The Humility of Jesus Christ — Bill McLeod

Well, it's another nice day, a day to praise the Lord. I want to talk today, it's a very difficult theme, the humility of Jesus Christ. It's one of the most powerful thoughts in the Bible, and it has a powerful effect when it's understood.

You know, Satan said five times in Isaiah 14, I will, and the last I will was this, I will be like the Most High God. So he's trying to climb up higher to be greater, and then in the days when he tempted Christ, he took the sixth step, he asked Christ to worship him.

He not only wanted to be like God, he wanted God to worship him. So we say six steps up by this pride-filled individual. In the case of Christ, there were something like eighteen steps down in humility in what he did.

The Creator Who Humbles Himself

You know, in Psalm 113, and here's something you may never have thought of, I don't know, some of you have, I'm sure, but many have not, I'm sure, too. It says, God is so great that he has to humble himself to look at the things that are going on in the earth.

Do you get that? I mean, they're so far below him, he has to humble himself to look at the things going on in the earth. That's not all, in the same context, it says he's so great, he has to humble himself to look at the things going on in heaven.

That's hard to get a hold of, right? An analogy, you're walking through the bush, you see an anthill, and you pick up a dry stick and you knock the top off the anthill, and they're tearing around, they're carrying their little loads, and after a while it's all quiet, they've gone back inside again.

Would you stand there for a week watching this anthill? I guess not, you'd be, you know, 10 minutes, then you're on your way again. And it must be like that to God, too, he has to humble himself to see what's going on in heaven and in the earth.

We need to see this before we think of his humility, what this great God did. All things were made by him, without him was not anything made that was made. God created all things by Jesus Christ. So we read in Ephesians, he is the one, the creator.

You know when it says, remember now your creator, in the days of your youth, the word creator's in the plural. Remember now your creators, in the days of your youth. The Spirit is spoken of as being the creator, Christ and God, they were all involved, of course.

But the creator of the universe, and you know, when I think of that, I think of this. If you travel at the speed of light, it would take you 120 ,000 years to cross the Milky Way constellation of which our local solar system is a tiny part.

120 ,000 years? At the speed of light? At the speed of light? That's right. And the Milky Way constellation is only one of tens of thousands of constellations like it, some larger than the Milky Way is.

And our God made that. And this helps us to understand what we're talking about when we talk about the miracle, the wonder of his humility. You know, his range was the universe. And there was a point in his history when he was carried by a woman in her womb.

How can this be? How could he do this? Why did he do this? We'll consider that as well. He was not born in a hospital, he was born in a stable. A bunch of animals, no room in the inn. That didn't seem to bother him.

He wasn't trying to establish himself. He made himself of no reputation, it says, and took upon him the form of a servant. He was born in Bethlehem, a very tiny little village, maybe 200 people, not some great city, not even Jerusalem.

Tiny Bethlehem. Those are belittled among the thousands of Judah. Yet out of these shall he come forth unto me who is to be ruler in Israel. Whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.

In a stable in little Bethlehem. And then he was raised in Nazareth, concerning which there was a saying in those days, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? But that's where he was raised, the God of the universe.

His father was a carpenter, we're also told he was a carpenter. He worked at a very menial task, making benches, I suppose, and who knows what all, for quite some years because his ministry did not begin until he was 30 years of age.

He was subject to his parents. I was talking with some Jehovah's Witnesses one time in a bush camp, it was run by Jehovah's Witnesses and all the workers there pretty well were JWs and they wanted to have a session with me, we had a hot session one night.

And they challenged this fact that I thought that Jesus was God. They said, he said my father is greater than me, so he couldn't have been God. I said, was he greater than his earthly parents? Well, yes, they said he was.

Well, it says in Luke's gospel that he came down to Nazareth and was subject unto them. If he could be subject to someone he was greater than, surely he could be subject to someone he was equal to. And you know, it ended there.

They got it and pursued other things. He was born a Jew, the most despised nation in the world. Luke 18 speaks about this nation, they were scattered and peeled and a nation terrible from the beginning, a nation mated out and trodden underfoot whose land the rivers have spoiled.

And that's a reference of various nations coming into Israel and robbing them and sometimes carrying them away. And he was born a Jew. And as you know, to this very hour, the Jew is unpopular and they get very nervous when somebody gets into their cemetery and pushes all the headstones down.

It shouldn't be done. It's still being done. And you know, sometimes, well, in hospital, recently I had my hip done the second time and the fellow in the next bed to me was a Jewish doctor. And we became good friends.

And there was a lot of things he believed that he had to unbelieve, you know. I had to get rid of them. Things he didn't know, you know. He's a very intelligent person. He was the chairman of the admissions committee who couldn't become a doctor unless you came through him.

And he taught in their college for many years. He was the head of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, a very talented person. But many things he didn't know. I remember one day I said, now you Jews believe that Isaiah 53 talks about the Jewish nation suffering for the sins of Gentiles, right?

He said, that's right. I said, I'm gonna show you're wrong. So I asked him, I said, who was Isaiah? He was a Jew, right? And this Jew said, for the transgression of my people, was he stricken? He just stared with his mouth open, not a word.

He'd never seen it before, you know. We kept on giving him the scripture. And then one day I said, Harvey, he came to visit me five times after he got out of hospital. I said, you know where I stand, I don't know where you stand.

Where do you stand about Jesus of Nazareth? And he said, Jesus of Nazareth was God in human form. He died on the cross for the sins of the world. And he rose from the dead on the third day. So then I asked him the obvious question, have you received him as your savior?

No, he said, and I never will. I'm a Jew and I'm staying with the Jewish way. It all ended there. He didn't want to see me anymore. He seemed offended even by the question, you know. But anyhow, Christ the creator was subject to his parents who knew nothing really in comparison to what he knew.

And there were times no doubt when they made him do things he didn't want to do. But he subjected himself because he was teaching us a lesson at the same time. He made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men.

Christ’s Obedience, Reproach, and Suffering

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, he had to, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Because you see, to die on a cross was a curse. And it was regarded by Jews that way, reserved mainly for slaves and thieves, a curse.

You know, he quietly suffered. They called him a Samaritan. They said he was demon possessed. They once declared he was doing his works by the devil himself. They said he was a glutton. They said he was a drunkard.

They said he was a bastard child. And he never responded. He did say, I do not have a demon. He never denied being a Samaritan. He couldn't because he was representing the whole human race. It was a neat little turn, I thought, when I saw that.

Anyway, it says in 1 Peter 2, we're to follow his steps. When you know sin, who when he was reviled did not revile again. When he suffered, he didn't threaten. He could have. He never threatened. He committed himself.

The marginal reading says he committed his cause to God and quietly endured. We have to learn to do the same. Somebody criticizes you, commit it to God. Don't get worried about it or you'll get more. The angrier you get, the more you'll get of it because the devil sees he's making some progress in your life, you know.

There's one fellow, a famous preacher in England, I don't remember his name now, but he was getting a lot of threatening letters and it really turned him off. He got really angry and upset and finally, friends persuaded him that Psalm 37, 5 was still in the book.

And he got over that and then the letters quit coming when he stopped getting angry at them and he started getting phone calls and the same thing happened again until he learned, no, Psalm 37, 5's still in the book.

Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in him, he'll bring it to pass, let God have it, you know. He'll take care of it. Spurgeon used to say, I don't care what they say about me as long as they talk about me because he noticed that the more they said against him, the bigger the crowds got, you know.

People wanted to come and hear this preacher, the newspapers were running down and all this kind of stuff, you know. We don't have to worry about that. So we're to follow his steps. When he was reviled, he didn't revile again.

When he suffered, he didn't threaten. He committed himself, he committed his cause to him that judges righteously. Are we doing that? We should be, that's part of it. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

He was despised by his own people. He came unto his own, his own received him not and there are times when preachers have been rejected by their own people. He was certainly, I mean, they crucified him on a cross.

He was also rejected by his own family. It says, neither did his brethren believe in him. They didn't believe in him. And then again, the apostles, all of whom had sworn to him that they would never forsake him, all of them forsook him, all of them.

Even Peter, the one who talked the biggest, he said the most against Christ, you know. So at the last, he hung there alone. Oh, there were some of his friends standing around the cross and some women standing afar off and all this, but he was alone.

Some of you, no doubt, most of you have seen that film on the sufferings of Christ. I'd like to make a comment, one comment on this, that there are probably in that film at least 40 things that are unbiblical, not found in the New Testament at all.

But apart from that, the physical sufferings of Christ were not the things that crushed him. It was our sins that crushed him. And the fact that his father forsook him. My God, my God, why have you? His parents, his family, we don't know about his mother, I don't think she forsook him.

I think she believed. But his brethren didn't, I think, until after the resurrection. There's evidence they did after that. And so he's hanging there alone. And the kind of suffering he went through, he was made to be sin for us.

He who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, that kind of suffering we can't comprehend. We can't enter into it. We can't understand it. Because it was God suffering this way.

Forsaken by everybody and hanging on a cross naked with nothing on him but blood and spit. I gave my back to the smiters, my cheeks to them that plucked off my hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Isaiah 50, one of the predictions or prophecies of Christ. And so he subjected himself to all these indignities because he had a certain goal in mind. And we'll look at that in a few moments. He was jeered, they mocked him.

They dressed him up like a king and beat him over the head with a rod. When he hung on the cross, they were jeering him there, let Christ the King of Israel defend now from the cross that we may see and believe.

He saved others himself he cannot save. Mocked and jeered and he never complained. He came to die and he knew that from the beginning. It had to be. This was why he was here. And there's something that we very seldom think about, the fact that he was crucified outside the camp, outside the city wall.

Hebrews 13 talks about it. And of course, the Gospels. What difference did it make where he was crucified? Well, outside the camp, that's where you buried human dung. That's where you burned the carcasses of the animals that were sacrificed on the altars.

They dragged them outside and they burned them there. Horns, hoofs, hides, dung, everything. That's where they took idolaters and stoned them to death. That's where adulterers were taken and stoned to death.

That's where leprotic material was buried or burned. If you had leprotic garment, you could have. It had to be burned outside the camp. And if there's leprotic material in the walls of your house, stones and stuff, that had to be dumped outside the camp.

That's where he was crucified. And it had to be also because he was dying for drunkards and idolaters and adulterers and fornicators and murderers and all the rest, outside the camp. His humility, not the slightest evidence that he ever thought of going back.

Didn't he once say, can I now pray my father and he will presently give me legions of angels? He could have at any time done that. He did not. It says in Hebrews 12, as you remember, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame.

The Joy Set Before Christ

Now I was thinking about that one time, the thought of the contrast between Satan trying to climb up this miserable creature and not only be like God, but have God worship him. And then Christ going down, down, down on our behalf.

What a contrast. And what a difference. And I thought to myself, as he hung on the cross, with people screaming at him and jeering and mocking, hanging there naked, blood and spit. And it says he despised the cross.

And it came to my attention, he's probably in a sense, he was spitting in the face of the devil. And I don't suppose the devil understood that until after the resurrection. He despised the shame and sat down now at the right hand of God.

Why did he do this? Well, we know for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God. We are the joy. You know, Paul once said, what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing?

Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming, you are our glory and joy. Is that yours? I'll tell you. It's not a matter of putting money in the bank. That doesn't mean anything.

I'm not a case of getting your name in the newspapers or on TV or something. It's got nothing to do with a Christian and his life. What is your joy? What is your hope? What is your crown of rejoicing?

People you want to Christ? That's what Paul was talking about. That's what Christ was thinking about when he died on the cross. He saw down the corridors of history. He could see the thousands coming to him around the world, down through the centuries.

And right today, there's a revival all over South America. There's a revival all over Africa. I read a report, a missionary had been all over South America, said everywhere I go, there's a fire burning.

And some of the prisons in South America, half of the prisons have found Christ as their savior. There's been a great work among prisoners and prisons in South America. God is doing great things, not perhaps here.

We don't see it here. We're too fat and sassy, you know, for God to do much here. And we have to be humble. You know, He's been doing that in Canada. You're aware of that? Shaking our cage. Ice storms, fires, floods, famines.

We've had, you know, places in Alberta that didn't have rain for several years and all this kind of stuff. It's still going on, you know. It's not over yet. The Red River in Winnipeg is right up to its banks right now.

This has never happened in our history before. And it may mean a big flood in the spring. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not buying a boat, but anyway. For the joy that was set before Him.

So in eternity, the Father and the Son had a conference. And the Father suggested to the Son. And the Son said, Father, I'll do it. For the joy that was set before Him. He endured the cross. Despising the shame and sent down to the right hand of the throne.

And it goes on to say, consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. He did.

We haven't done that. You've forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives.

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son to see whom the Father chastens not? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.

You're not really a child of God. You can go through life without any trials as a Christian. You're not really a Christian. That's what He's really saying. Well, it says, if you remember, there's two verses now we need to think about.

One's in Philippians chapter 2. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought not something to be tightly held on to, that He was evil with God, but made Himself with no reputation and took upon Him in the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man.

He did it all for us. And we're to have the same mind Christ had. So can I ask this question? Do you have that kind of a mind? Some Christians, they get turned off if somebody even refuses the gospel tract.

Or some neighbor says something unkind, they don't go to church for a whole month, you know. And they forget, you know. This is all part of it, people. To be identified with Christ is not exactly an easy thing.

Timothy and the Call to Persevere

You know, Timothy at one point began to cool off. And Paul heard about it. I don't know how he knew, but he knew. So he wrote him a letter, 2 Timothy. And he suggested to Timothy that he, the Spanish Bible says, he said, revive the gift of God which is in you by the laying out of my hands.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be the partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.

Timothy, get back with it. So he'd cool off. And sometimes we'd cool off because somebody said something or frowned at us or we lost our job maybe because the boss found out we were Christian. I remember a guy came for counseling in Winnipeg years ago and he was in this company.

He'd been with them for 20 years. And people who got a job there long after he did were being advanced past him. And he knew what the problem was. Every now and then the boss would put on a beer party and he wouldn't go.

And he was the only one that didn't go. So he never got advanced. And he was asking me what to do. I said, do what you're doing. But I said, tell you what, we'll pray about that. Let's ask God to give you a better job.

But can you do that? Yes, you can. So he prayed that God would give him a better job. I think it was a week later when he got a job in Vancouver. You know, Vancouver to someone in Winnipeg, that's like going to heaven, you know.

So he was very thankful. Anyway, we're to have the mind that Christ had and to humble ourselves and to make ourselves with no reputation. Don't try and be a big shot or you'll get shot, you know. As a Christian, I mean.

People, man, at his best state is what? Altogether, vanity, emptiness, wind and confusion. At your best state, that's all you are, that's all I am. So what's the point in promoting yourself when you know that?

There's no point in that at all. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And then the other thought in Hebrews chapter 13. Let us go forth therefore unto him outside the camp bearing his reproach.

You and I have to be willing to bear the reproach of Christ and to be laughed at. I was preaching in Bernal, Manitoba on the street one day and somebody threw a rock. It was a big rock. It didn't hit me.

His aim was poor. And it bounced off the hood of a car. I felt sorry for the owner. But you know what? Boy, could I preach after that happened. Ooh, I'll tell you. It just put fire in my bones. It did something for me.

I don't know what would have happened if it had hit me. I'd have probably exploded, you know. But anyway, if you be reproached in the name of Christ, happy are you. For the spirit of glory and of God is resting on you.

So Peter said, do you get it? I think it was John R. Rice that said in one of his books years ago, he said, don't you ever try to escape the reproach of Christ because if you escape that, you'll escape the power of God, which is true.

So if you be reproached for the name of Christ, what? Happy are you. Why? Because it means the spirit of God and the spirit of glory is resting on you. And the devil knows it and he's doing what he can to knock you down.

Keep that in mind. You know, I'm a lover of Spurgeon, although the Bible says we're not to glory in man. I don't glory in him. He was just an ordinary person. But you know, some of his insights were really great and very helpful to me.

Spurgeon’s Humility and Revival

There's a new book on his life. The manuscript was 1 ,300 pages. The book is 850 pages by a guy named Drummond. You should read it. You ought to get that. And have you read it? No, okay. He went to a place called Water Beach, 1 ,200 people.

Every second person was a drunkard. And he was 17 years of age, had no training for the ministry. And he said, we had a Holy Ghost revival from the first day. And in two years, the church went from 40 to 400 and you couldn't find a drunkard in the area.

And they heard about this in London, you see. That's how he got called to London. And he went to this church in London, seating 1 ,200. They were running the highest crowd they ever got Sunday mornings, 120.

I think the Sunday he went there was 60 or something. And the prayer meeting went from five to 500 in 12 months. And they had Holy Ghost revival in London. Then the building was too small, so they enlarged it to seat 3 ,000.

When it was enlarged to seat 3 ,000, there was 4 ,000 trying to get in. So then they had to build a bigger building, seating 6 ,000. But back of it all, he was an extremely humble person. Maybe that's why God used him the way that he did.

Opener meetings, he loved them. You know, once a year, and at one time for a period of three months, because they were refurbishing the tabernacle, they'd hire a music garden place that would seat 20 ,000.

And he would tell his people, I don't want to see one of you in that crowd. You're all to stay home and pray. This is for sinners only. And the place would be packed to the doors, and sometimes 1 ,000 in the streets trying to get in, because the Spirit of God was on him.

But people, again and again, he said to his people, if you ever make the mistake of thinking that God is blessing me because I'm a good speaker and have a big intellect, I'll lose it all. This is the Holy Ghost.

You people have got to pray for the Holy Ghost power. On my ministry, I'll be nothing. He saw it so clearly. It was such a blessing to me, you know. I mean, he could read two books of 300 pages in an hour and quote whole pages verbatim from either of the books.

They used to test him on that. He was never wrong. Page 127, page 637, repeat the whole thing from memory, you know. But that was not the secret of his success. The secret of his success was his calling on the church.

Pray for me, pray for me, pray for me. Pray for the power of the Holy Ghost. He knew what revival was. Dr. Orr made the mistake of saying in one of his books that the 1858 revival made Spurgeon because it hit England in 1859.

It didn't because he had revival four years before that revival hit England. He was in a state of revival when the revival came. But, you know, his humility was amazing. And you know, open air meetings, his brother used to arrange these open air meetings for him.

And it's just, it's almost incredible to read what happened in some of those open air meetings. His brother said, the power of God would be so manifest there's times when he had to stop speaking. So many people would be kneeling on the ground trying to get saved, you know.

He'd have to stop speaking. And sometimes he'd be so carried away, be stamping their feet and whistling and shouting and clapping their hands. He'd have to stop the whole crowd to go on in a sermon. The power of God, his brother said, was so manifest.

And he loved to preach in the open air. But listen, they called him everything the devil could think of, the newspapers did when he first came there. They said he was a rocket. He went up, you know, with a fire and he'll come down in smoke.

They had all kinds of bad things said about him. He was called everything a person could be called. He just rejoiced in it, you know. Let him talk, he said. I like that spirit, though. Okay. Before we conclude, what is your joy?

Evangelism as the Work of Every Believer

What is your hope? What is your crown of rejoicing? Is there anybody that's been led to Christ because you live it? We need to all consider that. My dear mom, she said to me one day, you know, she never called me Bill, she called me Will.

She said, Will, I think I've lost my power. I said, why do you say that, Mother? She said, I haven't won anybody to Christ in the last six months, you know. But some of us, we can go a whole lifetime and never win a soul to Christ.

And we have the, what we say is, I don't have the gift of an evangelist. Timothy didn't have that gift either, but Paul said, do the work of an evangelist. You don't have to be an evangelist to do the work of an evangelist.

Okay? Talk to people. I remember in an afterglow one time during the crusade here in 71, we weren't in this building then, but we're having afterglows at night, and a fellow got up in this afterglow. There's a couple hundred people there, some people standing, there were not enough seats.

And he said, I'm a high school teacher, and he said, I sing the song, my Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine, but he said, I never talk about him, so I don't think I love him at all. Can you pray for me?

So we asked him to come forward, and he knelt at this chair. We had some men come and lay hands on him, pray for him, and he went to a seat. Another guy shot up and said, I'm the same as him. I'm a high school teacher too, he said.

And I never talk about Jesus Christ, and so I don't think I love him. Then his wife got up and said, I'm just like my husband. Pray for me too. So he set up two chairs, and gals came, and guys came, and laid hands on these two.

And then they went back to their seat. Did anything happen? I had no way of knowing concerning those people, but we know of other people who never opened their mouth for God, and in 30 years they'd been a Christian who became real ardent witnesses for Christ.

There were many like that, many like that. And all of us, dear people, should have a concern, not just to see our families saved, but to see our neighbors saved. And our acquaintances and friends. And don't sit there and scowl at me.

Nobody is, but I mean, don't. Sometimes people say, oh, I've heard all that stuff before. I'm not gonna do that. Well, you'd better do that. Listen, when you're looking at me, you're looking at the person who was the shyest person in Canada.

When I was a teenager, if I was walking down the sidewalk in Winnipeg, and I saw somebody coming on my side of the street, I crossed the street to avoid meeting the person. I used to travel in the back lanes all the time because I never met anybody there, but some Jews with some wagons, you know, there used to be a lot of them in those days, going down the back lanes.

And when God saved me, I was working in a pump camp one night and God called me to preach. I argued with God all night. I said, there's no way I can do it. You know that, God, is this a joke or something?

He said, you know I can't do that, it's impossible. But he nailed me to the wall with a verse he gave me the day before. I can do all things through Christ to strengthen me. God doesn't argue, you know.

And his commandments are not suggestions, they're commandments. He just gave me the verse, I can do all things through Christ. So before the sun came up in the morning, I said, okay, God, I knew nobody would ever ask me to preach anywhere, that had never happened, you know.

Two weeks later, somebody asked me to preach at a little church, Elverstone and Burnell in Winnipeg. Oh, I sweat over that, you have no idea, ooh. So I picked 1 Corinthians chapter 12 because it was a long verse, and I thought if I'm persecuted in one verse, I can flee to another, you know.

And I kept it going for about 20 minutes, you know. But when I looked at the, there's only about 40 people there. And when I got up in the pulpit and saw 40 pairs of eyes all looking at me, I almost lost it.

I'll tell you, it was hard. But going home that night, I was jumping off the sidewalk, clicking my heels and hollering, hey, God, we did it. We did it, we did it. And the second time was as hard as the first.

And then I started writing letters. I wrote a letter to an old lumberjack friend of mine, and he wrote a letter back. He said, I got your letter, I read it through twice. I couldn't believe that I saddled my horse and rode off in the bush and read your letter again.

And he said, Bill, I got saved sitting on the horse. Wow. And then I wrote a guy in the army in Halifax, a friend of mine, and he wrote back, he got saved. And you know what happened? I found that I could talk.