Humility

I invite you to take your Bibles once again, and we’re going to turn this time to 1 Peter as we resume our studies there. And as you turn to 1 Peter, if you turn to the fifth chapter and you look at verses 5 and 6, then you’re right where we need to be. It reads, “Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. … Clothe yourselves with humility towards one another because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

Even the most cursory reading of these two verses makes it obvious that Peter is addressing the matter of humility, and humility is our area of study this morning. And I should say, probably, just straightaway that I’m really proud of this sermon I’m about to preach. In fact, I was so proud of my outline that I didn’t even put it in the bulletin. Humility forbade me from doing so. That’s why you’ll find it’s blank there, you see.

This message is not going to be the most comfortable study that we’ve had in a wee while. It certainly hasn’t been comfortable for me to prepare. I don’t see why it should be comfortable for you to hear, then, if I’ve had to go through it. Sometimes I think folks forget that. They think all the uncomfortable emphasis happens just when you’re sitting out there. It’s fairly uncomfortable up here as well, you know.

The reason for the lack of comfort is because this section, as Peter begins to draw his letter to a close, challenges the prevailing patterns not only of the day and culture in which he was living but also in the day and culture in which we are living. Pagan culture at the time of Peter’s writing afforded no place whatsoever to the notion of ethical humility—to the idea that humility could ever be some commendatory aspect of an individual’s character. Rather, the culture into which Peter wrote was consumed with self-appeasement, with self-assertion, and with self-aggrandizement.

And we don’t have to be particularly thoughtful to realize that there is a distinct parallel between that kind of environment and the environment in which we live today. If we were in any doubt about that, we only need to scan the bookshelves over the most recent years—the last ten or fifteen years—both in Christian bookstores and in secular bookstores, and you will find a quite staggering absence of any significant treatment of the whole matter of humility. Whereas in the ’50s, and certainly in the ’40s, going back earlier in this century, it was not uncommon to find people giving themselves to a treatment of the subject of biblical humility, it seems that that is almost passé.

And that is true not only in the Christian environment but also in the secular world. Can you imagine a schoolteacher’s retreat day, the in-training day, being devoted to the subject of humility as it relates to child development? When is the last time that you heard humility being addressed as a foundational, vital, prerequisite dimension of human personality? And I think I’m not being purely rhetorical in asking the question. I think that you would agree with me that it’s a long time since we’ve heard anything about this subject. And so the slogans of life, we see them; people wear them as pins around us as we walk through our days. We may be tempted to wear them as pins ourselves. But I saw one the other day; it said on it, “I’m humble and proud of it.” It was probably the same individual who put that together that wrote the book No, I Am Not Conceited, with the section at the bottom that said Although I Have Every Right to Be So.

And so it is that the prevailing patterns of the generation in which we live are so consumed with the notion that anybody might have a poor view of themselves that, in order to address any possibility of having a bad view of yourself, nobody in the world is giving any attention to the possibility that it is in humility that we discover a true view of ourselves. And yet Peter has no such ambivalence in addressing the matter. And the prevailing pattern of a culture is simply the aggregate picture of our personal preoccupations. So we cannot point fingers at the culture. Every time you point one finger forward, three point back towards you. And I have been painfully aware of that in preparing this study. What the culture is, is merely the macro picture of the micro picture of my life. And all of us have a little touch of the Frank Sinatras in us—or at least the guy who wrote “My Way,” which I quote every time I mention the subject of humility. I wish I could find a better song to quote, but I can’t. But you should be thankful that I don’t sing it. Yes. Yes. But obviously, some of you would be prepared to sing it. Yeah.

I’ve [lived], I’ve laughed[, I’ve] cried,
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing.

Right?

And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that!
And may I say, not in a shy way.
Oh, no, oh, no, not me.
I did it my way.

For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught;
To say the things he truly feels
And not the [voice] of one who [yields].
The record[s] [show] I took the [blow];
I did it my way.[1]

And we are living in a culture, akin to the culture into which Peter wrote, that is preoccupied with self.

Now, we’re going to deal with this subject somewhat topically and yet without doing despite to Peter’s instruction, I hope. And I have five aspects of humility to draw our attention to. I believe they emerge from these two verses, and your careful reading of the verses will ascertain whether I’m accurate or not.

Revealed in Our Relationships

First point concerning humility is this: humility will be revealed in our relationships. Humility will be revealed in our relationships.

Now, when we reach 1 Peter 5:5–6, as we’ve been following the studies through, we know that Peter is not addressing a new subject here. He has repeatedly emphasized the nature and the necessity of a submissive attitude. And really, his section on this began at 2:13, when he urged all of us to “submit [our]selves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men.” And you may remember that study, as we dealt with the whole question of civil disobedience and the absence thereof in relationship to the principle of submission. And then we watched as Peter traced the line through the business world and through family life and addressing the questions of the relationships of a wife’s submission to her husband and a husband’s submission to the Lord to take the task of leadership.[2] And most recently, in the four verses with which we were dealing last Sunday morning, we discovered that he was stressing the nature of eldership being exercised in a spirit of submission to God and a spirit of humility towards one another.[3] Submission to God and humility towards one another was to be the characteristic of the leadership in the local church. And so he says, verse 5, “In the same way—that is, in the same spirit of humility, in the same framework of submission, in this willingness to prefer others beyond ourselves—make sure that in the relationships between those who are young and those who are older, humility reigns supreme.”

Now, it is obvious that there is to be submission to the elders. And so it would appear that what Peter is doing here is that he’s widening the lens, as it were, and he’s addressing the question of people who were born earlier than others. And he’s saying young men, who are peculiarly prone to an unhealthy self-assertion, should make sure that they display humility before those who are older. It is, if you like, the old-fashioned thing that we learned at school, those of us who were privileged to do so: respect for your elders—a sort of archaic notion now, but coming through the ranks, that’s what we were told. There are times just to hold your tongue and to be quiet. There are times to give deference to those who have lived a little longer and know a little more. You don’t need to be a smart aleck all the time, so we were told—and so we needed to be told. And so this jolly generation needs to be told as well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go with the flow. However, young men, in their relationships, are to display humility to those who are older.

That’s the first thing: humility will be revealed in our relationships. It’s straightforward. Humility is not something you find in a vacuum. It is found in action.

An Attitude of the Mind

And that brings us to our second point, which is this: humility is primarily an attitude of mind.

In verse 5 here, in the phrase “clothe yourselves,” and then in the opening two words of verse 6, Peter makes it clear that humility is revealed in attitude and in action. It’s not something that we’re exhorted to feel. Peter does not say, “I want you to feel humble,” nor does he say, “I want you to pray about being humble.” He says, “I want you to be humble”—reminding us, of course, that we cannot ever be anything in Christ except that the Spirit of God enables us to do so. But Peter is sufficiently clear as to the ministry of the Holy Spirit to know that the Spirit’s ministry within our lives producing the gifts and the graces, producing the fruit of gentleness and lowliness of mind, will so enable us to express in the attitudes of our hearts, which God sees, and in the actions of our lives, which we all see, this same dimension.

And the verb which he uses is as descriptive as it is unusual. The verb here for “clothe yourself” is a verb which actually means “to tie on” or “to wrap around.” And it came, in common parlance, to signify one scene more than any other. And the scene was, within the structure of a home, the servant’s responsibility to be about the business of service. And when the servant set himself to the task of service, he would tie on the apron, which would go over the rest of his clothing as a protection for him in going about the menial chores which then fell to him. And so it came to be that the use of this verb immediately triggered in people’s minds the idea of tying something around you in order that you might kneel and move forward in service.

That is exactly what Peter conveys here. He says, “I want you, as you think about humility, to wear it in just the exact same way as servants wear the apron”—that cognitively, realistically, volitionally, the servant goes and says, “Now I will put this on.” “So,” says Peter, that is the way humility will take root in your lives”—not as a result of a feeling in your tummy, not as a result of external coercion, but as a result of the Spirit’s prompting, the Word’s instruction, and our obedience, so that as we rise to a new day, we open the closet, we decide what we’re going to wear where there is choice, he says, “Make sure that as a Christian walking out on life, you do not go without the apron of humility.”

Indeed, if we were going to mix our metaphors, it would be better for us to conceive of this apron as a foundational garment rather than one that goes on the top, so that you should not go out or put anything else on until you put that on. And an attitude of humility will express itself in such a way that we think more about serving than we do about being served, that we think more about giving than we do about taking, about responding rather than commanding, about fitting in with others rather than constantly demanding that they fit in with us.

Think about the absence of humility in a life (in your life or in my life), the absence of humility in a family, or in a soccer team (or a football team, if you like), in a church. Far more than ever we realize, it is the absence of humility which mars friendships, which breaks families, and which destroys relationships. For the flipside of humility is pride, and there is nothing quite so ugly, and there is nothing quite so devastating. Hence Peter’s clear instruction.

The Discovery of God’s Grace

A humility which reveals itself in relationships. A humility, secondly, which is primarily an attitude of mind. Thirdly, humility and the discovery of God’s grace go hand in hand.

Here he’s quoting from Proverbs 3:34, and he says, “God … gives grace to the humble.” And he also says the corollary of that statement is that “God opposes the proud”—that God is against those who are haughty and who are arrogant. That is why when we come in our agnosticism to examine the claims of Jesus Christ, it is vital that we come with a humble heart. For God has not pledged himself to pander to our intellectual arrogance. God is not prepared to justify himself to his creation. But he is prepared to cater to our intellectual integrity. But when we come arrogantly before God—putting God, as it were, in the questioning box; putting God in the dock; asking and acting as if we somehow, as mere men whose breath is held in the power of God, have the right to call him down onto our level for assessment—then we will discover that God resists all such people. He resists the proud and those in the arrogance of their hearts, but he gives grace to those who are humble.

Now let’s illustrate this from an illustration that Jesus gave in Luke chapter 19. Turn to it with me just for a moment. Luke chapter 18; I beg your pardon. Luke 18. And Luke records for us in the ninth verse that Jesus told this story to some who had a problem with humility, especially in the realm of their acceptance with God. Luke 18:9: “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went [into] the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector,’” who—the phrase just was the embodiment of someone who was not doing it right: a sinful person; one who was externally sinful and one who was externally religious. The one who was externally religious, the Pharisee,

stood up and prayed about himself: “God, I thank you that I am not like [all] other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Now, the humility which is described here is not simply a winsome graciousness. It’s not simply a deferential approach on the part of human personality. This is very, very important, because there are people that we meet in our days who are very deferential. They’re very kind, they’re very gracious, they’re very sensitive, and they have an approach to life which is very winsome, and it’s very gracious. But all of that can exist in human personality, and yet the heart of man remains, before God, haughty and arrogant. And part of that which promotes the arrogance is the very fact of the human personality: “I am such a gracious, deferential person. There is no way that I need to lift up my eyes to heaven and say, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’” And the fact of the matter is that the discovery of biblical humility begins with repentance, begins with a distrust of ourselves, begins when we come to God with open hands. And that is the explanation, incidentally, of Paul’s words when he writes to the Corinthians and he says to them in 1 Corinthians 1:26, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.”

You see, I can’t find the song—it’s a Billy Joel song—but it has the line, and it says, “Why did you have to be a big shot? Why did you have to be a…”[4] I can’t remember the song. Probably just as well. It’s maybe a bad song. Don’t find it. But the fact of the matter is everyone’s consumed. They say, “This is who I am, and this is what I did, and this is where I’ll be, and this is what I’ll do,” and so on. And you wonder why it is that not many people like that are in the family of faith. It is not because God can’t save folks like that; it is because God resists the proud in their arrogance. And so when you look at the family of God, and you read 1 Corinthians 1:26, you discover that it’s perfectly true. There weren’t many wise. There were some. Not by human standards, at least. There weren’t many who were supremely influential. There were some. There weren’t many who came from the high-ranking nobility of the day. There were some. But the majority came along the pathway of humble status, self-distrust, and the heart of the publican, or the tax collector, who said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

You know, that’s how your life will be changed by Jesus Christ. Did you know that? It’s not by going to church first of all. It’s not by fulfilling religious obligations. It’s not by tithing and giving a percentage here and fasting a little there. It is by beginning where the publican began: with a humble heart. For there and to that individual God’s grace is manifested and continues to be so.

“Under God’s Mighty Hand”

The fourth point that I’d like us to note is this: that humility lives “under God’s mighty hand.” Humility lives “under God’s mighty hand.” This is verse 6.

The hand of God which compelled the king of Egypt to let Moses and the people go is the same hand under which we live. The hand of God which was stretched out in the reign of Artaxerxes and performed an amazing intervention in the servant’s life—Nehemiah—and in the people of God returning from the exile, that’s the same hand under which we live. And the issue in verse 6 is that the humble believer lives with the awareness that God is sovereign in his power, that he is providential in his purposes, and that he knows what is best for the children.

How will we be able to identify in ourselves whether we are living under God’s almighty hand? Whether we do have the attitude of humility? Whether we do have that which would reveal itself in our actions? Well, part of it will be this: that when we’re on our own—in our cars, or wherever it is that we’re mostly on our own—and when we think most circumspectly about ourselves, we will find that in our hearts, we are recognizing these simple truths: one, that we did not make ourselves; that we had no control over the day of our births; that we have no control, ultimately, over the day of our death; that we have no control over the breath that we breathe or the maintenance of the double circulatory system of the heart; that the motor neuron function of our bodies may in a moment be dispelled with, and we have no ultimate control! So just in terms of the creatorship of God, we are under his hand. And then, when we further ponder—those of us who have been redeemed by God’s grace—that we ultimately had no control over that which brought us to himself, then our humility springs from our preparedness to say, “O Lord, I am totally dependent upon you today.” But until we believe ourselves to be totally dependent upon God, then we will never display that attitude, nor will people observe those actions.

And the humility of those who live under God’s mighty hand is not merely an absence of pride. It’s not merely an awareness of our limitations. It is this realistic realization that God’s grace is the key to understanding and accepting who I am and accepting what I am. And that same grace is the key to understanding who I’m not and what I’m not. And the ability and willingness to recognize that will remove us from the dangerous tyranny of living all of our lives trying to reverse what God has ordered: “Oh, I wish that I was four inches taller!” “Oh, I wish that I was three inches thinner!” “Oh, I wish that my nose was a quarter of an inch to the left!” “Oh, I wish that I was a funny person!” “Oh, I wish that I could be quiet for more than five minutes!” And so we go on through the system: “Oh, I wish that I was shortsighted!” and so on.

Here’s the issue, loved ones: 1 Corinthians 4:7. Look at it with me. We turn to it many times, and we need to turn to it many times, until the truth really grabs a hold of us. First Corinthians 4:7: “Who makes you different from anyone else?” God. “What [did] you have that you did not receive?” Nothing! “And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” This is elementary logic—very straightforward.

The humility of those who live under God’s mighty hand is not merely an absence of pride. It’s not merely an awareness of our limitations.

Can I ask you this morning: Are you contented? Are you a contented person? If you’re adolescent, there’s a fudge factor there, because when you’re adolescent, you always want to be taller or shorter or fatter or thinner. But those of you who are not having a kind of prolonged adolescence, have you come to the point where you’ve got to grips with yourself yet? Have you? Do you really think the answer lies in going into rooms and people telling you how great you are? Do you really think that’s the answer? And if that is the answer, why doesn’t the Bible say that’s the answer? Why does the Bible say that the very reverse of that is the answer—that when we learn to bow before God in the humble recognition that he made us the way we are… I mean, I am not going to be an opera singer in this life. (Missed your cue, but that’s all right.) And there are many things that we are not going to be. But what do you want to do? Live your life tyrannized about that? Ladies getting up every morning, wishing they were Maria Callas, and their husbands can’t live with them because of the fact they just can’t become it?

Do you remember that little children’s song? I’m not sure of all the theology of it, but I like some of it. It went like this:

If I were a butterfly,
I’d thank you, Lord, for giving me wings;
[And] if I were a robin in [the] tree,
I’d thank you, Lord, that I could sing. …

[And] if I were a fuzzy, wuzzy bear,
I’d thank you, Lord, for my fuzzy, wuzzy hair. …
But I just thank you, Father, for making me me.

For you gave me a heart, and you gave me a smile;
[And] you gave me Jesus, and you made me your child.
[And] I just thank you, Father, for making me me.[5]

“I’m not the guy next door. I’m never going to be the person three rows up. There are many things that will never be mine in life. But you, creator God, have made me in such a way according to your almighty plan and purpose, as miraculous as it may seem to others.” And in humble recognition of that fact lies wholeness!

Are you there yet? Many are not. Families are fractured and lives are torn as people scurry here and there and everywhere, trying to make sense of the person they wish they were. Humility lives under God’s hand, and happily so.

The Day of Exaltation

And finally, humility is able to anticipate that day of exaltation: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

Now, the first time you read that verse, it may read like a motivating principle. Does it? “This is something that you do so that this is something that can happen to you.” I don’t think so. The more I’ve studied it this week, I don’t think verse 6 is about motivation. I think it’s about explanation. And it is an explanation on the basis of verse 5. It’s on the basis of Proverbs 3:24: God is put together in such a way that he “opposes the proud,” but he “gives grace to the humble.” Therefore, the only people that he will ever exalt are those who live humbly under his mighty hand. So he says by way of explanation, “If you want to live one day with him in glory, you must live today in this way in time.” It will only be those who have humbled themselves that God will lift up, because he’s pledged himself to that way of approach.

Isaiah 57:15:

For this is what the high and lofty One says—
 he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
 but also with him who is contrite and lowly in [heart],
to revive the spirit of the lowly
 and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Well, what do you think it meant for Peter to write this? What a man Peter was! How obedient to Jesus at the end of it all, when he was given the instruction to strengthen the brethren! And how gracious of him to write down things that must have been like standing on limpet mines for him as he wrote! Because as he writes here of humility, he must surely have remembered the event recorded in Matthew 26. Let me just read it for you.

And Jesus tells the disciples, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” This is the incarnate Son of God, Jesus, speaking a word to his followers. Who’s the first one to speak? Peter. To agree? To disagree: “Peter replied, ‘Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.’”[6] And who was the first guy to crash down like a ton of bricks but old smarty-pants himself?

Humility lives under God’s hand, and happily so.

And now, seasoned by God’s grace, restored by his goodness, he writes to others. And if he’d had the chance to preach this sermon himself, I’m sure he would have been prepared to illustrate from his own life and to say, “This is the key. For looking back in the years I spent with Jesus and the times when it was all Peter, I crashed so many times. But when I learned that it was to be all Christ, I became useful in his hands.”

Humility challenges the preoccupations of our personal lives, challenges the patterns of our prevailing culture. Now it’s up to you and me to wrestle with this instruction; to put on the apron of humility; to somehow rear our children in a very different environment from which we, as parents, were raised; and somehow to be salt and light as a result of these principles taking root in society.

Let us pray together.

And when nobody else was prepared to do the task, John records that Jesus took a basin and a towel, wrapped it round himself in the posture of a slave, and began to wash the disciples’ feet.[7]

Lord, make me like you;
Please make me like you;
You are a servant;
Make me one too.[8]

And even if the whole world has it upside down, Lord, we’re brave enough to obey your Word, to serve your cause, to exalt your Son. Amen.

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[1] Paul Anka, “My Way” (1969).

[2] See 1 Peter 2:18–3:7.

[3] See 1 Peter 5:1–4.

[4] Billy Joel, “Big Shot” (1978). Lyrics lightly altered.

[5] Brian M. Howard, “The Butterfly Song” (1974).

[6] Matthew 26:31–33 (NIV 1984).

[7] See John 13:1–17.

[8] Carol Owens and Jimmy Owens, “Make Me Like You” (1978).