The Joy of Humility
Jesus was born into very humble circumstances, maybe just like you. But all those who came to him were filled with joy. Discover the secret of joy that isn’t built on what’s around you.
Transcript
INTRO
Last week, we kicked off our new series, Christmas Joy. We’re focusing on how we can experience joy this season because it’s such a vital part of Christmas. We talked about how Christmas is a time of celebrating Jesus’ birth and it’s also a time to look forward to his return. As we remember Jesus’ birth, we also anticipate his return. Because he came to earth as a human to bring restoration to earth, we have a joyful expectation and hope that he is going to return as a human to bring restoration to completion. And it’s that joy in that hope that helps sustain us, so we don’t give up on waiting for Jesus. Today, we’re going to talk the joy in humility and this is another piece of joy that helps us stay eager for Jesus’ return. If you’ve been in the church long enough, I’m sure you’ve heard of humility or being humble and to be quite honest, it’s one of those things I’ve heard about and sung about, but I’ve never really understood what it is.
DEFINING HUMILITY
When we start talking about humility, it doesn’t feel pleasant because I’ve got some baggage with humility. First off, humility sounds so similar to humiliate and the feeling of humiliation does not feel good. Thankfully, while they share the same root word, humus (hue-mus), which means ground or dirt, their meanings are completely different. Humiliate means to make someone feel ashamed by publicly hurting their dignity and self-respect or to bring them down to the ground by shaming them. Humility is completely different and I’m going to borrow Rick Warren’s definition. This is how he defines humility,
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”
Humility is knowing your worth and choosing to bring yourself down for the sake of others. This is helpful because the other reason why I think humility feels unpleasant comes from experiencing it in a Hmong context. I think a lot of Hmong folks including myself can come off as people who have humility, but often it’s a false kind of humility. I think my beef with humility in the Hmong context is that we don’t want to seem prideful or arrogant, so we deflect compliments to make us appear humble. The issue is this kind of humility is meant to preserve reputation whereas true humility is meant to impact others. Over and over again in the Bible, humility is meant to benefit others first before it benefits us and we see this best in Philippians.
TRUE HUMILITY ACCORDING TO PHILIPPIANS 2
The best passage about humility is in Philippians 2:1-11. Let me read it for us. This is what it says,
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Paul wrote to the believers in Philippi to encourage them to be joyful regardless of the situation. Paul, himself, wrote this letter from jail, and the believers that he wrote to were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus. For some of us, persecution means dealing with people who say bad things about believers, but these believers were being fed to lions while others were burned alive and used as torches to illuminate the ruler’s banquets. As if persecution from the outside wasn’t bad enough, the church had their own internal issues to deal with. In chapter 1, we find out that the church was divisive and some of the believers were selfish. Some were jealous of Paul’s reputation so they were preaching to gain reputation and outdo Paul. Ironically, Paul responds to this issue by saying that at least Christ is being preached, but offers to the believers in 1:27 that they need to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. This leads him to say what was read in the passage, that if anyone has been impacted by Christ, they should be unified, humble, and selfless. And in one word, Paul refers to this as humility. Let’s take a look at how Paul defines humility.
WHAT DOES HUMILITY LOOK LIKE?
In verse 3, Paul tells the believers, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit” meaning they shouldn’t be self-centered or be prideful. Instead, believers are to “value others above” themselves not looking to their own interest, but to the interest of others. Paul then tells the believers to have the same mindset as Jesus and uses Jesus as an illustration of what humility looks like. Let me read this part again for us. This is what he says,
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
This passage speaks well to the definition of humility I mentioned earlier. That “humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” Jesus did not think of himself less. Jesus knew that he was God and that he was equal to God. Jesus was confident in who he was, but he chose to have an attitude where he thought of himself less because of us. Jesus deprived himself of his godly rights and privileges and chose to become human and not just a human, but a servant so he could serve us. In verse 8, Paul tells us that Jesus humbled himself to the lowest possible point of dying on the cross. Crucifixion was often a punishment reserved for people considered the least worthy. These people were often the lowest in social status which included slaves and those who committed treason. Crucifixion was reserved for the least acceptable people in society to humiliate them and in Philippians 2, Paul tells us that Jesus made himself the least acceptable by being crucified. And we know that Jesus chose to die this way to serve us by saving us. The most well-known verse in the Bible, John 3:16 says so.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
HUMILITY LEADS TO EXALTATION
The result of Jesus’ choice to humble himself to serve us is this. Verses 9-11 it says,
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
God takes Jesus from the lowest place of being the least and exalts to the highest place. The result of humility is to be exalted, to be raised to the highest of status. The passage describes Jesus being exalted where every knee in heaven and earth bows to him and every tongue acknowledges that he is Lord. Every knee and every tongue isn’t just the angels and the believers, but all of creation including the ungodly. Jesus is exalted where everyone and everything recognizes that he is Lord. That is the joy of humility. That when we are humble, we will be exalted like Christ. That is the joy of humility. The example of Jesus being humble and exalted is promise for us of what we can expect if we’re humble. And humility gives us joy because there is a great promise ahead of us. It helps us remain joyful as we eagerly anticipate Jesus’ return this Christmas. Humility is the key that helps us open the door to joyfully expect Jesus. While humility helps us experience joy, a joy killer is pride. Pride is the opposite of humility. Thomas A. Tarrants reflects on C.S. Lewis’s thoughts on pride and says this,
“The desire to lift up and exalt ourselves beyond our place as God’s creature lies at the heart of pride…Pride can be summarized as an attitude of self-sufficiency, self-importance, and self-exaltation in relation to God. Toward others, it is an attitude of contempt and indifference.” (Pride and Humility)
HUMILITY IN THE CHRISTMAS STORY: MARY AND KING HEROD
We see this played out in the Christmas story. The virtue of humility and the sin of pride is contrasted between Mary, Jesus’ earthly mother, and King Herod.
MARY
Mary exemplifies a humble person who experienced God’s joy. In Luke 1, an angel informs Mary that she will conceive and give birth to the Son of God. From what we pick up in Matthew 1, it was disgraceful for women to be pregnant outside of marriage and most scholars agree that women were regarded as second-class citizens. Mary was in a very humble position by just simply being a women, but in her humility, we find out that God’s favor is over her. The angel who meets with her tells her this twice! Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, proclaims that she is blessed because of her humbleness and Mary realizes the joy she has. Mary is the model of someone with humility who experiences joy even though her circumstances are unfavorable.
HEROD
On the flipside, the antithesis of Mary is King Herod. King Herod was aware that a child was born who would become the King of Jews and called the Magi to find Jesus. King Herod informed the Magi that he wanted to go worship the child, but his true intentions were revealed by God. Herod wanted to find the child so that he could kill the child and maintain his rule. Herod was full of pride and self-exaltation, so much so that upon finding out that the Magi discovered his true intentions, he responded by having all boys who were 2 years and younger killed because he was that insecure about himself. These two contrasting individuals in the Bible show us the results of humility and pride. Humility helps, pride hurts.
APPLICATION
So what does this mean for us today? There’s three things that humility does for us.
Humility allows us to recognize that the only person we need to compare ourselves to is God. God is the standard and no one else. We don’t need to be like our friends, co-workers, neighbors, or anyone else. We see ourselves in God. And when we recognize this, humility reminds us that we are not the most important person or thing in the world.
Humility allows us to acknowledge our shortcomings, our faults, and our weakness. This is important because it frees us from our need to be validated by others. This is what King Herod struggled with and his solution was to eliminate anyone who potentially threatened his pride. Humility gives us the freedom to be ourselves. When we’re able to be ourselves, we can begin to experience God’s peace.
Humility invites us to serve. When we experience humility, we serve others not for our own reputation, but we serve because we genuinely care for others. When we are humble, we see others as more important so we willing serve them. Humility free us from being concerned about ourselves.
Mirsolav Volf, a systematic theology professor from Yale says,
“Put very simply, the humble one sees himself or herself in God.” (Humility and Joy)
Humility allows us to place our hope not in ourselves, but in God. We realize that God’s plan is better than anything we could imagine, which allows us to experience joy. And joy keeps us eager as we wait for Jesus’ return. So this year, discover the humility of Jesus by considering his decision to be made nothing even though he, being in the very nature God did not consider equality, but chose to be nothing so that he could die for you and I so that we could right with God. Let’s pray.