HE MADE THEM MALE. Defining manliness in today s culture. He is Humble! 1 Peter 5:5-7. Men s Breakfast. Sermon given on March 17, 2018

Transcription

1 HE MADE THEM MALE Defining manliness in today s culture He is Humble! 1 Peter 5:5-7 Men s Breakfast Sermon given on March 17, 2018 Pastor Rick Lancaster

2 He is Humble! 1 Peter 5:5-7 Opening Comments Today we begin a new series: HE MADE THEM MALE Defining manliness in today s culture! Today, our topic is one that many men struggle with Every generation has had examples of what manliness looks like Growing up, one of my heroes was Johnny Bench who played for the Cincinnati Reds for a long time He was far from perfect, but he seemed like a man you could imitate There was another man around while I was growing up See if you know who it is based on one of his famous sayings, I am the greatest! Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali He was one of the greatest Heavyweight boxers of all time In basketball there were guys like Larry Bird and Dennis Rodman Larry Bird had three times as many points scored and assists than Rodman and almost as many rebounds, and yet Rodman was grabbing all the attention because of his outlandish lifestyle For us older guys, I think it was easier we had a few examples to pick from Today, there are hundreds of channels to watch, including every conceivable sport or activity A constant flow of social media and YouTube with 1.3 billion videos to choose from And every day, our heroes are being exposed as less than perfect, often greatly flawed Is it any wonder that guys struggle to know what a man is supposed to be? Thankfully, God didn t leave us without any way to answer the question, What is a man? Let s pray and ask God to do something radical in our hearts Pray 1

3 Teaching He is Humble! We have been using a working definition of manliness Manliness: Being the man God created you to be, in the time, place, and culture He placed you in. So far, we have looked at integrity, loyalty, personal responsibility, sacrifice, friendship, perseverance, and authenticity This morning, we will look at the topic of Humility The definition of humility is: Nelson s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary A freedom from arrogance that grows out of the recognition that all we have and are comes from God. On Sunday I said, True humility is seeing yourself exactly as God sees you! God is the definer of what humility is or is not True humility is not possible apart from God The English word humility is used three times in the Proverbs Look carefully at these three verses and see if you notice what I did as I was preparing this message Proverbs 15:33 The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility. Proverbs 18:12 Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, and before honor is humility. And Proverbs 22:4 By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches and honor and life. Did you see it? Honor is something a lot of people seek. =high esteem, fame, public recognition The pathway to the things that most people seek in this life is through humility that is counter-intuitive, right? Andrew Murray - Humility Humiliation is the only ladder to honor in God s kingdom. Christ is our ultimate example of humility He was God in the flesh, the infinite, Almighty God incarnated No greater man has ever walked this earth, did it in perfect humility Turn to 1 Peter 5 Jesus called the disciples to follow Him 2

4 That meant they were to follow His example, to learn from Him as they walked with Him For up to three years they watched the humility of Jesus firsthand Peter was one of those disciples and he would later write 1 Peter 5:5-7 Peter said, be clothed with humility put on humility And then humble yourselves Turn to Philippians 2 Humility, just like any other Christian virtue, is a work of God in the life of a believer it is the product of the Holy Spirit But God, in His sovereign grace, chooses to engage the believer in the work to produce that virtue The Apostle Paul uses Christ s example to tell us what the end is of humility Philippians 2:5-11 Humility will take us to the cross, to the death of self But both Peter and Paul both say that death is not the end humility leads to exaltation We will grow in humility as we seek to follow Jesus more closely Andrew Murray (read quote on page 12) Peter said be clothed with humility = means true humility shows up on the outside of a person s life As we humble ourselves before God, the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of humility Galatians 5:22-23a the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. As you humble yourself before the Lord, you should see these fruits being produced in your life And if you are growing in your faith, this fruit should be growing The opposite of humility is pride Pride also produces fruit in our lives Andrew Murray says all sin is rooted in pride This morning I want to focus on three areas where the fruit of pride may be getting in the way of your life 3

5 Part of our problem is that we can t always see the things of our life as good fruit or bad fruit But if we are to grow in humility, we have to start discerning the bad fruit, and choosing to do something about it The first area is Comparing yourself to others This fruit can show up in a lot of different forms One of the outward ones is declaring that your life is better or worse than someone else The next time you are in a group of people, listen carefully to the conversation Someone will say something like, I only got five hours sleep last night Someone else will chime in, I only got four hours, or tell some story about how they never sleep Doing that takes the focus off the person who was speaking, and puts it on yourself A humble response would be to ask the first person why they only got five hours sleep keep the focus on them A prideful person needs to compare themselves to others, to show others that they are better or worse A humble person knows that God is not comparing us to others, not asking, Why aren t you like the apostle Paul? A humble person is comparing themselves against Christ and His Word Kelly has been out in Amarillo for a week cooking for myself Each recipe has a picture, so I know what the dish is supposed to look like once it is finished, and a set of ingredients and instructions to follow Once the dish is completed I can compare it to what it should be like, and if it doesn t match, I go back to the ingredients and instructions to see where I didn t follow the way I should have Don t compare yourself to other people compare yourself to Jesus and to His Word Second area Promoting yourself to others This is when we tell people how amazing we are 4

6 Telling them you can run faster, jump higher, last longer, eat more, drink more They need you to know that they are smarter, more clever, funnier than anyone else And we can be very spiritual as we are doing something like this I was having my daily devotions with the Lord, and He was moving powerfully in me through His Word I was reading in Exodus this morning about 10 chapters, which I do every day, and I rarely miss, like last Sunday I missed because I forgot about Daylight Savings Time, but I made up for it the next day by reading double Who was the focus in all of that? Me! That s pride the worst kind spiritual pride Usually, what God says to me in my daily devotions is for me The only time I share it is if I am asked, or if something the other person said indicates God wants me to share it with them And then I may say something like, I read something this morning that might apply to what you are saying, would you like to hear it? Self-promotion often seeks to elevate the person speaking above those who are listening If there is more than one prideful person in the conversation, they will probably respond to self-promotion by diminishing the value or importance of what was said, or outright challenge it Like: Oh yeah, pastor, if you worked for a living like I do, you wouldn t be able to do that that s pride too! Peter said, if you humble yourself before God, He will exalt you He will promote you A humble person is content to wait for God to do that Don t promote yourself let God do it when He is ready The third area Judging others Jesus said John 7:24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. This is a hard one, because we as humans are predisposed to judging people based on appearance 5

7 Everyone we meet can be described by some kind of stereotype based on their appearance or initial behavior toward us A prideful person will use that judgment to determine how they respond to them all racism falls into this area If you do that, you are setting yourself as judge of that person Jesus is saying that we should act with righteous judgment Even if they are exactly like the stereotype they are projecting, a humble person responds with righteousness a humble person does what is right because we know that we don t know what is inside the outward appearance A man shared with me something that was an example of that in my life He had come the first time with all his tattoos showing wanted to see how people would respond to see if he would be accepted He said, I walked up to him, introduced myself and shook his hand, as if he was no different than anyone else I don t recall the event, nor do I recall noticing his tattoos I probably did, but I knew what the right thing was and did it Guys, we are not in a position to judge anyone Leave the judgment to God and treat everyone with righteousness treat them as a precious creation of God Three things this morning three bad fruits of pride - don t compare yourselves to others, compare yourself to Christ and to His Word Don t promote yourself Let God exalt you in due time Don t judge others act righteously do the right thing, no matter what your initial impression is of them What should you do if you find there is bad fruit in your life? You can t just resolve to cut that fruit away through sheer willpower You chance of success is very low You need to humble yourself before God and confess that sin of pride, and then you need to beg Him to help you cut away the root of pride that produced that fruit and to help you walk more closely to Jesus Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to die to yourself in that area Ask a brother to hold you accountable to doing your part 6

8 Humility will grow in the heart of any man who is sincerely seeking to follow Jesus 1 Peter 5:5 says that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble Proverbs 22:4 said that humility is the doorway to riches and honor and life This, obviously, doesn t cover everything that could be said about humility, but it should give you a good place to start growing in that area of your faith We ll close with another Teddy Roosevelt quote The Man in the Arena It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Prayer 7