Chapter 1 The Promise of Humility
(Disclaimer: I realized I’ve written too much. From here and on, I will try to cut down to 50% of verbage and be more concise and reflective to the reading)
- The promises of humility from God
- Biblical definition of humility
- Different motivations for humility
· The promise of humility from God
· It draws God’s attention (Isaiah 66:2, 2nd Chronicles 16:9)
· The promise of God’s grace (James 4:6)
CJ gives a brief background to the passage in Isaiah 66:2, where Israelites became proud of their status with God (being chosen as God’s people among nations) and possessing Torah (the Law of God). They had what other nations did not have which was God’s unmerited favor as chosen people (receiving of His Law and His temple), yet they lacked what CJ calls the most important thing, humility. But in verse 2, God promises to us that He will look to those who are humble.
There’s another divine promise from God for those who are humble; He will be gracious to those who are humble. So not only is He actively engaged with those who are humble, but He also promises us His grace, which is “His unmerited kindness” to us. That’s a great promise!
· Biblical definition of humility
· CJ’s definition of humility is concise and right to the point:
“It is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.”
So one cannot become genuinely humble (from Biblical perspective) without an understanding of both realities of our nasty sinfulness and God’s great holiness.
However, we could easily make a mistake in identifying and defining humility by our various outward appearances. For example, one may act in self-effacing, modest as well as “quiet, humble, reserved, shy, gracious, and mild-mannered” but that person may be deeply rooted in pragmatism rather than in the Biblical truth. What I mean by this is that since these characteristics may work or be effective in gaining success (or reputation from others) in the working world, one may never need to rely or trust God in order to exhibit these behaviors. So a person may simply exhibit these qualities to gain respect from others and ultimately for self-glorification.
But a true Biblical perspective denotes a much different view. CJ stresses that true humility begin with God in its understanding, rather than being “simply pragmatic.” I love what John Calvin wrote about humility:
“It is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.”
In other words, one cannot understand how sinful he/she really is until he/she gets a glimpse of God in his/her lowly state of being. It is not enough to causally say to oneself in a trite manner, “oh, I’m just a sinner” as though that justifies our sinful behaviors. No, because in that view, we are minimizing our view of God’s GREAT holiness and therefore, we can’t help but to minimize our “self-knowledge” of how desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9) we really are before the Cross of Christ.
· Different motivations for humility
CJ finishes the chapter with some critical self-evaluating questions. One thing that struck me was evaluating our motivation for humility (i.e. avoiding “pitfalls and perils” of pride or possibly avoiding punishment from God in fear or being available to receive God’s grace). Keep in mind that it’s God’s Word that evaluates us, rather than our evaluating God’s Word (as Steve Shank reminded us).
Chapter 2 The Perils of Pride
I promise I’ll make this section much shorter. :) Here are some key points from this chapter:
- The birth of pride and its downfall to all mankind
- The great implication of what pride means to God and us
- The great consequences of what pride does to us
- The holy hatred of pride from God
- The mercy of God in protecting us from pride
· The birth of pride and its downfall to all mankind
o It was the very first sin (I.e. Isaiah 14), led by Satan AND it is core of all sin.
o Pride exists in every men – it is just matter of finding out where and how it is being “expressed” in our lives.
· The great implication of what pride means to God and us
o Pride is the most serious sin because it implies that one is contending for supremacy with God. In other words, the one who is prideful is attempting to be in the same status/position as God and thus denying dependence on Him and His authority and power. Yikes!
o The motivation of pride is to “rob God of legitimate glory” therefore pride’s ultimate end result is always self-glorification
· The great consequences of what pride does to us
o Pride divides Churches, saps our sweet communion with Christ, brings contempt to others (Luke 18:9), and potentially leading to hardening of hearts.
· The holy hatred of pride from God
o While God is deeply opposed to pride (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5)
· The mercy of God in protecting us from pride
o He uses the Scripture to warn us and protect us from the pitfall of pride. SO every time God reveals our ugliness of pride, He is acting out of His deep mercy to us, for our good and protection and ultimately for His glory.
Lastly, I want to share a little excerpt from John Piper’s sermon regarding fearing God.
“…Verse 17: “The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.” I think fearing God means that God is so powerful and so holy and so awesome to us that we would not dare to run away from him, but only run to him for all that he promises to be for us. So fearing God is not different from coming to the Messiah, Jesus. It’s the way we come. We come reverently. We come humbly. We come without presumption that God owes us anything. We come trembling—as we saw last time, we come broken and contrite.” (John Piper)
You can find the full sermon here:
But I love what JP says about fearing God. Sometimes I have this natural tendency to think that God is just waiting for me to fail and sin miserably and to rebuke me in most horrific and embarrassing manner possible. This of course, is due to my poor understanding of Godly fear in Psalm 103:17. In those times, it is obvious that it’s my man-made fear that separates and saps my joy in Christ. Also the great implication of pride towards God yet His great mercy to us in protecting from pride. I like what CJ does in those times of his proud moments where instead saying to himself, “oh Lord, I’ve been proud,” he uses the phrase “contending for supremacy” with God. This helps me really think about the how idiotic and foolish my actions look like in the eyes of God. Imagine a little man trying to out-duel God as those I can challenge His authority, His great work on the Cross, His total divine being. Yikes.
There's also the subtlety of pride. For example, even as I am writing this blog, I can easily be prideful in my heart thinking that I'm so spiritual or holy, becoming so self-righteous and ultimately want self-glorification. Yet God is so merciful because I’m so prideful! In next few chapters, we will look at how humility is demonstrated from the Scripture. But for now, I like to hear your reflection on these two chapter about this serious sin and perhaps share little bit about your outer/inner workings of this dreadful sin.
I’ve tried to gather some relevant questions from chapter 1-2 but please feel free to input your questions here as well. (Next time, I'll just post 2-3).
- Given the definition of humility (from both CJ and John Calvin), do you see yourself increasingly becoming aware of your sins daily while growing your love and dependence on Christ?
- What would your close friend (or your spouse) say about ways in which you exhibit pride at work, at home, relationship, Church, ministry, family, etc?
- Will you be open to allowing others (i.e. Christian brothers, friends, etc.) to get involved in your weaknesses or your struggles with particular sin(s, i.e. pride) in your life?
- Are you more motivated to come to God because you fear that something bad is going to happen to you or do you come with an understanding that Christ has already paid the FULL penalty for your sins? Do you rejoice over this truth or has it become trite and banal in your Christian life? If so, what is sapping your joy in Christ?
- Where is the most vulnerable prideful spot in your life? Are you daily battling it with God’s Word or have you given up? I hope not!
7 comments:
Great definition by CJ and quote from JCalvin in chapter 1. The arresting thought for me: "Humility gets God's attention" on page 19, emphasis CJ's.
it's a great reminder that pride is such a serious sin and that it's deeply rooted in me. it sounds absurd to think we can contend with God... but man, it happens with such ease with any opportunity i get.
I'm just thinking right now that God demonstrated crazy humility by coming down as man and serving us... after we've wronged Him over and over. He could've slapped us across the face into oblivion, but He pours out His grace. amazing.
sammo
Wow: Pride has an end in self glorification. What a miserable state that would be (as there is nothing glorious about us- except the perfect righteousness of Christ given to us freely as a gift to cover us)-- and what an incentive to fight this sin... To think how much God hates pride.
Another quote from Edwards in Ch2: (which helps me fight this pride) Pride is " the worst viper that is in the heart and the greatese disturber of the sould peace and sweet communion with Christ."
Anyhow, have a great day in the Lord you all.
CF
Yes, using CJ's definition has been helpful for me (when I remember to use it) in seeing what I formally considered an innocuous response as actually warring against God Himself. I pray I see more clearly how utterly foolish this is! I think a big area of pride in my life is spiritual pride, that is, in times of assiting others whether they be in our home group or my wife. It just happened tonight. We had family devotions which by the way, took me a long time to get started, and in the end I felt quite good about myself in a prideful way. I had to quickly confess to the Lord my foolishness and my stealing of His glory. I have to confess a pride in being "gospel-centered" especially when talking to friends outside of WS. So I ask you brothers to be on the watch for spiritual pride in my words, actions, tone of voice and bring it up with me..."faithful are the wounds of a friend...and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel." (Prov 27:6,9).
Sam--you ask a great question: Are you more motivated to come to God because you fear that something bad is going to happen to you or do you come with an understanding that Christ has already paid the FULL penalty for your sins? Do you rejoice over this truth or has it become trite and banal in your Christian life?
I would say for me that the former is definitely my default, particularly in the area of work. I know for me it has to be a deliberate act of remembering the objective truth of the gospel and it isn't second nature to me the way I hope someday it will be. I have to fight to not let it become hum-drum and rote. But it occurs to me that this is a default mode because pride is the default mode for me...it is making my obedience the thing that justifies and proves me and my reputation. So when I fail, I focus on that (my failing and sin/consequences) than on the weight of how I have offended a holy God. What do you guys think? Do you have any examples in response to this question?
Good question Thomas. I think often I'm faced with the temptation of keeping/building a reputation at work especially in a field where your skills are constantly assessed/judged by your clients and co-workers. Just this past week, I had a client who thought I was a medical assistant and got very agitated with me because I was going through all her subjective examination (can you believe this Chris?). But the worst part was dealing it in my extreme prideful state, where I thought to myself, "who does she think she is? Does she not think I'm not qualified enough to treat her?" (along with other prideful thoughts like, I'm better than an MA, etc.). guys, sadly this is just ONE example and there are plenty more. but the root of this pride is NOT recognizing that I'm such a wretched sinner who really do deserve worse than this but by God's grace, He has given me that perfect righteousness of Christ that should infinitely be better than any praises from people or my pathetic skill set that I may boast about. That's the reality. And totally see how not seeing God's holiness would create such disillusional perception of myself, boasting in my abilities and ultimately not recongizing the GREAT sinner as I am. I hope that we will continue to pursue and struggle with this in the light of what Christ has done and will do in His coming! Get ready for chapter 3-4. But please share with us.
I was struck by a couple things.
In the reading itself, I was surprised that Edwards considered spiritual pride to be the cause of the premature ending of the Great Awakening. Wow. That's really spiritually AND historically significant.
I could also relate to the church splitting thing, as I've seen it happen directly as a result of pride (which is why I think God puts forth equal eldership as the church leadership model).
And Thomas, I fully echo your response to Sam's question. Pride is bound up in my bastardized view of obedience. For me, this is more of a "Faith Works" mentality than a "Faith LOVES! (incidentally resulting in works, not for their own sake, but out of devotion)".
Pride is so insidious. I've honestly seen it as something I don't struggle with much, ironically displaying the very pride that consumes my heart. God's patience and mercy are truly great to deal with me so kindly. What a blessing to be studying this topic.
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