What God Requires - Walking Humbly Before God — Zac Poonen

Doing Justice, Loving Mercy, and Walking Humbly

We want to look again at Micah and chapter 6. This is the verse we've been looking at the last two days in our Bible study. Micah chapter 6 and verse 8. It's not sacrifice that the Lord wants. Will God be impressed with thousands of rams and buckets of oil?

No. What does he want? He has already told you. To do justly, to do justice, to do righteousness, to love kindness and mercy and to walk humbly with your God. That is what the Lord requires of us and we've considered something of what it means to be righteous when God makes us righteous.

And the way God treats us, we have to treat other people. And one of the great crimes in Christendom is that we receive so much goodness from God and we are so stingy in showing that goodness to other people.

It's a crime. We receive so much forgiveness from God and we are so reluctant to forgive others. Whatever crime anybody has committed against us, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The greatest crime that was ever committed on this earth was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. There's no greater sin than any human being ever committed. And while hanging on the cross, he said, Father forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.

What did he mean? You mean people don't know what they're doing when they're killing somebody? Have you thought about that? Can you say that somebody's killing someone and say, Lord he doesn't know what he's doing?

What Jesus meant was they don't know how serious their crime is to kill the son of God on the cross. I don't think they knew that and I don't think many of them discovered that till the day of their death.

When many of those Pharisees a few years later killed Stephen, they didn't know how serious it was and Stephen said, Lord please don't lay this into the church. He had the same spirit but one man there, Paul, Saul of Tarsus, he got convicted.

I think he got convicted because he saw that this man Stephen had another spirit. He wasn't cursing and swearing and I believe that's the reason why the Roman centurion also got converted at the cross and said, truly this is the son of God.

Why did he say that? Because that hardened Roman centurion had killed many people on the cross in his lifetime and he saw them all swearing and spitting at them and cursing and refusing to open their palms to be crucified and he saw them fighting and kicking and here he saw somebody stretching out his hands ready to be crucified, putting one leg on top of the other to help them put the nails through and the kindness and goodness in his face.

It was not a sermon that convicted the Roman centurion, it was the kindness and the mercy that he saw in the face of Jesus and in his saying, Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing and this hardened Roman soldier, his heart was melted.

He said, I've never seen anything like this, this must be the son of God. You know, the world around needs to see that in us, not only that we are righteous, but that we are kind and merciful, even when they have done wrong to us, that we are quick to forgive, that we don't hold past grudges against anybody.

Forgiveness, Fellowship, and Church Discipline

Now forgiveness, I just want to clarify something, forgiveness is not the same as fellowship. Jesus forgave those Pharisees but he had no fellowship with them. We can forgive everybody in the world but it doesn't mean we have fellowship with all of them.

Fellowship is a much higher level. You forgive somebody, you come to the level of friendship. Friendship, I can have with the whole world. I don't have any enemies in the world, they're all my friends.

I mean, they may consider me an enemy but I don't consider anybody an enemy. I've got only one enemy and that's the devil. But fellowship is a much higher level. I'm sorry to say that even in the church, in many of our churches, what people have is friendship.

They come to the church like a club. Fellowship is a much deeper thing. For fellowship there is a condition. In 1 John 1 it says we must walk in the light, then we can have fellowship. If he walks in the light and I walk in the light, then we have fellowship.

If I only forgive him, we have friendship. He is happy that I forgave him. Or somebody asks me to walk a second mile and I go the second mile. We have friendship, it's not fellowship. No. There's no need to go the second mile.

But we're willing to do it. We're willing to go the third mile, the fourth mile for friendship. But fellowship, you can't build fellowship by telling people to walk a mile with you or walk two miles with you.

No. You may do that for the sake of peace, but fellowship is a much higher thing. And that is why Jesus said this, which looks very contradictory. I don't know whether you've noticed it. In Luke 17, in Luke 17, Jesus said in verse 3, be on your guard, read carefully.

Jesus never made a mistake. Sometimes Christians try to be more spiritual than Jesus. You can't be. We call it super spirituality. Super spirituality is Phariseeism. And many Christians try to be more righteous than Jesus and end up as legalists.

What did he say in Luke 17, verse 3? Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. And if he sins seven times a day, and seven times a day, he comes to you and says, I repent.

Forgive him. What about if he doesn't repent? This is where we can be more spiritual than Jesus. Where we say, Lord, I am more compassionate than you. Lord Jesus, you said when he repents, I should forgive him.

I am better than you, Lord. I forgive him even when he doesn't repent. You see the end result of that. You'll bring confusion into God's work. But you say, how then did those fellows at crucifying Jesus, did they repent?

How did he say forgive them? Because they were not his brothers. What does it say here? If your brother, if a stranger sins against you, even if he doesn't repent, forgive him. That's the difference. We need to understand that because this thing relates to daily life.

When it comes to a brother, we're thinking of fellowship. You cannot, what Jesus was saying, you cannot have fellowship with that brother if he doesn't repent. But when it comes to a stranger who's not a brother, you don't have to wait for him to repent.

Forgive him like Jesus forgave on the cross. None of those people who crucified Jesus were his brothers. We face situations in two areas. One is people who are not brothers in the church or who are not in fellowship with us, do harm to us, forgive them.

Be merciful. But when it comes to a brother, we must, what does the Lord require of you? Do justice and be merciful. What is the righteous thing to do when a brother sins? Do you know that that brother, if you forgive him without his repenting, it's like not dealing with the cancer that is inside him.

You're not doing him a favor. You're leading him to hell. I don't want to lead him to hell. That's why Jesus said, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him privately so that you can win him. And if he doesn't listen to you, take two or three others and try and win him again.

But not with strangers. People who are not brothers, you don't go to them. You don't say, hey, you've sinned against me. You forgive them whether they repent or not. It's very important to understand this distinction.

You know, we must read the Bible carefully and we must not try to be more spiritual than Jesus. Now, when I say a brother, there are a lot of people who claim to be believers who don't have a brotherly relationship with you.

Then you have to treat them like strangers. You have to just forgive them, but you don't have fellowship. We cannot have fellowship where a person has not repented. Because if a person has not repented of his crime, he is not walking in the light, and then there is no fellowship.

So remember, mercy is not the greatest thing. What does the Lord require of you? To do justly and to show mercy, to love mercy. So don't ignore justice and try to be merciful. Then you'll be more spiritual than Jesus.

It is righteous to forgive people who have no light. You cannot build, it is not righteous for the Lord's sake to forgive someone if you are trying to build a brotherhood. I'll give you an example. When I used to work in the Navy, you know, discipline in the military is a very important thing.

And the rule was, I was an officer, and if any sailor came by you, he had to salute you, and you responded. It was a way of showing respect to an officer. And if he passed you 10 times a day, he had to salute you 10 times.

That is military discipline. And if he doesn't salute you, you have to pull him out and ask him, why don't you salute me? I was a Christian, and I struggled with this and said, Lord, I couldn't care less whether this guy salutes me or not.

I'm not interested. I don't want to pull him up if he didn't salute me. But the Lord said, you have to. You've got two stripes on your shoulder. You're employed by the government to maintain discipline here.

So you can't bring in your personal philosophy and all here. They are paying you every month to maintain discipline in the armed forces. You have to maintain discipline. It's like in a factory or anywhere.

You're a supervisor, you have to maintain discipline. That's not the place to show mercy. We must do justice and show mercy. So if he comes up to me and says, I'm sorry, sir, I slipped up, then I can show mercy.

I say, okay, forget it. I won't charge you. That's up to me. But I have to pull him up. And I learned something there, that even though I have no personal desire to get him to salute me, I have to do my responsibility as a teacher in a school or certainly in the military.

Holding Truth and Grace Together

So very often our problem is we are not balanced. We go overboard on truth or we go overboard on grace. The glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ full of truth and grace. There must be, what does God require of you?

Justice and mercy. It's like truth and grace. And very often, we tend to get imbalanced this way or that way. It's like I said the other day, you build up one side of your body very muscular and the other side is all skinny.

Then we got to work on the other side and make that also equally muscular. And if you look into your life, like I've looked into my life, you find we all tend to go overboard, either on the side of truth or on the side of grace.

John 1 14 says, we saw the glory of God full of grace and truth. The whole purpose of God in our salvation is not to take us to heaven. It is to make us like Jesus Christ. Please, please remember this all your life.

My sins are all forgiven. I'm on my way to heaven. That's a byproduct. My sins are forgiven. I'm on my way to becoming more like Jesus Christ. That's the real truth. And so the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ full of grace and truth.

And we need both. And very often I've used the illustration of bones and flesh. Truth is like the bones. There are doctors say there's some 200 odd bones in our body. And do you know what would happen if I didn't have bones in my body right now?

I wouldn't be able to stand up. I would sink down like a jellyfish. We must have truth. And if there are 214 or 220 bones in my body, I want every single one of them. I don't want, how many bones would you like to lose in your body?

I don't want to lose even one of them. If there are truths in God's word, I want every one of them. I want the whole counsel of God. I don't want to compromise God's counsel and mingle with people and say, let's forget about these bones and let's work together.

I'm saying, sorry, you work that way. I'm going to have all the bones. And if people call me, oh, too extreme, let them call me extreme. But I want all the bones in my body. I want the whole truth of God.

Truth is not my property that I can just give it away. Truth is God's property. How can you give away somebody else's property and say, oh, it doesn't matter. Truth is important. If God says, if your brother sins, rebuke him.

Yeah, I want to do that in a spirit of love. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he doesn't repent, don't forgive him. I don't want to be more spiritual than Jesus. I want to do exactly what Jesus said.

I don't want my human ideas to come and interfere. God says, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways different from your ways. And I've learned through many years that God's way is superior to mine.

I must not have an unforgiving attitude. I must have a longing that that brother will come into fellowship with God. But if he has done wrong to me, and I don't show that to him, he will never come into fellowship with God.

Never. Do you know that if you have cheated somebody, you know how many Christians behave? I've seen this. They do something wrong to someone. And then after a few years, they feel bad about it. But they won't go and say, I'm sorry.

They just come to you and act as if nothing has happened. Let's have fellowship. I don't believe they can have fellowship because there's something unsettled, which is not settled. It's not that I want it.

Like I don't want that fellow to salute me. But there's a discipline in the Navy. There's a greater discipline in the body of Christ. I don't want it. I never wanted those guys to salute me. But the admiral in the Navy has passed an order that sailors must salute officers.

And the head of the church, Jesus Christ, has said, if your brother repents, forgive him. I just obey orders from the head. That's all. I'm not like a hand. The hand just obeys orders from the head. The hand doesn't question, why did you do that?

Why did you tell me to do that? No, I don't question Jesus and say, why do you tell me to forgive him only when he repents? Lord, I don't question. I'm like the Roman centurion who said, I'm a man under authority.

And when somebody tells me to go, I go. I don't question why you tell me to go. This is a very simple thing. But I have seen multitudes of believers who try to be more spiritual than Jesus and who end up in confusion.

My life has been very ordered and at rest because I have acknowledged one thing, that the Bible is the word of God and that God's wisdom is superior to mine. And so I humble myself in one way of humility when it says the third condition, walk humbly with your God.

Obedience as the Evidence of Humility

That's what we're thinking of. Walk humbly with your God. And I want to tell you, my dear brothers, many of us are very clever and very smart. To walk humbly with your God, one of the first things you've got to acknowledge is, Lord, I will do what you say.

Whether it sounds right to me or not, whether I think I've found a more spiritual way than the Holy Spirit has discovered. No, I will do it your way. Because this has application in many areas. It says about Moses 18 times in Exodus 39 and 40, Moses did exactly as the Lord commanded him, exactly as the Lord commanded him, exactly as the Lord commanded him, he built the tabernacle.

And at the end it says, thus Moses finished the work and the glory of God came upon that tabernacle. I've read that. Why in the world does God mention that 18 times in two chapters as the Lord commanded, as the Lord commanded Moses did, thus Moses finished his work.

To teach us who are building something more important in the tabernacle, the church of Jesus Christ, which that tabernacle was a picture of, I want it to be said about me at the end of my life, Zach Pudden did exactly as the Lord commanded him.

In this area, in this area, in this area, he baptized people in the way Jesus said people must be baptized. He taught the little commandments and the big commandments in the New Testament exactly as the Lord commanded.

And he did not compromise with other people because the Lord taught him something else. He wanted to do as the Lord commanded, as the Lord commanded. And so that in the final day, the Lord can say, well done, you didn't go by your own wisdom.

The Bible says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean upon your reason. Do you know the biggest enemy to the Word of God is your reason? Your reason says, oh come on, we can forgive that brother even if he doesn't repent.

That's your reason. One of the first things that Jesus taught us about righteousness. Do you know the first time, I want to show you the two places in the New Testament where the word righteous and righteousness comes the first time.

What does the Lord require of you? To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. And I will show you how these things combine together. True righteousness will always make you merciful to others and will always make you walk humbly with God.

You will not sacrifice your humility before God to show mercy. And one aspect of walking humbly with God is acknowledging, Lord, I will do what you say. What is the proof of humility? Very important to understand.

What does it mean to walk humbly with God? Many of us try to learn the meaning of humility from the dictionary or our own ideas of humility. You know, put your head down and walk like this. That's not humility.

Can you picture Jesus walking around like this and saying, Oh, I'm just a nobody. I'm a poor dog. That's not the way Jesus spoke. Jesus walked upright, more upright than any military officer you've seen in your life.

But he was the humblest man that walked on the earth. Don't think that if a man stoops like this, he's just a sloppy man, not a humble man. And Jesus was not a sloppy man, he was a humble man. Humility is not before men.

That's the first thing we need to learn. Humility is before God. Walk humbly with your God. And the one proof of humility is God gives you grace. If God doesn't give you grace, even if the world thinks you're humble, you're not humble.

And the proof of grace is sin will not have dominion over you when you're under grace. It is impossible. If I get angry or if I lust with my eyes, I have to say I didn't get grace at that moment. Why didn't I get grace?

Because I did not walk humbly with my God at that time. All I have to ask is, Lord, where was the pride in my life which made me fall into sin there? There must have been some pride somewhere that God withdrew his grace.

So these things go together. What does the Lord require of you? To do righteously, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Let's turn to the first two references to righteousness in the New Testament.

Joseph's Righteousness and Mercy

Number one, Matthew chapter one. We read here, Joseph was betrothed, engaged, verse 18, to Mary. And the angel Gabriel had already appeared to Mary and the Holy Spirit had come upon her as a virgin and made her pregnant with the body of Jesus Christ.

And Joseph heard about it. Well, he assumed what any man would assume, that she was unfaithful and slept around with somebody and became pregnant. Now listen to this, verse 19. This is the first mention of righteousness in the New Testament.

Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. Do you see how righteousness and mercy are combined together there? His righteousness made him merciful.

He said, he was absolutely convinced in his mind that Mary played the fool with some man and became pregnant. What else would any man think? In 4 ,000 years of human history, no virgin ever produced a child.

You can't blame Joseph for thinking anything different. But he said, okay, she slipped up. She's just a 19-year-old girl, made a mess of her life. Why should I expose it? Let me not tell anyone. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Let me not expose it. Let me cover it up as much as possible. Let me just quietly send her away secretly. And if anybody asks you, well Joseph, why didn't you marry her? Say, well, you know, I thought about it.

I felt maybe I shouldn't marry her. Maybe I should wait a little longer to get married. Don't cover, cover it, cover it. Just like Shem and Japheth covered the nakedness of Noah. Oh, God loves such people.

God loves people. In fact, Noah said Shem and Japheth are going to be, God is going to bless them tremendously and their children. I'll tell you something, cover the sins of others. God will bless not only you, he will bless your children too.

That's how God is. He's a good God because that's part of his nature. His nature is to cover sins. Think of this yourself, all of you sitting here. Haven't you done some terrible things in your past life which nobody in this congregation knows about?

I think all of us have to say yes. Some really terrible things which nobody knows about. What has God done? He's not only forgiven you, he has hidden it from all the people here so that people think you're such a godly sister, you're such a godly brother.

You know it's not true. But God doesn't expose you. That is God's nature. Many of us say, I want to be like Jesus. I want to be like God. This is God's nature and yet how ruthlessly you have sometimes exposed the sins of other people.

You have found a delight sometimes in exposing the sins of other people's children or other people that proves you're not a righteous person. Joseph being a righteous, old covenant righteousness man, decided I must be merciful to her.

I must cover her sin. Let me tell you some other thing. Supposing he had done the opposite. Supposing he'd gone around saying, oh there's Mary. You know what she did? Became pregnant. I think I'm going to marry such a girl and advertised it all over Nazareth and the next night the angel comes and says to Joseph, hey that is from the Holy Spirit.

How would he have felt when he discovered the truth? Have you ever scandalized somebody and discovered later on that that was not true? How can you pull back all that wrong information you've given to people?

You can't. Because that person being a gossip who listened to you, he would have a hundred other people who he's already told that to. You can't pull it back. It's gone. It's gone. It's spread over the world.

There's a proverb in the world that says, lies travel around the world while truth is still putting on his shoes. It's true. We don't spread truth so quickly as lies get spread. So it's much better not to spread.

Sometimes what you see may not be the truth. You may not know the full story. Many years ago here in this campsite when we had a camp, I won't forget that incident. I think it must have been 12 -15 years ago or some years ago.

One young boy from CFC saw some group of young people sitting here from our conference with a smoking what looked like a cigarette and smoke coming out from there. And he promptly went and told his mother, you know, I saw some people smoking a cigarette.

And that mother, like many other foolish women, immediately spread it all over. So it finally came to my ears. I said, oh, people are smoking here. Let me find out. Well, who is this? So if you want to find out among the young people, you've got to ask your children.

They know more about these things than we do. So I asked one of my boys, what is this? Is this some folks smoking there? He said, no, nobody's smoking. And what was this little red light and smoke going out?

Oh, he said, that was a mosquito coil. We were sitting there with an anti-mosquito thing, which gets lit under the red light and the smoke was coming out. How do you think those people felt who spread the news that CFC young people were smoking?

That would have spread. You can't pull it back. It's one example. Things don't look, things are not as they appear. But there, if whoever said it wanted to get light, they could have seen what a tremendous lust there is in me to spread something evil about somebody else.

Now, if that mother's own child was sitting there, she would never have said it. She would have kept quiet about it. But her child was not in that group. I'm talking about people who sit in CFC and listen to messages and think they are holy and read the Bible and pray and all that.

But they are Pharisees. Dear brothers and sisters, ask yourself, do you have the righteousness of an old covenant man like Joseph? I'm not surprised that Jesus chose Joseph to be the husband of Mary. Would he have chosen you?

Would he have chosen you if you were living at that time? He was a righteous man and he covered the sins of others. What does God require of you to be righteous and to love mercy? There may be another explanation for what you think.

You say, I saw it with my own eyes. I heard it with my own ears. It says about Jesus in Isaiah chapter 11, Isaiah chapter 11, that Jesus would never judge, verse set three, by what his eyes saw or his ears heard because it could be deceptive.

But he would judge with righteousness. There would be righteousness and mercy. There's a song that we sing in CFC, there's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea. And it says there, it goes on to say, there's no place where all your failings, all your failures have such a kind judgment given as in heaven.

Men are merciless when they judge you. But God is very merciful. There's no place like heaven where mercy is mingled with that judgment is merciful. And I'll tell you the reason why very often we don't receive God's grace and mercy upon our life.

It says in James and chapter two, James chapter two, it says, verse 13, judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. But mercy must triumph over judgment. When you have a tendency to judge and you have the opportunity to be merciful, it says mercy must triumph over judgment.

Judgment must be pushed down and mercy must be the victor in your life. Now, if that doesn't happen in the final day, God will not be merciful to you. That's what this verse says. Judgment in the final day will be merciless from God to those who have not shown mercy to other people.

So even if you're a selfish person who wants God to be merciful to you in the final day, here is the way. Be merciful to all the people around you who you see today. Jesus said that in the Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy from God. So righteousness and mercy must go together. Joseph was righteous and he was merciful. Grace and truth, you know, like the bones and the flesh, we need both.

We don't only need all the bones in the body, you know, we need flesh to cover. Human beings are attractive because there's flesh covering the bones. We feel like shaking hands and embracing people because there's flesh, there's something beautiful about flesh covering the bones.

But if you saw a skeleton walking with all the 214 bones towards you in the middle of the night, you don't feel exactly warm towards walking up to him saying hi. You feel like running. That's how the Pharisees were.

The Pharisees were like skeletons saying, see how many bones I have. I've got all the bones in my body. And people ran. Did Jesus have any less bones in his body than the Pharisees? He had every one and more.

Why is it sinners were attracted to Jesus? Because over the bones there was flesh. Grace covered the truth. Mercy was coupled with righteousness. Righteousness and mercy kissed each other in Jesus. And that's very important for us to understand.

Jesus' Baptism and Obedient Humility

And if we are to be like Jesus, they both must be there. And we walk humbly with our God. The second example of righteousness in the New Testament is in Matthew chapter 3. Matthew chapter 3, Jesus said when he came for the baptism to John.

Matthew chapter 3 verse 13, John tried to prevent him. Verse 14 saying, hey, how can I baptize you? You need to baptize me. And Jesus said, permitted, baptize me John. Because it is only thus that we can fulfill all righteousness.

That's the second time the word righteousness comes in the New Testament. And what do we learn from there? A couple of things. To walk humbly with God. In the first example, we see righteousness coupled with mercy.

And here we see righteousness coupled with walking humbly with God. How is that? Because what does baptism symbolize? John the Baptist was not talking about old man and all that. He was saying my baptism is a baptism of repentance.

He told the Pharisees, I'm not going to baptize you because I don't see any repentance in your life. His baptism was a baptism of repentance. Everybody who comes here is saying, I am a sinner. I'm sorry for my sins.

I want to turn from all my sins and live a new life. Okay, John says, come, I'll baptize you. Did Jesus have any sins in his life? Did he have to repent of anything? No. Why did he need to be baptized?

If there was one human being who never needed baptism, it was Jesus. And his reason, he had a reason. He was just like us. His reason could have told him, listen, first of all, you don't need baptism.

Second, if you stand in that queue, in that line of people getting baptized, and finally they discover who you are, then what will the people think? Ah, this Jesus also committed some secret sins in his life.

We may not have seen it, but he's repenting here. He's standing in the line showing that he's also repenting. Don't let people misunderstand you, Jesus. Don't go for baptism. You know what Jesus did? He did not rely upon his reason.

He walked humbly with God, his father. His father said, be baptized. Don't question it. And Jesus said, father, I'll do that. I will not lean upon my reason, because thus I will fulfill all righteousness.

Learn from Jesus that your reason can sometimes hinder you from doing what God wants you to do. God tells you to do something, and you bring your reason into that, and you won't do it. You are walking humbly with God.

So, where was Jesus' humility seen? Let's turn to Philippians, in chapter 2, where we are told about the humility of Jesus Christ. And the humility of Jesus Christ is not seen in his washing the disciples' feet.

Now, if I were to ask you, brothers, give me a few examples of the humility of Jesus Christ, what will you tell me? He washed the disciples' feet. He never took a title like pastor or bishop or anything like that.

He refused to take the crown, and he was willing to be born in a manger and to be crucified on the cross. All these external things is what I think all of you will say examples of the humility of Jesus Christ.

But look what the Bible says is the proof of Jesus' humility. And let's reorient our thinking about humility from what the Bible teaches, because Jesus said, learn humility from me, not from the dictionary.

Matthew 11, 29, he said, come to me, take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am humble. And I have learned, sought to learn humility from Jesus. Was he humble when he took the whip and chased out the money changers who were making money in the name of religion?

Oh yes, he was humble all the time. And I have learned humility from Jesus. And more and more and more, as I study the life of Jesus, I learn humility. I don't want to learn it from others who got false ideas of humility.

I don't want to learn it from people who just say, oh I'm such a wretch, I'm such a wretch, I'm such a wretch, I'm a useless man. Many people who say that are not pretty humble. Where is humility? Philippians chapter 2, it says here, have this attitude, verse 5, in you, which was in Christ Jesus, who, let me go quickly, verse 8, found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to God.

How, what is the mark of true humility? Obedience to God. That is the mark of humility. It's not what people think about you. Are you obedient to God in your private life? You're a humble person. When the Holy Spirit says, don't go to that dirty internet site, are you obedient?

You're a humble person. If you're not, all this pious acting around in church is all rubbish, hypocrite, hypocrisy. Humility is before God. What does God require of you? Do righteously, love mercy, and walk humbly before your God.