when you truly know God, when you truly are seeking for him to do his work in our lives, what happens is you are actually rejoicing, like James 1 says, you're rejoicing when you are getting pushed down, your face is against that ground.

Because you see God's hand in that specific event in control.

You do not know what's gonna happen. Like Paul, two years later, he gets released and then later gets his head cut off.

He doesn't know that at that time. But at the moment when that pain is on us, we are looking up, like Mark just said, you know, our goal is,

I don't know where this is gonna end, but I love you, Lord. And you know, I'm actually thankful for this opportunity that you've put in my life.

And that heart change from justice to God is working and I'm glad to be a part of it, will happen when our relationship with God grows through those trials.

God brings those trials to get our eyes off of ourselves. You know, I'm happy when I'm driving a car and nobody cuts me off.

But when that some, I don't know, maybe it's most of you probably don't get hurt when you get cut off. Let's get another example.

You know, when that thing happens that you don't expect, normally it is that. If there is a trial that has come in your life until now, the

Lord has done that sandpaper business enough in our lives that it's smooth now. You know, when that comes, that just goes by, you say, oh yeah,

I know what scripture to look. And you sometimes don't even, you've grown so much in sanctification in that particular area, but that you don't even see it.

You just thank God and say, well, Lord, I pray for this person who's doing the suffering to me. And I'm waiting to see what you have to do.

But it is always those new trials that will, you know, catch you off because that'll show us that there are still areas in our lives that we need to grow and the

Lord will keep bringing them. Let me throw this other one. And I think this is kind of the peak for me and we'll finish up quickly.

On traitor, Joseph's brothers, right? So here is someone that you love, trusted, put your whole life into.

Well, maybe you bad mouth them once in a while, but they're still brothers, right? And the last thing

I expect from brothers is to be sold into slavery. Good example. I don't know what a good example today is.

Tied and put in a ship bound for Africa. Even Africa is more developed these days.

So something that you don't expect from a brother, someone who signs on your home purchase because you need a loan and then he takes the home from you.

That has happened. So someone who betrays you, what is the response that comes to your heart when something like that happens?

Someone close jabs you in the heart. Excellent point.

So we are just sojourners. It is God. Let me just round that and we'll move on. I don't wanna spend too much time here, but when we think of relationships, we are built to have relationships.

We're not built to be an island and people around us, especially those we love, complete that need that we have in this life.

But the problem is sometimes relationships can get to crowd the chief relationship out.

And sometimes when these things happen, when your heart is broken because someone just stabbed you in the back, one of the things that we wanna look at, there's two things you wanna look at.

One is, is my relationship with God strong enough that I can have my identity in Christ survive this devastating blow that has come to play?

So that once again, you go to the center of who God is. And the second part, which is even harder, when you are truly humble will be, you know what,

I don't wanna look at this person because if I'm gonna sin, right? You move from that hurt trial response to,

I can still love my neighbor as myself because I am in Christ.

I have the strength and the standing in Christ.

And there is a difference. When we think of humility, let's go back. Why do we need to be humble?

Because, yeah, because we have nothing to boast about. What do I have to say

I am something? I have nothing. In and of myself,

I'm nothing. So there is nothing for me to say, I deserve to be proud or I deserve to be anything.

I am humble because I am nothing. That is reality, truth. And then we have something, we are something because we are in Christ, right?

That is the only standing we have. And when we come from that position, now, we looked last week, there is a place of humiliation.

Humility and humbleness and humiliation kind of go hand in hand. If you are proud,

God will take us through the path of humiliation till we learn humility. And we looked at many of the passages in the

Old Testament, the Psalms in particular, the Psalmist is in a place of humiliation when he's humbling himself before God looking for strength from God.

So when we now have the strength in Christ, no matter what the trial is, we can now turn back and respond genuinely in the power of God to love that person who has done whatever it is treacherous in our lives.

And we can do that. We would not be proud in saying, I don't care about you. We would not be proud in coming back and saying, okay, you did this now, here's what you need to know.

But we can come back genuinely under that person, surprise that person to say, what are you doing in my house?

I'm here to love you. And you can say that with a clear conscience, when your relationship with God is stronger through that time that has come through.

Let's move to the next one. And I want to finish with this. Till now we've been looking at circumstances, which

I call as you're the underdog. You are the one in humiliation. You're the one who's responding to the trial. But there are times when you need to be humble when you are the overdog, when you are the one in control, you're the one who is leading.

Let me give you a few examples. Parents, when you're disciplining your children, bosses, when you are gonna do something to your employee, which they're not gonna like, like letting go.

When you are in a place which is gonna inflict pain in some form or the other to the person who is under you, how can you maintain this same heart of humility when you respond to these circumstances?

Any thoughts? Yes, perfect.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? I put yourselves in their shoes, makes it a lot easier to realize what the right response is.

Any other thoughts? All right, we are out of time. So let's quickly go through the rest.

We're not gonna have part three. What role does conscience informed by scripture play here?

Your conscience, actually, I'm referring to the passage about keep your conscience clear and God will protect you.

And the focus of campus here is, you know what, don't worry about what other people think. Do I need to be vindicated?

Doesn't matter. If this person is gonna hurt me, that's not the ultimate. Yes, there is a way in which we need to respond, but ultimately, primarily, we need to be looking at how do we please

God. If my conscience before God is clear that I am actually doing what is right, and I qualified it saying informed by scripture because your conscience is not always right.

The more you know the scripture, the more your conscience will tell you what you ought to do right and the spirit of God within you will goad you to do what is right and what is wrong.

And what we need is a clear conscience to whatever the trial has come and gone, I have reacted,

I have responded, I have acted in a way that is pleasing to my father. And when

I have that joy of having pleased my father, especially in a difficult trial or circumstance, there's nothing to beat it.

It's nice to see your baby smile in your face, but when you know that God has enabled you to just walk through something that you would have just been steamrolled under, that demonstrates the power of God, the spirit of God who is able exceedingly to bless you when the world will say, uncle, you are demonstrating

God's power in you through those trials. So that's joy. The next section

I'm not gonna read, why is confession to God and one another vital? You can read that passage later, but very briefly, confession before God keeps us humble, because sometimes we forget the sins that we do.

If I look back at the end of my day, what I've done throughout the day, I have greater reason to ask for forgiveness to God because I remember things that I should not have done.

And it keeps me humble in terms of my own weakness, because I forget the, I try to remember all the good things

I did, but I forget all the bad things I've done. But also confession to one another is vital.

In James we read, specifically if I sinned against somebody, I need to confess it to them. That's hard, that's humbling, but it's important because the

Bible commands us. And we need to have that attitude toward one another where I'm not gonna show myself as the big and mighty.

You get to know me well, you'll know how horrible I am. And my goal is not to hide myself, but rather to be open to my brothers and sisters in Christ and to confess to God and to one another.

You can skip down to the bottom. How does God see you in Christ? Perfect, positionally perfect, right?

What else do I need? I don't have to vindicate myself to anybody, right? Because God knows who I am and that's what matters.

And in justification, he saw me positionally perfect, but he continues to sanctify me in my practice.

And when you think about it, if I come before God proud and say, God, look at that. The Bible says

God deals with those people in a certain way, doesn't he? We will get chastisement when we come with that attitude of, what now,

Lord? And when I come before God saying, Lord, blew it again, forgive me, that pleases

God. We saw that, the hot attitude of humility. I'm gonna skip the problematic interpretations of the text.

Please read them. I'll give you a clue. This text comes from 15th century. It's written by, does anybody know who

Kempis is? So the context in which he writes can allow for interpretation.

Let me leave it at that. If you have any problems, talk to me after Sunday school. And the last thing I have there, what do you resolve to do this week as a result of the study as a disciple of Christ?

And I want us to just examine our lives to say, this is one area. I'm sure all of us have many areas, but just let's pick one area that we think,

I need to look to the Lord for strength. I need to study the word to say what I should respond as. And this person, this situation, when it comes next time,

I'm resolved in my mind, I'm gonna be looking up to God rather than doing what I normally do. And then finally,

Pastor Mike just preached 1 Corinthians 4. That was the basis for this lesson after he preached it. And when we are mature in Christ, we have that same attitude that Paul had, not as the puffed up fusios, right?

We don't blow ourselves up, but rather we have that attitude of, things that is scraped off of the shoes.

That's what Paul thought of himself. And that attitude grows in us as we mature in Christ.

All right, any questions before we close? Yes, okay.

I thought I could get away without answering. So this is what happened. Thankfully, I've had this happen to me once before.

The first time that happened, I knew this person was lying, but I didn't have the guts to call him and tell him,

I think you're lying. Because it looks, I mean, I'm proud. I don't wanna get into this conversation dirty and I'd rather just stay from a distance and say,

I don't have money. Sorry, I didn't have money. I didn't lie. But I knew this guy was lying and I didn't wanna call his thing.

So this time I knew this, so I was a little better prepared this time. So I told him, okay, let's go. Let's take me to your car.

And these guys are very smart. He quickly switched the gears and he said, oh, no, no, I was just talking to this lady about getting some help.

My car is broken further down. Why are you leaving your newborn baby and your mom and walking so far away?

That's okay, let's go. No, no, no, no, I just need some money and we can go. I said, I think you're lying.

Can you look at me and tell me that is not true? Said, no, I'm not. I said, then wait here, I'm gonna go in. I'll come back,

I'll take care of your gas problem. Went in and as I was going out, he was walking with me for a little bit as if he was gonna come.

And I told him, if you are lying, you need to know that that is wrong. I just gave him some general advice and then

I went in, came back very quickly. He didn't think I was gonna come back that quickly. So he was still there. And I said, come, let's go.

And he said, no, I need to do something quick. And I said, there's a God above who is watching you.

And before I could finish any further, he walked away. But if he cared enough about people,

I mean, I could have called, done a lot of other things in justice. I think what I could have done better was maybe followed him up a little bit further and have him sit down and talk to him.

I didn't do that. Wherever God has placed you, you wanna have that attitude. You are a representative of Christ.

Someone mentioned earlier, whatever you do reflects, yeah, Paul, whatever you do reflects on this master whom you serve.

And when you act out, make sure it is not for your own personal vindication and sometimes not even for that person's good, but rather for God's glory.

And when we reflect Christ, our king, king, crown, glory, who went through the utmost humiliation in the deepest humble attitude that we can ever look up to.

And I think that'll be a good motivation for us, no matter what circumstance, whether it's a slap or it is a trickster, we will know how to respond.

All right, let's pray. Dear God, our heavenly father, we thank you,

Lord, for your son, for redeeming us. We thank you for your spirit that equips us, for your word that teaches us.

Lord, help us to live as your sons, sons of the king, daughters of the king, representing you faithfully here on earth.