Not Our Lives, but God’s Lives

Romans 12:1-8

12I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

 

            A sixteen-year-old boy comes home after getting his driver’s license and goes straight to his dad and asks, “Dad, can I borrow the car for tonight?”

            The father says, “Not so fast, son.  First I need to see your grades improve, you need to clean your room, and I need you to get a hair cut.”

            A few weeks passed and the boy brought home his report card and proudly handed it to his father.  “Dad, I got straight A’s and my room is sparkling.  Can I borrow the car tonight?”

            “Not so fast,” says the father.  “You still haven’t gotten a haircut.” 

            Thinking quickly the boy said, “But dad, Jesus had long hair.”

            “That’s true,” said the father.  “And Jesus walked everywhere he went, too.”

            Hopefully it is obvious that when it comes to being a Christian, the length of your hair doesn’t matter at all.  But as followers of Jesus Christ and as redeemed people working for the redemption of the world, there are certain things that we are expected to do with the lives that God has given to us.  Today I want to look at Romans 12:1-8 and look at three different expectations of those that are following Christ daily.  I want to look at Our Changed Lives, Our Humble Lives, and Our Gifted Lives.

Our Changed lives

            Our scripture for this morning begins with Paul encouraging the Roman Christians to present their bodies as living sacrifices.  Sacrifices made to God were common in the first century, not only in Judaism, but in other religions as well.  When they made sacrifices to God, they didn’t give God something that they didn’t need or want anymore.  It was always something valuable like the prize bull or lamb, finest grain, and so on.  If they were giving something to God that they really didn’t want anymore then I guess it would really be a sacrifice, now would it?

So Paul is encouraging the Romans to offer their bodies to God as a living sacrifice.  What Paul is saying is for the Romans to give their all to God.  Don’t hold back anything.  Don’t just give God what you no longer need.  Give him your body, your soul, your entire life.

I like the way Rick Warren talks about living sacrifices.  He asks the question “What’s wrong with living sacrifices?  They keep crawling off the altar.”  How many of us are guilty of this?  We offer our bodies, we offer our minds, souls, all of our being to God one day, only to take that offering back?  I hope you kept your receipt when you gave your body to God as a living sacrifice because you might want a refund.

            This is especially sad because we all do it.  We make a commitment to following Christ, and maybe we stick with it for a while.  A day, a week, a month, a year go by.  And then something “better” comes along and we crawl right off that altar.  We take that offering back from God.  And we don’t even try to justify it with God.  We don’t even say, “Oh, I was just joking.”  Or, “That was before I got this really sweet job offer making a bunch of money.”  Or whatever our excuse could be.  No, we just take back the lives that we gave to God.

            When we offer our bodies and our lives up to God as a living sacrifice, it is to be a life-long commitment to following and serving God.  Our desires for temporary and monetary satisfaction, our greed, lust, envy, yeah, they don’t go away, but we learn to fight and defeat those temptations because how we live as Christians matters.  Sure, we are saved by grace, but our faithfulness to Christ matters as well.  Believe me, I know that it can be hard, maybe even downright impossible to live a life anything close to the one that Jesus lived as an example.  Loving our enemies, forgiving others, caring for the poor and the least of these takes work.  And it is so opposite of the pursuit of the American Dream that every person is told that they are to put first.  This quest for money and power that our society seems to thirst and hunger for are so far from what Jesus calls us to.  And that is why Paul encourages the Roman Christians, and I would say us today, to not be conformed to the ways of the world, but to be transformed to the will of God.

            When I first really dedicated myself to serving the Lord, I found it very difficult because I was very much conformed to the ways of the world.  I was motivated by money, power, and fame.  And believe me, there are still plenty of worldly temptations out there that cause me to stumble to this day. 

            Furthermore, who has time to sit down and read the Bible and pray every day?  Who has enough money to live off only 90% of their income and give (at least) 10% to those in need?  Stop gossiping?  Buy fairly traded goods?  Live simply?  When I made the decision to follow and serve Christ I knew that it was a commitment that I should not take lightly because there were a lot of things in this world that I enjoyed being conformed to and that they would be difficult to change in my life.  So how did I go about it?

            I think a story is appropriate here.  Our back yard is extremely shaded.  There is row of about eight pine trees on my neighbor’s property that boarders our yard that casts a large shadow across our back yard most of the day.  This row of trees and the shade that it makes has dictated where I put my garden, what perennials I can grow, and how well (or how poorly) the grass grows in my back yard. 

            A few weeks ago my neighbor asked me if I would be able to help him take down the first tree in this row of trees.  It was the largest of the trees, by far.  He wanted to cut it down because it was overcoming the other trees, and it was leaning pretty severely toward my property.  So he thought that it would be best to cut the tree down before it fell down and caused some major damage.

            So this past Tuesday we began cutting down that big, old pine.  And how do you take down a big pine?  Do you just start chopping at the base of the tree?  If we were to just start chopping, we would have little control over where the thing fell.  It might have fallen into the fence, into my garden, or onto a smaller tree and caused significant damage (just the thing we were trying to avoid by cutting it down!).

            No, we started by cutting off many of the limbs.  Some were small limbs that came off with little effort.  Others were larger limbs that were a little dangerous and took a little more work and a little more planning.  Then we started to cut off the top of the tree.  And this was the part that scared me the most.  But my neighbor, a seasoned woodsman, dropped the top of the tree right where he had wanted it.  Then he cut the trunk of the tree into a number of smaller, more manageable sections.  Then once on the ground, we cut those sections up into more manageable sections and carried them off to be ground up into next year’s mulch.

            Our lives as living sacrifices, being not conformed to the ways of the world but being transformed to the will of God is a lot like cutting down that old pine.  We know that if we don’t do something about it, that our lives will eventually fall and cause damage.  Damage to our own lives and the lives of others.

            But it is scary to think of changing your life!  It is a daunting task, intimidating even.  And I believe that is why I was so slow to make a commitment to God in the first place.  I looked at the long list of “To Do’s” and “Not To Do’s” and the expectations were just too much for me.

            But it doesn’t have to be like this.  The good news, like with the cutting down of the old pine tree, is that you don’t have to do it on your own.  That is one of the greatest things about the church.  The church is a group of people that meets regularly to worship God and to care for one another.  And when there are others available, it makes these life changes seem more doable.  And we also have the Holy Spirit working within us to change our hearts.  So we don’t ever have to feel like we are doing it all on our own.

Also, like cutting down that old pine, we don’t need to do it all in one swift cut at the base of the tree.  We disassemble our lives that are conformed to the ways of the world piece by piece, limb by limb, into manageable sections.  Start praying daily.  Work on forgiving others.  Join a Bible study in a few weeks.  Start giving to those in need.  Practice hospitality.  And if you do these things in manageable sections, you will find yourself living a changed life.  You will become a living sacrifice, no longer conformed to the ways of the world.

Our Humble Lives

            Paul goes on to write that a part of being changed people is that we are to be humble.  In verse three he writes, “3For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

            Paul never says that we are to think poorly of ourselves, but we are not to think too highly of ourselves, either.  Paul isn’t saying that we shouldn’t have self confidence, that we shouldn’t be bold for Christ.  What Paul is saying is that each and every one of us has an equal amount of worth in the eyes of God.  Whether you are the president of the United States, the homeless man living on the street corner, the CEO of Kraft Food, or an out of work father each person, each living soul is worth the same to God.  What Paul is talking about here isn’t just humility, it is about equality.

Our Gifted Lives

            So Paul tells us that we are to lead changed and humble lives, lives that he will go on to explain further in the rest of chapter 12.  But between this charge to live lives fully committed to God as living sacrifices, giving an example of a changed life being a humble life, Paul launches into this section on giftedness.  Paul writes in verses 4-8, “4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”

            Paul begins by using his famous metaphor for the church: a body.  And that metaphor applies just as well today as it did in Paul’s day.  Each of us is different, and each of us is important.  Without even one of us, the body would be less and would suffer because of it.  Whether we are gifted to prophesy, minister, teach, exhort, give generously, to lead, or to be compassionate, we are to use these gifts for the glory of God.

            And we must remember that anytime we see a list of Spiritual Gifts in the Bible that this is not an exhaustive list.  Not every Spiritual Gift is listed here.  I believe all of the things that we are talented at or good at is a gift from God.  The Psalmist writes in Psalm 139:13, “¹³For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  And a knitter knows the thread that they are using!  Psalm 139 is all about how God knows us inside and out, top to bottom.  “Oh Lord you have searched me and know me.”  Of course God knows you and your giftedness…God made you.

            Perhaps the most difficult part of using our Spiritual Gifts is to figure out what they are.  Especially after we are told that we are to be humble.  Okay, so we are told “don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.”  But then we are told that we are given these gifts and that we are expected to use them to glorify God.  So if God had given me the gift of music, should I volunteer to sing a solo at church next week?  That has never been my style because this doesn’t seem very humble to me.  To say, “Hey, you will all benefit from me singing a solo” seems like I am a little on the other side of humble. 

            This is where the Barnabases in the church come into play.  The contemporary of Paul named Barnabas was given that name because it means, “son of encouragement.”  We need to be sons and daughters of encouragement to help people discern their giftedness and how they can use that giftedness for God’s church.  Every year we have a group called the Gifts Discernment Committee that meets to select people for various roles in the church including people that help plan worship, Sunday School teachers and administrators, and fellowship committees.  The job of the Gifts Discernment Committee is to see these giftednesses in other people and encouraging them to fulfill specific roles for the church.

            But this is tough to do sometimes.  I know that sometimes it is difficult when you feel strongly led to serve God in a specific role.  A friend of mine named Richard is now 90 years old and a retired pastor.  He felt a call to ministry at a young age, but it wasn’t until he was (I believe) in his forties that he started his first pastorate.

            He had grown up in a system that selected its church leaders by the lot.  Different churches do this differently, but the way I understand the lot is that two or three possible pastors are nominated from the congregation.  Then there are three Bibles placed on a table, one of which has some sort of marker in it.  The location of the marker is unknown by those who have been nominated.  They then each pick up a Bible.  The person that chooses the Bible with the marker in it becomes the new pastor.  (This process differs from denomination to denomination, but the point is that God will choose the right person for the job through what seems to be mere chance.)

            So Richard felt the call to ministry at a young age, but you didn’t dare say in those days that you felt called to the ministry.  That would be prideful.  If God wanted you in the ministry he would call you through the lot.  I think that Richard and the church missed out on twenty-some years of professional ministry because Richard was not able to voice his personal call to use the gifts that God had given to him.

            So where do we find middle ground?  How can we announce that we feel led to serve God in a certain way without boasting in our giftedness?  I believe that we need to test what we believe to be our giftedness with what other people believe to be our giftedness.

            A person from the denomination office shared me one day that she would often get people coming to her office saying that they felt called to pastoral ministry.  Her answer was always, “Great, who else says so?”

            When we feel called to use what we perceive to be our gifts, it is helpful to have other people encourage us to use those gifts as well.  Go to someone and ask them to pray for you, ask them their opinion to see if they see that giftedness in you.  Balancing a humble attitude and using our Spiritual Gifts doesn’t need to be a difficult task. 

            So we are called to live lives different from the world around us, lives conformed not to the ways of the world but lives conformed to Christ himself.  Those lives are to be humble lives, not considering ourselves better than others, but seeing all people through the eyes of God as equals.  And we are to humbly discern how we can use the gifts that God has given to us to glorify God.  Because the lives that we have been given are not our lives at all.  They are God’s lives.  That’s what being a living sacrifice is all about.

Are You Watching Me?

Kevin Gasser

Staunton Mennonite Church

November 2nd, 2008

 

Matthew 23:1-12

23Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11The greatest among you will be your servant. 12All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

 

            As we enter into the 11^th month of 2008, probably the last thing on our minds is going swimming.  We are far removed from those lazy summer afternoons by the swimming pool or pond when the temperature peaked in the 90’s.

            But yet in spite of the chilling weather, when I read our scripture for today I am reminded of going to the old swimming hole, the place where I learned to swim.  Families would travel together, packed into minivans as mothers and fathers would bring their children for their daily lessons.  And for the older kids, swimming lessons meant not only learning how to swim, but learning how to jump off the diving board with grace and without fear.

            It has been my observation that anytime I find young children jumping off a diving board with their parents close by, there is always something that they need to be assured of before they take that plunge.  They almost always look back to where their parents are, whether that is on land or in the water, and they ask, “Are you watching me?”

            When children are learning to jump into the water, they want to be reassured that someone is indeed watching them.  Perhaps this is because they are a little scared of the act that they are about to take part in and they want the assurance that they are being watched over by their protector.  But I believe that most of the time they simply want to impress their parents at what they can now do.  “Look at me!  See what I can do!” you hear implied in the question “Are you watching me?”

            Do we ever grow out of this?  Do we ever grow out of this desire to have others watch us when we are at our best?  I don’t think we do.  We always want to impress others and we seek their approval.  We believe that by having others view us when we are at our best, at our prime, on our game, that they will like us more.  And we want to be liked don’t we?  We all have this inner desire to be respected, appreciated, and liked.  And this is no less common in our Christian lives.  So I would like to look at our scripture for this morning to see three ways in which we try to make ourselves look better, and then we will look at where our real source of fulfillment can be found.

Making ourselves look better by making others look worse

            Our scripture for today tells us about the scribes and the Pharisees, those that interpreted the Torah, the Law, and saw that it was carried out by all Jews.  But our scripture also tells us that in their interpretation of the Law these religious people were making life too difficult on the Jews.  Jesus says in verse 4 that the scribes and Pharisees take the Law and they tie it up into heavy burdens that are hard to bear.  Then they lay these heavy burdens upon the shoulders of the Jews and refuse to help others bear the burdens that have been laid upon them.  But we know that Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is light.  Not because he doesn’t expect great things from his followers, but because he is always there to help us bear the burden.

            It seems like the scribes and the Pharisees actually want the people to fail in their attempt to follow God.  They heap up burdens and don’t help.  And I can only assume this is because by having other people fail, they, the scribes and Pharisees, are making themselves look better.  When those around us fail, we look better to other on-lookers.  

            It’s like the coming election.  The current President’s approval rating is low…real low.  Americans are ready for something different.  That is why the candidates look so good to us now, because the current administration looks so bad.

Doing “good” in public

            But Jesus doesn’t stop his critique of the scribes and Pharisees by comparing the yoke of their teachings with his.  He goes on to look at how they live out their own teachings.  The second way we try to make ourselves look better is by doing good in public. 

Jesus says in verse 5 that the scribes and Pharisees do all of their deeds to be seen by others.  They are like the children jumping off the diving board that want to make sure that their parents are watching because they want to impress them.  “Are you watching me?  Look at me!  See how great I am!”  Everything that the scribes and Pharisees do is done in a way that others will see them doing it and give them respect, honor, and praise.  They do their acts of worship and service in the public so that people will see them and compare them with those around them and say, “Look at those scribes and Pharisees!  Ain’t they something else!”

            Jesus says that the scribes and the Pharisees made their phylacteries big and their fringes long so that everyone could see them.  I just want to look at some scriptures from the Old Testament quick.  The first is Deuteronomy 6:8.  Moses tells the people of Israel to keep the words that he is giving to them from God.  “Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead.”  That is one of the commandments that led to the scribes and Pharisees making these phylacteries, the little leather pouches that are still worn by some Jews on their foreheads and on their arms.

            Then let’s flip quickly to Numbers 15:38-39.  God said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites, and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner.  You have the fringe so that when you see it, you will remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them.”

            So this is exactly what the scribes and Pharisees were doing.  They made phylacteries and tied them to their foreheads and arms; they made fringes and tassels on their clothes.  And there is nothing wrong with doing this.  It would have been wrong not to do this because they were commanded to do these things.  The problem came about in why they had phylacteries and fringes.  They made these things to be seen by others; big, long, and noticeable.  You can almost hear them, like the little kids jumping off the diving board, “Are you watching me?”

Titles

            But Jesus doesn’t stop his critique of the Pharisees and scribes there.  No, there are a few more things he wishes to point out.  And that includes the titles that they like to have.  The scribes and Pharisees like to be called Rabbi, but Jesus says don’t call them Rabbi because you already have a teacher.  The scribes and Pharisees like to be called father, but Jesus reminds us that that title is already taken.  The scribes and Pharisees like to be called master or instructor, but we already have one of those as well, Christ.  Again, it seems like the scribes and Pharisees want attention, they want respect, so they want to be referred to with these titles of respect.

            This reminds me of a movie that came out while I was in High School, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.  In this movie, the antagonist Dr. Evil is holding a nuclear weapon and threatening to use it if the United Nations doesn’t give him 100 billion dollars.  Someone from the United Nations refers to Dr. Evil as Mr. Evil and Dr. Evil replies, “It’s Dr. Evil.  I didn’t spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called Mr.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKKHSAE1gIs

            Obviously, this movie is slightly less than serious.  But it is playing on something that does exist in our society.  Sonya had a professor that would not respond if you called her Miss Johnson.  She would say, “My name is Dr. Johnson, and you must refer to me in such a way if you want my attention.”  What’s up with that?

            Titles are a way that we try to demand respect.  The scribes and the Pharisees knew that.  They wanted people’s attention because they wanted people to respect them.  Sonya’s professor wanted people to call her doctor because she thought that was the way for her to gain respect.  But is that really what our goal should be as Christians?

            This Tuesday will mark the one year anniversary of a date that was important to me.  I was ordained on November 4^th, 2007.  And since that day, I can officially be called reverend.  But how many times have you ever heard me refer to myself as reverend or even pastor Kevin?  If I have, it has been in jest.  I am probably mocking myself.  I am just Kevin.  And to my sister-in-law, when you graduate from Medical School this year, don’t count on me calling you Dr. Miller, unless I need something.

            Reverend means, “worthy of being revered.”  To revere means to venerate, to hold in esteem.  That sounds to me an awful lot like what the Pharisees and the scribes were looking for when Jesus set them straight.  I am not sure why anyone would want to have the title “Rabbi,” “Father,” or “Reverend” after reading this scripture.

            So what’s the point?  What is the point that Jesus is trying to make with all of this criticism of the scribes and the Pharisees?  Why does he point out that they are trying to make themselves look better by placing heavy burdens on the shoulders of their fellow Jews?  Why does he make a big deal about the scribes and the Pharisees making their phylacteries big and their fringes long for all to see?  Why does Jesus make a big deal about the titles that the scribes and the Pharisees wish to be referred to by?  The point of this scripture is that following God isn’t all about me, and it isn’t all about you.  The point is that it is all about God.

            The moment that you begin to ask, “What can I get out of serving God” you have stopped serving God.  The moment that you wonder how you can benefit financially or socially by following Jesus, you have stopped following Jesus.  Christianity and Judaism before it has never been about you and it has never been about me.  It has always been about serving the one true God; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God revealed to us through Jesus Christ; the God who dwells with us and within us as the Holy Spirit.  Oh yes, we benefit from serving God, but if that is why we serve God, then we are missing the point. 

            The problem with the scribes and Pharisees is that they are like the young children on the diving board yelling to others, “Are you watching me?” as they try to follow God.  But the entire time they were trying to live out the Torah their actions should have not been drawing attention to themselves, but toward God.  Again, there is nothing wrong with the scribes and the Pharisees making phylacteries and fringes.  These are practices that are actually laid out in the Torah and a good scribe or Pharisee should be doing these things.  But when you do something of this nature, it always needs to be done so that you point others to God, not point others to yourself.

            It’s not about me…it’s about God.  That is something we need to remind ourselves of from time to time, maybe even daily.  I know that the temptation is there, it gets the best of us all from time to time.  Even the best intentions can turn wrong and we can do things to make ourselves seem important, popular, or special.  Every Sunday when I stand up to preach, I want to do the best I can.  But why do I want to do a good job?  Is it so I can make people like me, to feel important, to receive praise from people?  I will be the first to admit that if feels good to have people walk out the door on a Sunday morning and say, “Nice sermon today.”  I want that.  But my efforts toward preaching a good message should never be about trying to impress other people.  It isn’t about me, it is about God.  And if I am not preaching my best for God and trying to move people to a better understanding of who God is, then I am missing the point.

            And it isn’t just pastors that like the attention and praise of others.  Why do you think so many little kids and big kids want to grow up to be professional athletes?  The fame, the money, the respect!  Why are television shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance so popular?  Because it shows average people like you and me making it big.  That is a chance we all want to have.  We want to be famous, we want to be well liked, we want to be respected.  It is human nature.

            But the thing is I believe we are not only going about finding what we are looking for the wrong way, I believe that we are looking for the wrong thing to begin with.  We want to be accepted, we want to be loved, we want to be appreciated, so we try to do things for the approval of others.  But even if we find the approval of others, we can lose that approval just as fast as we found it.

            The thing that we really need to be looking for is approval from God.  It is in serving God that we will find our significance.  It is in serving God that we will truly be satisfied.  We can work and work and work to gain the respect, love, and affection of another.  Then we can easily lose that respect, love, and affection through the things that we say or the things that we do.  But with God, there is nothing that we can do to make Him love us more or to love us less.  We don’t have to be beautiful or popular by the world’s standards.  We don’t need to make other’s look worse to make ourselves look better.  We don’t need to make sure we do things in a big way so God sees them.  We don’t need fancy titles.  God loves us just the way we are.

            There is nothing in our past that God doesn’t know about.  There is nothing that we need to keep from Him because we are embarrassed or think that it will make Him love us less.  In fact, if we are followers of Jesus Christ, then that junk in our past has already been forgiven.  And if you believe that some mistake that you have made in your past is keeping you from being precious in God’s sight, then you are not trusting in the cross of Jesus Christ.  If you believe that sin from your life is hindering God’s love for you, then your understanding of Christ’s atoning sacrifice is insufficient.  I believe in a big cross, a cross that covers all of our sin so that God remembers it no more.

            You matter to God.  You matter so much that God came to this earth in the form of Jesus Christ to give us new life in Him.  And because we matter so much to God, we shouldn’t have to worry about mattering to everyone else so much.  We need to worry less about winning the approval of other people and focus on serving God.  This life that we have been given has been given to us for a reason, to glorify God.  And we glorify God by worshiping Him and following Him daily in our lives.  We need to remember that it isn’t about you or me…it’s all about God.

            So the next time that you are wondering if you matter, if you are important, if anyone cares about you, don’t be like the scribes and the Pharisees, trying to win the approval of other people by making others look worse than yourself, doing Christian duties to be seen by other people, or trying to get some prestigious title.  Realize that you are important, you do matter, God cares about you.  And unlike that little child that has to keep yelling back to mommy or daddy before they jump off the diving board, asking, “Are you watching me?”, know that God is watching you, always.  God is always watching with the loving eyes of the creator, redeemer, and sustainer.

Humble and Confident

Kevin Gasser

Staunton Mennonite Church

9/28/08

 

Philippians 2:1-13

2If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

 

            I would like to begin by sharing the lyrics from an older song.  And I can only assume

 

that this was meant as a prayer, because the lyricist begins with “Lord”.  It goes like this:

Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble

when you’re perfect in every way.

I can’t wait to look in the mirror

cause I get better looking each day.

To know me is to love me

I must be a hell of a man.

Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble

but I’m doing the best that I can.

            -Mac Davis

It just isn’t fair, is it?  Why would God make some people so perfect and then expect them to be humble?  Was God just setting them up for failure?  Maybe a few flaws here and there could have helped out a bit.

            Then there is the woman who Sonya worked for in college who I remember telling me more than a few times that she was “the most humble person she knows.”  Seems to me that if you brag about being humble, maybe you really aren’t.

            Now I don’t think that most of us are as conceited as the character in Mac Davis’ song, but we all need to be reminded from time to time that we are called to be humble as followers of Jesus Christ.  But the woman who Sonya worked for seemed to miss the point, maybe she doesn’t really know what it means to be humble.  Humility is important, I hope we can all agree on that.  But while it is important to remember to be humble, this doesn’t mean that we are not important, especially in the eyes of God.  So today I would like to look at the scripture above, weave in a few other examples from the Bible and my own life to hopefully get a better idea of how we can balance humility with self-confidence.

            Our scripture begins with one of Paul’s most beautiful, poetic calls to discipleship.  He and Timothy write to the church in Philippi, “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”  Paul is saying that if these Philippians can work together in love in the name of Christ, that will make his joy complete.  And Paul goes on to give one of the keys to working together with other people in the church.

            Verse 3 tells us, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”  Be humble, that is the key to working together with the other Christians.  Don’t do anything out of selfish ambition.  Don’t do anything because you want to make the other person look bad or make yourself look good, but regard others as actually being better than yourself.  Don’t just worry about your own interests, but the interests of others should be of importance to you as well.

            Now this isn’t meant to say that we can’t have opinions as Christians and that we shouldn’t stand up for what we believe, think, or feel.  But when we disagree, we do so in love.  We don’t look at someone else as being below us, less than us, but regard them as better than ourselves even when we disagree on something.

It seems to me that some people are more interested in winning an argument than actually figuring out what is right or best.  Consider this; my sister-in-law was on the debate team in high school.  In a debate match with another school the teams are given a point to debate.  And each team is assigned to either argue for or argue against this point.  It doesn’t matter if you really feel the other way from the point you are assigned to debate.  You win or lose the debate by arguing your point better than the other team argues the other side of the same point.

This also seems to be the approach in the presidential debates where the candidates are more interested in making the other candidate look bad than they are concerned with actually getting foreign policy, economics, and other issues to the point where the most good is done for the most people.  Winning the debate is everything, the subject matter sometimes seems secondary.

            This is the way some people seem to approach divisions within Christianity.  They argue a point, but maybe the other person makes a better argument and you see that your point or belief isn’t as strong as you once thought it to be.  But you can’t just stop and agree with the other person, can you?  Of course not!  You would lose the debate, and winning is the objective.  It doesn’t matter who is right and who is wrong.  All that matters is who can win the debate, right?   

            This is precisely what Paul is arguing against.  Paul is telling us to do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but to regard others as better than yourself.  Respect what others have to say.  Learn from one another.  If someone helps you to understand something that you had misunderstood, be humble enough to accept that you were wrong.  Maybe you weren’t even wrong, but if someone can help you see something from a different perspective, that can help us to grow as Christians; to grow in our likeness of Christ.

            Early this summer, just out of Seminary, I walked into a situation where a couple of guys were talking about God.  And I don’t pass up too many opportunities to discuss theology.  So I jumped into the conversation.

            I didn’t know the guys well, but I knew that one guy had a high school education.  I don’t think the other guy could spell high school.  And here I am, having spent seven years in post-secondary education, my Master’s of Divinity degree still wet with ink, given the opportunity to talk theology with these “novices”.  I was going to teach them a thing or two.

            The one fellow started talking about the nature of God and Christian ethics.  And I don’t remember what he said, but I remember it being so far off base that all I wanted to do was to jump in and correct this poor, uneducated guy.

            But I didn’t.  I bit my lip, I shuffled my feet, and I listened to every last word that this man had to say.  And I must admit, I learned something from him.  His simplified theology was not entirely biblical nor had it been influenced by some great theologian he had read.  His theology was formed by his experiences.  He had a reason to believe the things that he believed and I believe that he had spent a significant amount of time thinking about God.  And though I could have argued with him on a few of the details, in the end we came out at pretty much the same place.  And I had learned something from this man.

            I believe that we can learn from everyone.  There isn’t a person alive that we couldn’t glean a little wisdom from.  And we can only learn from someone when we humble ourselves enough to listen to them and not simply try to win an argument.

            But there is a danger in living out Paul’s instructions to regard others as better than yourself.  And that is in how much better we consider others better than ourselves.  Because there exists a danger at the other end of the spectrum.  That is the danger of low self-esteem; low self-confidence.

            My first semester of Seminary I took a class called “Formation in Personhood”.  This formation class was a time for us to learn how to share our life experiences with one another, pray for each other, and grow together in our likeness of Jesus Christ.  It was kind of a touchy-feely kind of class where we dug deep into our emotions.

            So while that maybe wasn’t my favorite class ever, I do remember something very clearly from our time in small group.  I remember the professor teaching us about self-confidence.  And she told us that Mennonite college students tend to have lower levels of self-confidence when compared to other colleges.  And she said that she believes a large part of this is because of the Mennonite emphasis on humility.  “Don’t think too much of yourself; think more highly of others than of yourself…etc.”

            Now I don’t know how you measure self-confidence or self-esteem, but I can see how an emphasis on humility can have a negative effect on one’s self-esteem.  But that doesn’t need to be the case.  Let’s look at what Paul writes in verses 5-8:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form , he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even on a cross.

 

God came to earth in human form, a form which we call Jesus.  We humans are not God, so for God to become like one of us is for God to humble himself to take on human flesh.  And God in flesh humbled himself to the point that he allowed himself to be crucified by human beings, creatures that were lower than he.  Jesus is the ultimate example of humility.

            Jesus taught that if someone strikes us on one cheek that we are to turn the other to them as well, allowing ourselves to be looked down upon.  Jesus, who the gospel of John teaches us had a hand in creation, became a servant to those he created, washing the feet of the disciples; the creator taking on the role of a servant.  He humbled himself to eat with those that society had rejected, the tax collectors, prostitutes and the sinners.  He who knew no sin died a sinner’s death on a cross between two thieves.  Jesus modeled humility for us par excellence.

            But we never have any sign that Jesus lacked self-confidence.  He was able to stand up to the Pharisees and the Scribes, the High Priest and Pontius Pilate.  We never have any reason to believe that Jesus wasn’t confident in himself, but yet he is the standard for our humility.  So I think that we need to come to an understanding that having self-confidence does not mean that you are not humble.  These two things are not mutually exclusive.

            Yes, we need to remember to treat others with respect, to treat others as we would like to be treated.  We must be humble and not look down on other people, but that does not mean that we are not confident in ourselves.

            Remember that you were created in the image of God and to this day humanity still reflects His glory.  Why did God humble himself so much as to become human in the first place?  Because he loves those that he has created.  God gave us life because God loves us.  Even before we were born he knew us, kitting us in our mother’s womb.  So when it seems like we don’t matter to the rest of the world around us, when our lives seem insignificant, remember that you matter to God.

            So the difficult thing is for us to have self-confidence, but not at the expense of our humility.  We must find a way to foster both humility and self-confidence at the same time.  Here are a few ides.

1. Do service work.  Help someone that can’t help their self.  Go to the Valley Mission and volunteer to change bed sheets, to serve a meal, or to be a friend to the friendless.  I don’t believe we should ever do service just to feel better about ourselves.  I get a little turned off by people that go into a shelter to do some work one day a year to get their fix from helping others and then don’t go back again for another year.  Not that I want to discourage people from serving in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, but if you are serving others just to feel good about yourself, you’re missing the point.  By serving others, giving them food, drink, or clothing, we are doing these things for Jesus.  We are serving the master, our Lord, the very one who came here to serve not to be served.  Service helps to keep us humble and it can help foster a sense of self-confidence.
2. Listen to someone you normally wouldn’t listen to.  That person that you usually try to avoid or not make eye contact with in the grocery store because you know they are kind of needy and they will talk your ear off…take time to listen to them.  Is your time really that precious?  Can you not spare 5 minutes to hear what they want to share with you?  Jesus made time for everyone.  When the disciples tried to send away the children, the prostitutes, the woman with the alabaster jar, the people that an important guy like Jesus wouldn’t have time for, Jesus said “Let them come to me.  I’ve got the time.”  Making time for people we normally avoid helps to keep us humble.
3. Remember that you are loved by God.  Don’t ever forget that you are beautiful to God.  You were created in his image.  And God took on human flesh to redeem all of creation.  He did so out of love…for us.  John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much that he sent his only son that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.  We matter to God.  We don’t matter more than another person, but we don’t matter any less than any other person either.  That should provide us with some of the self-confidence we need.

God loves us.  But we must stay humble.  It is a balancing act to find that appropriate balance between humility and being self-confident.  But as Jesus showed us, being humble doesn’t mean that we cannot be confident in ourselves.  Humility means being willing to give time to those society has rejected, doing jobs we would rather not do, and listening out other people even when we think we know better.

Let us grow in humility, being willing to do the things that Jesus did, let us also be confident enough to stand up for what we believe, let us be confident in our self and in God’s love for us.  Because we were created in the image of God, a God that loves us.  May God bless us as we seek to live within this tension.