

So why should we value being last? Why should we care, in any given situation, about humility? These questions require a question. Have you ever wanted to be the person God trusted with a big dream or responsibility to truly make a difference in this world? If humility has any true value in this world, it is the fact that,
God honors humility.
Philippians 2:1 says, "Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; 7 rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!"
In Jesus, we see humility is the highest virtue because He took this on Himself at the highest order. Jesus changed our concept of what leadership looks like entirely. He combined leadership with the spirit of serving to create a sort of a "servant leadership". So many times, when we talk about the humility of Jesus, we see this as almost a contrast from who God is; this great all-knowing, all powerful God. But Jesus humbled Himself by leaving His Trinity to become a servant to mankind. What all this implies is that God, before Jesus, had never experienced humility or had never felt what it meant to be a servant. But this is FALSE.
In scripture, we read much about glorifying God, about honoring Him and about sacrificing for Him. A side effect of this are the questions that surface in the back of our minds, "Is God some sort of Divine Narcissist?" "Does He need to be adored?" and "Did He create all of us just to have a people who worship Him?" "Is this our needy God?" Well, if the driving narrative of all of Creation is simply to glorify God, He did a lousy job because most of us don't glorify Him! On the contrary, if the driving narrative is love, then everything else makes sense! Think about it. Jesus teaches us that leaders are to be servants to the people. But by this teaching, we learn a provocative truth about God; Jesus is God's expression of pure love and the humility love requires. We think of God as all powerful and all knowing. While this is true, Jesus relays to us is that He is also the purest expression of humility. God is not only more humble than us, but His coming in the form of a servant was not new to Him. Jesus was a natural servant because it is the only path God has ever taken! We speak of the God as the God of fire, wind and water. But He is not like the Greek gods of power and rage. Our God is the God of humility with a path of servant-hood.
God is saying, "You can trust me with your life! His heart is gentle and humble. This is who God is and this is why He is worthy of worship! But it still seems strange to say God is a servant. It feels right to say He is all powerful and all wise, but saying our God is a servant recoils us. It is the aspect of God we desire the least. Servant hood is not a higher status. It implies that our hope is found "beneath us". Jesus says to come to Him with a humble heart. But it is only with a humble heart that everything else makes sense. Jesus materializes Himself to earth in His truest character. See, it then makes sense about why God chooses who He does. It then makes sense why he looks for the humble in spirit. The scriptures give us a clear picture of this. In fact, we also read in scripture that God actually opposes the proud! God does not choose the arrogant. James 4:6 But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
God chose Moses, right? Moses was basically Israels's George Washington. It wasn't because Moses was the most confident or the most powerful man among them! Moses was "more humble than anyone else on earth!" That humility is the most reflective image of God. It is parenthetical.
Remember when Moses and Aaron went before the Pharaoh? In Exodus 10:3, So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me. Of all the requests God could have made to Pharaoh, He only asked Pharaoh to humble himself! Was that all Pharaoh had to do? What Pharaoh soon came to realize is that God is incredible about taking broken humans and doing wonderful things with them.
God will not oppose you because you are a failure. He will not reject you if you are broken. God does not even reject the sinful. He rejects the arrogant. This is why it brings so much pain to Him when we resist Him when He Himself went net through so much pain to pursue us. God calls you and me to serve and to lay our lives down. But He laid His life down for us many, many years before He asked us to this. He has done this and He has done much more!

Sometimes we just want to be more than we are. We all have this desire. There is a voice in us that makes us want to be great or significant. "I want to be great. I'm just going to own that" Jesus says if you want to be great, He has a process for that. To be great, you have to be the servant to all. Erwin observes, "As long as I know how long I have to be a servant, I can do that, right?" Jesus says if you want to be first, be last. "I've been that, so I'm willing to be last...but for how long??" Is this like the line we formed as kids when we were last in line and someone came down and said, "Okay everybody, "Turn around!" (So then the last were first.)
In order to be in a place of the most honor, we have to start in the place of the least honor. Have you ever been to a game where you saw empty seats in the more expensive areas? You were with a friend who were a bad influence and you went and sat in those seats only to have the concierge ask for your tickets! After you couldn't show him a ticket, you were asked to politely (and humbly) return to your seat? Worse, have you ever been to an event where you had a good seat, but then you saw a better seat, only to find somebody got there first. But when you tried to return to your previous seat, someone had taken that as well?
The most extraordinary thing Jesus taught us about humility is that God is more humble than we could ever be. What we might find hard to believe is that we thrive in humility! God knows this and encourages us to choose the path of servant hood. It is only to the humble that God trusts His power and His glory.
John 13 reads, It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God;
"So He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around His waist. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to Him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.” 9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
God searches us and longs to make us clean. He asks us for our life, but only because He gave first to us. He even took on all of our shortcomings to save us. God always exalts the humble. He exalted Jesus to the highest place with the name above all names. We should realize what Jesus is trying to do in washing our feet. He is trying show us the value of humility. It is here that we find the kind of people God chooses to entrust with His power.
"When I was 29", says Erwin, "I spent those years working for an urban ministry...I rarely talked to anyone... We were working in a tiny duplex downtown and ministering to prostitutes and drug dealers...20,000 people would pack the arena nearby." Often, Erwin would volunteer at the arena pointing a flashlight to the right or left. Erwin worked at camps for boys as well. "Boys are easy. There's no conversation and then we wrestle." But then Erwin would also help with 10 to 12 year old girls. "Girls are HARD...All they want to do is talk!" They would come in clusters to him because they would move in clusters. Remembering their names was hard and exhausting. "I was DONE...it was exhausting and I needed relief." After surviving an exhausting camp one day, Erwin had committed to volunteering at the arena where "a monkey could do what I was doing". This particular night, Erwin wanted to skip out, but his wife Kim said "No, you volunteered and you are going." "So I went...I had no clean clothes, so I grabbed some jeans at a local store. When I got there, I was in a bad mood with a bad attitude. What's worse, the guy in charge of the event wasn't nice either. This guy came up to me and said, 'Son, when you come to a meeting of ministers, you need to wear a suit.'
Sulking in a humiliated mood, one of the organizers stopped to have a word with Erwin. He was told by the organizer that one of the featured speakers was not going to make it and he said, "I think the Lord wants you to speak!" Erwin laughed because he didn't want to look like an idiot. But the man more intently grabbed Erwin and, through huge glasses declared upon Erwin, "The Lord wants you to speak!!" Erwin was stunned. There were 20,000 people in the audience and he only had 45 minutes to prepare. This was a huge opportunity; the opportunity of a lifetime. But Erwin went behind closed doors and fell to the floor, weeping. He was overwhelmed and terrified. When he finished praying, he went to tell his wife. In terror, he said, "I can't speak!" Kim responded with "What do you mean? God told me you were going to speak tonight and that's why I wanted you to come." Shocked, Erwin asked, "Why didn't you tell me?" Calmly, she said, "Because you would have prepared for it and you wouldn't have come to serve."
Humility is what God needs to work in humanity. In humility, there is no where to fall! "I love the fact that when God created us, He took the most common material in the universe, dust, and breathed life into us." God needs none of what we have for His work, He just needs us to humbly open our hearts for Him.
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