John McReynolds - Sunday, November 15, 2009 6:27 - 1 Comment

Basics 06 – Humility – Enabling Your Spiritual Growth

BASIC BIBLE DOCTRINE

Essential Tools for Christian Growth

Lesson Six

Humility – Enabling Your Spiritual Growth

by John McReynolds

Before you begin your Bible study be sure that any sins you may have committed are confessed, and ask God for concentration and to direct your focus to the things He has for us in His Word—let us pray:

Father, thank You for another opportunity to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask that you bless this study of the principles You have given us by which we can live our lives centered in Your will, that our growth and capacity for blessings will be maximized, and that Christ will be glorified to the greatest extent, for it is in His name we ask it—amen.

Last week we examined four basic tools in the tool belt of the Christian: Claiming God’s Promises (CGP), Resting in Faith (RIF), the Relaxed Mental Attitude (RMA), and Unconditional Love (UL). This week we’re going to look at one more tool—one which will assure success or failure in the Christian life, depending on whether or not we use it. This tool is Adopting an Humble Attitude, or simply Humility.

Turn in your Bible please to the Book of Psalms, chapter 25.  We’re going to look at verses 8-9.   In the King James Version the verse says this:

“Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”

God is the rightful authority in our lives—not us. The Christian life was designed by God—not us. He designed it for His glorification, not ours. God did design it for our blessing, but its design totally excludes human ability or merit.  Our success as Christians derives strictly from God’s ability, God’s integrity and God’s virtue. The only thing we add to the system is our volition—the function of our choice. Even though God is the absolute authority in our lives, He has chosen to let us choose whether we will submit to His authority or not.  At any given moment of our lives we can choose whether we will or will not follow God’s principles for Christian living. So God grants us that choice—and from His absolute integrity He completely honors that choice.

Submitting to Instituted Authority

God is perfect and His plan is perfect. He is perfectly good and loves us with a perfect love.  Therefore what He wills for us within His plan for us is also perfect and represents the best possible alternative for us. On the other hand, we are flawed. Because of this our choices in life are also flawed. In our pride we want to choose our own way and when we do, God usually allows it—but He also lets us reap the consequences of our choices. It follows, then, that in order to have success in our Christian lives, we must live in complete submission to God and with total humility.

Now terms like “submission” and “humility” tend to rankle people a little in this post-modern culture we live in. We tend to be proud and “bow up” at the suggestion that we must be submissive to any authority but our own. But God not only requires that we submit to His authority, He has also instituted other authorities in our lives.  And God commands us to submit to these legitimate authorities. We place these authorities into a category we call: the Divine Institutions.  There are four of them: Individual Choice, Marriage, Family, and Community. We will discuss these in a little more detail shortly.

God has granted us choice or volition, but along with that He has made us responsible to exercise our choices correctly—because if we don’t He allows us to suffer the negative consequences of our wrong choices. We have a term for that—it is called the Law of Volitional Responsibility. This law is summarized in Gal. 6:7—“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” It is echoed in Col. 3:25—“For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.”

Under the Law of Volitional Responsibility, we are to exercise authority over ourselves—self-control in other words. 1 Pet 1:13 in the NIV says this: Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. If we are to receive God’s blessings we must align our wills with God’s will—and we must do it in all humility: James 4:10—“Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”

True Humility

Now humility is nothing more than being properly oriented to authority—it is what makes us teachable—Psa. 25:8-9. True humility is the initial character strength that leads to all the other virtues in the Christian life. All virtues—honor, integrity, honesty, courtesy, mercy, forgiveness, patience, forbearance, to name a few—all rest on the foundation of humility.

True humility as a system of thought is freedom from arrogance. As a way of life humility requires submission to legitimate authority. The arrogant person submits to authority only when he has to, but the humble person does it willingly.

True humility is a state of honor, integrity, and wisdom. Notice these passages of Scripture:

• Prov. 15:33 — The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor.
• Prov. 11:2 — When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
• Prov. 29:23 — A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of humility gains honor.
• Prov. 11:2 — When pride comes, then comes dishonor, But with the humble is wisdom.
• Prov. 3:33-35 — The Lord’s curse is on the house of evil, but he blesses the home of righteousness. He makes war on the arrogant but gives grace to the humble. The wise inherit honor, but fools carry away dishonor.

True humility is not self-effacement. A person who is truly humble is not a phony. He has no need to come across as meek and self denigrating so everyone can see how humble he is. A person like that is really saying “I’m so humble! And I’ve got so much to be humble about!”  Arrogance tries to counterfeit humility, but false humility lives only for the praise of others.

On the other hand, true humility is not humiliation. The truly humble person never feels degraded or demeaned, but has a true sense of spiritual self-esteem and self-worth. He knows who he is in relation to God and His plan, and understands his place in life. He understands that he was valuable enough in God’s eyes for Jesus to be willing to go to the Cross for him.

Categories of Humility

Before we leave the subject of humility we need to understand the different areas within which humility functions in our lives, and the different ways in which humility is manifested.  For our purposes we can consider three categories of humility: Organizational Humility, Enforced Humility, and Genuine Humility.

Organizational Humility

As its name suggests, Organizational Humility, focuses on the social structure inside which humility is fostered and developed.  All human societies have social structures.  No matter how different the cultures are, they are all divided into social structures that exist on different levels. 

Beginning back in the Garden of Eden, God began developing the blueprint for the optimal social structure for mankind, which—if followed—would assure the survival, freedom, and prosperity of the human race.  In this structure God delegated certain authorities to which people are to submit. We refer to this structure as the Divine Institutions, which we briefly looked at near the beginning of this lesson.  We will deal with the Divine Institutions and the related Laws of Divine Establishment in a future series of studies. But for now I simply want to show that in order to function in the place of maximum Divine blessing we must adopt an attitude of humility regarding these Divine Institutions—which we refer to as Organizational Humility. That is the first of the categories of humility. 

Enforced Humility

Enforced Humility emphasizes the function of the particular authority within the societal organization. This one causes people some problems because here is where the teeth of authority begin to be felt.  Because mankind is inherently sinful, when God delegated responsibility and authority in the realm of Divine Establishment, he also had to include the means to compel obedience.

In every level in the Divine Institutions God has either authorized the compelling of obedience or He does it Himself. If the laws of the community are violated, the local, state, or national government has the means and the authority to punish the offender: Rom 13:4  “for it [the governing authorities] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”

In the ancient world masters had much more power over their servants than employers have over employees today. But in every workplace today there is at least one person that has the power to fire, or to exact some other form of discipline. The military has the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prescribes penalties ranging from restriction to the barracks, all the way up to the death penalty.

Under Divine Institution Three (Family) parents have the Biblical authority and responsibility to discipline their children when they transgress proper limits of behavior—even though today’s enemies of the Family are trying hard to remove It.

In Divine Institutions One and Two (Individual Volition and Marriage) the wielder of retribution is God Himself.  Husbands and wives are both accountable to God for the failure to adhere to God’s principles in the area of marriage. In this area alone the one to whom authority is delegated—the man—is not authorized to take punitive action against his spouse.

Let me be perfectly clear on this point. There is no Biblical support for a husband to punish his wife—or vice versa for that matter. There is only one Biblical recourse available for one spouse against the other—and it’s not really even punishment—and that’s divorce because of adultery. Obviously there is much more that can be said here, but it’s far beyond the scope of this lesson. So in both Marriage and Individual Volition, God Himself is the One who enforces humility.

Now I realize that there are countless instances where those in authority have abused that authority—especially in today’s godless culture. Members of a civilized society should not even be able to conceive of the things that have been done to some children by their own parents in recent years and months. Yet we hear of it in the news with sickening regularity. Women, battered and abused by their husbands, fill women’s shelters. Our courts have in many instances made a mockery of justice—wrongly convicting and punishing innocent people while letting the guilty go free or with minimal punishment.

The problem lies not with the Divine Institutions—like all things God made those came from His mind perfect—the problem lies in the depraved minds of men, who have corrupted God’s Divine Institutions just as they have the rest of God’s creation. Much, much more could be said on this subject, but it must wait for another time.  In a later study on the Divine Institutions we’ll explore all of these issues and their ramifications more fully. Now let’s look at the third aspect of humility.

Genuine Humility

Genuine Humility denotes the positive response to authority by the one under authority. Whereas in Enforced Humility we looked at humility from the standpoint of the one in authority, we now look at humility from the standpoint of the one under authority. If a person is properly oriented to authority, and has cultivated the habit of humility, his expression of humility will be genuine—not forced. 

The person who has a proper relationship with God (a believer, in fellowship, and walking with God) will be properly oriented to authority, and will function in society properly in a perfect balance of humility and spiritual self-esteem. He will understand his place and value in God’s plan, and that understanding will give him a peace and serenity that will transcend human comprehension.

Jesus was the perfect model of humility. He is the second Person of the Godhead—the Divine Trinity, Creator of the universe—and yet He was willing to step away from His glory in heaven that He shared with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and humble Himself by becoming a man. Phil. 2:6-8—“who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

That’s Genuine Humility, and it is the model of humility for us. We cannot attain it in the power of our own flesh—only through consistent intake, spiritual metabolism of the Word of God, and application of the Word in our lives, all in the Power of the Holy Spirit.

Humility in the Stages of Life

Now these three categories of humility apply to all stages of life. As a child, Organizational Humility is fostered in the family structure. Enforced Humility is imposed by parents. And Genuine Humility is expressed by the child’s positive response to parental authority.

When the child is grown to adulthood he should be self-sufficient. Organizational Humility is fostered in the disciplined, orderly thinking of his own soul, under the Enforced Humility imposed by the authority of his own volition, and expressed as the Genuine Humility of self-control.

For the Christian, the environment of Organizational Humility resides in the local church. Enforced Humility is imposed by the authority delegated by God to the pastor and elders of the local church, and Genuine Humility is expressed by positive volition to the teaching of the Word of God.

Jesus Himself fit into these 3 categories of humility. His Organizational Humility was in the Father’s plan for the Incarnation. Enforced Humility for Jesus was under the sovereignty of the Father. And His Genuine Humility was expressed by His obedience to the plan of God for salvation.

What humility in these three categories does is to provide a pattern of attitudinal discipline that, when imposed from childhood, will result in adults that are teachable, respectful, and well oriented to life.

Now humility is often not taught from childhood—at least nowadays it’s not, although it used to be. But even if it’s not, all is not lost. Humility can still be effectively learned in school, or on the playing field in athletics, or in the military.

The point of application to the Christian life is this: humility is absolutely required for progress in the Christian life. It is that which enables Christian growth. Without humility there can no acceptance of divinely delegated authority in the local church, there can be no perception and application of the Word, and all spiritual progress will stop. The alternative to humility is arrogance, which is a terrible spiritual disease.

The lack of genuine humility is arrogance. And arrogance leads inevitably to the abuse of freedom. Bad choices shut down future options. You see, God has designed all truly good things in life. Orienting to Divine Establishment authority—which is ultimately delegated by God—and making choices that are compatible with establishment principles always sets the stage for future opportunities, which when exploited, lead to tremendous blessings in life.

Like any parent, God desires great blessings for His children. The only reason we do not attain these blessings is because we fail to humble ourselves in organizational, enforced, and genuine humility.

In eternity past God designed great blessings for our lives. When we start out in life these blessings await us in our futures. God placed them along the path He intends us to take in our lives. Future blessings generally exist in the form of opportunities. These opportunities can be exploited when they present themselves in our lives, but they only present themselves on the specific path of life we are responsible before God to take.

Remember the principle of volitional responsibility: what we sow, we reap. If we sow only good decisions we reap only those good things God ordained for our lives. If we sow only bad decisions we reap only bad things, none of which were part of the will of God for our lives. You see, bad decisions change the paths God ordained for our lives, and cause us to miss out on blessings He ordained for us to receive along the way. It’s really sad when the opportunity of a lifetime presents itself, and you are unable to exploit it because past bad decisions kept you from being in the position to take it. 

So to sum up, there’s bad news and good news. The bad news is that having sin natures and living in the devil’s world cause many of us—if not most—to miss out on many of God’s blessings depending on how ingrained the habit of genuine humility is in each of us. Those with a habit of genuine humility that was inculcated since childhood will undoubtedly experience more blessings in life than those who came to humility later in life.

But the good news is that inside God’s plan for our lives we can acquire genuine humility through the organizational humility of the local church, and under the enforced humility of the authority of the pastor-teacher as well as other, secular organizations and authorities—if we habitually pursue life with an humble attitude.

At any point in our lives we can seek God. He will turn us onto the right path that remains for us to take. We can begin making good decisions that will result in blessings for our lives, and open the doors to whatever future opportunities He has ordained for us. If we’ve been off of God’s path for our lives we need to get back on it—today—right now.

Today truly is the first day of the rest of our lives.

Father, thank You for the gift of Your Son. We are so grateful that …he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Our Lord set the pattern for humility for all of us. We pray that You will lead us in the way of genuine humility, helping us to make the right decisions day by day, and minute by minute, as we advance on the paths that You ordained for our lives.

Now we pray, Heavenly Father that You will take this portion of Your Word and with it build us up and guide our feet onto the paths we should take, for Jesus’ sake, in whose name we ask it, amen.

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