January 30, 2005

Counter Intuitive - Humility
Part 5 of Xealot Series
Guest Speaker: Mike Pilavachi

James 4:4-10
⁴You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? ⁶But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. ⁹Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Humility: Not thinking of yourself because you are focused on others (as oppoesd to thinking badly of yourself).

Humilty is a choice, not a feeling.

Choose to begin to act humbly, and God will deal with your heart (Don't wait till you feel humble).

Luke 14: 7-11
⁷When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. ¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Humility involves being able to genuinely rejoice when others succeed because you're not thinking of yourself.

Philippians 2:3-11
³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in very natureGod, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! ⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus set the example.

Choose to humble yourself, or God will do it for you.

Ex: Moses
We go through the desert to be stripped of ourselves.

The desert is painful but it's where God is.

God's name is I AM.

"I am NOT, but i know I AM."

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