The passage, John 8:48-59, discusses six ways to achieve true humility. Jesus engages in a discussion with the Jews, and they go on the offensive, questioning his lineage and accusing him of being a Samaritan and possessed by a demon. In response, Jesus says that the first step to true humility is to honor the Father, even in the face of dishonor. The second is to not seek personal glory, but rather to focus on the greatness of the Father. Third, we should never forget that God is the ultimate judge, and there will come a day when He will judge us. Fourth, to rightly order our lives, we must keep Christ's word. Fifth, we should focus on the eternal life promised by Christ's word rather than physical life. Finally, we should recognize that Jesus is the great "I AM" and has been present from the beginning of time.
At Valley View Church we are currently studying through the entire gospel of John, verse by verse. You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship. We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.
The passage, John 8:48-59, discusses six ways to achieve true humility. Jesus engages in a discussion with the Jews, and they go on the offensive, questioning his lineage and accusing him of being a Samaritan and possessed by a demon. In response, Jesus says that the first step to true humility is to honor the Father, even in the face of dishonor. The second is to not seek personal glory, but rather to focus on the greatness of the Father. Third, we should never forget that God is the ultimate judge, and there will come a day when He will judge us. Fourth, to rightly order our lives, we must keep Christ's word. Fifth, we should focus on the eternal life promised by Christ's word rather than physical life. Finally, we should recognize that Jesus is the great "I AM" and has been present from the beginning of time.
At Valley View Church we are currently studying through the entire gospel of John, verse by verse. You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship. We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.
Well, good morning, Valley View. It's great to be back with you. I was out last week and I want to say thanks. Thanks to Colby. He's on the drums today for doing a great job. Preaching today. Too many talents. Should be illegal to have that much talent in one person. But I'm grateful he did such a great job. It's grateful to have other folks who can step in and continue to just declare the word of God. That's what any of us who up here are try to do is to elevate the Word of God above any individual, above the church. We want to be worshiping Jesus as we know him through his word. That's the goal. That's the hope. And so I'm so glad to be back here with you. I just love our time of worship together. In fact, I was standing over here waiting for anybody who wanted to pray. And all of a sudden I felt the whole building shaking under me to look over here's Isaac jumping around. You know, I missed that last week. I didn't get to enjoy that. Last week. I was actually out on a trip with a couple of guys I get together with a couple of times a year. These are guys who I've known since college, and I get together with them once or twice a year and we just sharpen one another. It's an intentional time. We were also mountain biking, doing some other crazy things. I kept it pretty calm, but we get together to sharpen one another. You got to have people in your life to help give you perspective, to help keep you from getting isolated, who can speak into your life. And they've known me a really long time. It's hard to put anything over on them. They can call me up, but also encourage me. You got to have both in your life. So it's a really important time for me to connect with these guys. Also got to connect with our pastor in Little Rock, who, when we attended church there, he's been an important mentor to me, another guy who continues to sharpen me along the way. We all need people like that in our lives, and I'm really grateful for a church where that's valued for the pastor to get away, be able to be sharpened, be refreshed, and I hope come back and and better serve the church long term. But that's where I was in the midst of that trip. I remember that yesterday was our landscape day. Yeah, I know lots of applause for that. Right? Is a great day. We had about 30 people show up for the landscape, has a great turnout. In fact, we got a few photos from that time together. One of the things I love about landscape day is heavy equipment. Use heavy machinery. You know, we never you get to do that. That's when they didn't let me on the tractor though If you don't like heavy equipment, what about little kids? Like, this is pretty adorable to see her out there. Dirt all over her face, all over her body, you know, trying to dig. And it is great. Then we have some slightly older kids, not quite as adorable, but it was great to have them out there. I even got in the mix and this last photo climbed up in the truck and pretended to be moving some dirt around for the photo. It was a great day. A lot of people out there. Part of what we're trying to do and you may have noticed as you come in, it just helps the appearance of the church. We don't worship the facility. We don't worship the grounds or the landscaping. But it's just one way. As a church, we say we care about the community. We care about stewarding what God has given us. We want others to know that hopefully this is a place where we're just trying to take good care of what God has given us, and that's part of landscape. There's a lot of fun, a lot of good memories from that as well. As I was driving back from this trip, though, however, one thing interesting happened, so I was away with a couple of guys. Of course, we sharpened and encouraged one another. We also maybe sometimes rough each other up a little bit as well. And one of the guys, he's one of these guys who likes to stop in antique stores, likes to stop in interesting places and just check them out a lot. He's more of a journey guy. I'm more the destination guy know to the minute how long it should take me to get there. I don't want anything making me have to stop. He's more the journey kind of guy. And along the way he's. He's driving back from our trip. We're driving separate. He sends this photo. Here's a place where I stopped in a spot. You guys would find this photo interesting. He sends me this photo flashed up on the screen. Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid. John Wayne. I'm sorry, parents, for using the S-word. I know that's off limits. That's John Wayne's words, not mine. My first thought when I got that was, Why are you sending that to me, by the way? What are you trying to say? What are you trying to tell me? The other thought was it. There's a lot of truth to that. I mean, life is hard, can be tough. And sometimes we make it tougher than it should be. Sometimes we maybe decide to go our own route. Yeah, I know. That's what you said is best. I'm just gonna try it my way. There's reasons to do that. Sometimes it's not as wise. And of course, we've all been in seasons where we go. I know. That's what the Bible says. I'm going to try it this way. Let's see how that goes. Actually, I don't even want to know what the Bible says. I'm going to try it this way. I'm going to go my own way. And what happens, hopefully in the midst of that is we get humbled. Life happens. We make unwise choices. Life gets harder. We get humbled. The great part of that is that's the path to humility. Humility is a virtue. Everybody wants to be called humble, but we don't want to be humbled to get there. It's not my first choice to go through being humbled. The question I want to wrestle with today is how do we move towards true humility intentionally? The passage we're going to look at today is going to wrestle with that. We're going to look at the end of John Chapter eight. We've been working through the Book of John. We're getting to the end of John Chapter eight. But there's a verse in first, Peter, first. I want to expose you to that is going to set up this whole theme of humility and the whole mental approach I'm going to take with this first. Peter's towards the end of the New Testament. This verse really sets the tone for the mindset I want us to have as we think about moving towards humility today. How do we grow in humility? How do we understand what it means to be humble first? Peter Chapter five or six is where we're headed first. Peter Five, six. If you've gone to the first John in Revelation, go back a few pages first to Peter five, six, Humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you. And that phrase, that very first phrase there, humble yourselves, comes to mind all the time. Humble yourselves so that he doesn't have to. That's the picture. That's the mindset I want to have going into this passage today. The hope is that, yes, God does humble us at times, sometimes completely unrelated, sometimes because of our own ignorance, our own choices to ignore him, move away from him. How can we be intentional to humble ourselves? That's a much more pleasant path to go down, submitting ourselves to him, humbling ourselves so that he doesn't have to humble us on the path to humility. Well, in John Chapter eight, we're going to see today this passage is going to talk about as we move towards the understanding of what is true humility, what is the true source of humility. In this passage in particular, we're going to see six things. In fact, I would say these are six ways to rightly order your life, because if you rightly understand who you are in relation to everyone else, that's part of the picture of understanding what it means, what humility is. I've got to understand where I am rightly in comparison to someone else and to God of the universe and to my community to know where I stand. So we're going to look at these six ways to rightly order your life in John Chapter eight. I'm going to start in verse 48. Let's just read verse 48 as we start into this passage. John 848 The Jews answered him, Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Okay, maybe that's a kind of a random verse to start in to our passage on humility here. But keep in mind, we've been working through the book of John, where John Chapter eight is a long chapter, and there is a lot in there. So we've had to break it down into some smaller sections, but it's in the flow of this long conversation Jesus has been having with it, says the Jews in John. That's often refers specifically to the Jewish leaders who are antagonistic toward him, who don't believe in him, who are giving him a difficult time. We've seen argument after argument after argument all through Chapter seven, all through Chapter eight. Jesus knows they're out to kill him. By the way, he still continues to converse with them and and to have discussions about who he is or who he isn't. And so here they are. They're tired of this back and forth, and they're going on the offensive. Okay, Jesus, we know you are a Samaritan and a demon. Have a demon. Now, why would they use those to phrases in particular? Why would they call him a Samaritan? We know we've looked at the reality that Samaria, about Jewish leaders in particular, was an area looked down upon. They didn't think that people from that region were true Jews. In fact, they had their own version of the Hebrew scriptures that they followed, kind of had set up a competing religion. And so they saw him as as heretics. And you remember Jesus went there intentionally. This is a place they walked around and avoided. He goes there, ministers to a woman there loves on that community. Many people are converted partly it would be easy for them to say, you really care about those people that we all know are evil. You've really invested there. You must be from there. That must be who you are at your heart. You must be that same kind of heretic that's you're worthless. You have nothing good to say about God are following him. The other element is, and Colby pointed this out last week when it comes to the comment of him having a demon. Colby pointed out last week that they had kind of this tiff going back and forth about, well, who's your daddy? Who's your daddy? You say he's Abraham. I say, he's the devil. He's the father of lives back and forth. He's called before. And that was kind of this ancient version of your mama jokes. Right? And I was kind of disappointed. I was I was listening to the sermon as I was driving back, really disappointed, Colby, that you didn't give us some examples of some good your mama jokes. I would have liked to have heard of you. Maybe. Maybe we saved those for Mother's Day. How about that? Would that be good? Maybe not. Probably not. But they're attacking each other's genealogy. Your heritage, your the very essence of who you are. And where you come from. One commentator said it this way. Why would they say he has a demon? For a Jew to question paternity of other Jews? Was so despicable that only a demon possessed person would do that. There's no other description for why you would question whether we're from Abraham or not. You must have a demon. Why else would you do that? So here we are entering into this conversation about humility, and they're already attacking Jesus further. What we're going to see, though, in this next set of verses is where he begins to introduce us to how we rightly order our lives. Look at verse 49 through 51. Jesus answered him, Sorry, Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it. And he is the judge. Truly, Truly. I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. What we see here in verse 49 is the first, In fact, in this group of verses, we're going to see four of these six ways to rightly order our life. And the first one here is he says, I honor my father. I honor my father. And in this situation, in the midst of being attacked, in the midst of being told you can't be from God, he continues to go back to this standard of honoring his father. And there's a powerful application for us in this because you can't control what other people will say to you, what they will call you, what they will accuse you of. You can't. You have zero control over that. Sometimes we like to tell ourselves we do. But you have zero control over that. The only thing you can control is your response. And in the midst of this, Jesus says, I hear you. I hear you. I'm honoring my father. And so when you're in the midst of that of someone else attacking you, accusing you of heinous things, honor your father, rightly ordering your life, what he says is way more valuable in terms of who you are than what others say about you, especially when they're just trying to hurt this. That's their only goal here is just to hurt the religious leaders of the era. They just want to see Jesus suffer. They want to get rid of him in the midst of that honor. The father, that's the first one. But second, there's another here just within this very beginning, verse 50, I do not seek my own glory. So the second way we rightly honor our lives. Don't seek your own glory. Look the way we rightly order our lives. The way we grow in humility. Don't seek your own glory. Don't make it all about you. And even though Jesus was rightly declaring who He was, he really came with the mission of calling people to believe in him. And yet, even in the midst of that, he's pointing the glory to the Father. He's not making it only about him. In the midst of this, we get a just a glimpse into the Trinity, this relationship between Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the perfect love and interplay between them, the way they complement one another. And, you know, you think about all that. It was all that Jesus had at his disposal. I mean, we see the miracles. We see the statements he makes about himself. He he even hints at phrases before that made it clear, no, I'm actually better than Moses. I'm I'm better than Elijah. I bring bread that will last forever. I bring water that will give you. You'll never thirst again. He starts this whole section with a 12. I am the Light of the world, which was a hint that I have the same direction and wisdom that the Pillar of Fire had in the wilderness to pour out direction for you and your life. Big, bold statements. If we had that same level of power and authority in your lives, I got to tell you, I wouldn't be so obscure about it. I wouldn't take so long to make sure everyone knew how amazing I was. In fact, I'd be sure to hand out some of this. I'm sure Jesus could have handed out some excellent righteous judgment on a few folks along the way. And I know you probably have your own list of people that could use a little bit of that righteous judgment and that if you were God, you would be sure to hand it out quickly, not patiently. Don't seek your own glory. I think I thought as I thought about this passage, I thought of a couple of different ways that we do that. One is just to talk less about yourself and not in a way that's just try and avoid yourself for the sake of avoiding talking about yourself. But one way that engages others intentionally. One of the one of the most draining people to be around is that person that just goes on and on and on about themselves. You know what I'm talking about, right? She said, Yes. Down here we got a name ready to hand out. No, no, no names. Do you know what I mean? It's exhausting. And we've all been in seasons where we've been that person. In fact, that's natural. It's natural to just want to go on and on about ourselves. It's unnatural to pause, take a step back and say, okay, how can I engage others? How can I think of them first? In fact, Julie sometimes will say this We'll be driving somewhere in the car to an event or a meeting, and she'll say to the kids, But I think hopefully she's hoping that I will over here. Hey, kids, let's think of some questions to ask these people We're going to visit with. Let's think ahead of time. What's the question I could ask? How could I get to know them better? Here's what's so interesting about them. Here's all that we can learn from them. Be ready with a question. Be prepared because it doesn't come. It don't come naturally. We've got to work at it. And even in the midst of working at it, there's been times where we we've gone to an event or a meeting. I come home and I go, Yeah, no, I didn't. I made it about me tonight. I didn't. I didn't ask others questions. I didn't see it in the midst of it. Now I can see I wasn't focused on others. So start number one, just focus on how can I talk less about myself, show interest in others. But second, and I think what this passage illustrates. Don't just not talk about myself. Talk about one who's greater than me. What Jesus does here is he talks about the Father a lot. If you just go back through chapter eight and circle the word father, it showed up like 21 times. I mean, Father, Father, father, father. He can't not talk about his father. He's talking about one. He's so excited for others to truly know the father. That's all he can talk about. Part of the way we can make sure we're not making about our own glory is to make sure we're talking about the one who is so much greater than us. And there's a there's a balance to all this. By the way, I've been around those who do that in a way that is becomes kind of fake and forced in a way that actually is trying to draw attention to themselves, too. We need wisdom for how to do this rightly. But if that's our mindset to begin with, we can start to rightly order ourselves. We can start to rightly order and understand where we are in the midst of this crazy world which will bring humility. So that's the second way we rightly order our lives. Now let's look at the third way here. Verse 50, he says this I do not seek my own glory. There's someone else who seeks it, and he is the judge. I think a third way here that we rightly order our lives is to recognize that there is a judge. I mean, Jesus is saying to them, and we've got to get our head in the space of this with these guys, because this is for two chapters and probably many, many days of back and forth. And he's been very patient. But Chapter eight keeps building and building and building in intensity and in purposefulness. And in the way he's being very directed, in his words. And I think in the midst of that, there is some warning, even though these guys are clearly antagonistic toward him, he is still patient. He does not delight in the death of the wicked. He still has a tone of repent come to know the true father. And it's building and it's building and it's building. And here he gives just another warning. There is a judge, you know, just because and this is a helpful perspective for all of us to have, just because God doesn't judge us right away doesn't mean he can't or won't. There is a judge. There will be a day, a judgment, but he's showing mercy. He's enduring us in the midst of redeeming. And so here he gives a warning, in fact, that there are times where a warning is needed. I remember here John Piper tells a story. John Piper, he's well known pastor. He was in Minnesota and now he runs a ministry design god. And I remember hearing him say there was a man in this church, either deacon or elder, who left his wife and the fair was on the course to marry someone else. And and John met with him and said, listen, I am concerned about your salvation. And the guy goes, Whoa, wait a second. You're in a question. My salvation. And the missus, he said, Look, I'm not God. I can't know where you are, but your actions have me very concerned. When there seems to be no remorse, you seem to be just heading down the path that is opposite of everything. You know, there is a warning. He comes to him, desperate to warn him and to say, Don't keep going down this path because there will be a day of judgment. There is a judge, and it's easy in life to forget that, to forget that there is a judge. There are standards. Of course, there's forgiveness and grace. Of course, we talk about that all the time here. But in the background of that is because there is a righteous God who loves us so much and he has a standard and Jesus reminds them of that. Here he is, the judge. There will be a day of judgment. Don't forget that in the midst of everything else, that helps to rightly order our lives. And just to remind us, there is a cost. The way I live does matter. And we can't forget that in the midst of all of our lives. So that's the third element. Have we have how we rightly order our lives. Next is the fourth in verse 51. I love what he says here because in the midst of these heavy statements, I honor my father. You don't. There is one who judges in the midst of these very heavy statements. He brings hope. Look at verse 51. Truly, Truly. I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. So in the midst right after saying there is a judge, but if you keep my word, you will never see death. And just even reading that is so hard to read that verse, because we've all seen a verse like that so many times. But in reality, when I come across this verse, I mean, it should hit hard and heavy because that's what we're all hoping for. Every single one of us wants just another ounce of life. We're doing all we can to avoid death. I mean, that's why every other ad on TV or the Internet or on a magazine or anywhere is from Big Pharma. It's some kind of pill you can take. Just give me another minute of life and we just eat it up because that's what we all want, myself included. Just give me a little bit more health, a little bit more life, that's all. And you have right here, he says to the Jews. He's saying it to us if you want to never see death. And of course, we know and this is part of the confusing part of John. He's often talking on two levels. Oftentimes they are go, what do you mean? We're we're not dead yet. We're all alive here. We're not. He's not talking about physical death. He's talking about spiritual death and life, which is way more important than physical death and life as much value as we place on that. If you want to know, true life, if you want to know life to its fullest, if you want to make sure to never die. Follow my word. Know him. Walk closely with him. That's keep his word. That's going to be the ultimate source of life beyond all else. And of course, the Jews hear this. They hear this all this whole weight of what Jesus is saying about rightly ordering your life. Humble yourself, know who you are. They hear all this and here's how they respond. Look at verse 52, 53 Jews said to him, Now we know that you have a demon. We accused you of it before. Now we're sure Abraham died, as did the prophets. Yet you say, if anyone keeps my words, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died and the prophets died? Who do you make yourself out to be? Who do you think you are? Here's another way of saying that. What are you really trying to say about yourself? Which is actually a great question. And that's the very question they should be asking. This isn't a sincere version of that question. Who are you really? Come out. Be clear. Stop talking in generalities. What do you mean? You were before or you might not die. How can you be greater than Abraham? How can you be greater than the people we all look to as the foundation of our faith? That's not even possible. Jesus hears that. He responds, Look at verse 54, 55 If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say He is our God, but you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I'd be a liar like you. But I do know him. And I keep his word. Here is just another example of how he continues to warn them to specific ways in here. If you look back at verse 54, it is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God. You say he's our God. You say he's saying to the Jewish leaders, you say he's your God. And of course, you can say something all day long and it not be true. And they're saying he's our God, No, we follow him. But yet their actions don't match up with what they even personally say to follow the very fact that they're trying to kill him, to go around all the laws. They care more about control and power than following the law. You say he's your God, yet he's not. That's the first way he warns them here in this verse. But he also points out something that is at the essence of what's going on here, that they are entirely different. He says, I know him. I'm not a liar like you. I know him and I keep his word. Jesus knows the father and they don't. And he's warning. He's warning. I'm telling you. Listen, it's not too late. Come to know him. Come to follow him. Don't continue to deny his word. Don't continue to act like you follow him when you don't. And of course, he can say that he knows. There are times when we have to warn. And I think rightly, we wonder, do I have this right or not? Am I seeing this right? That is actually really healthy. That's a great place if you need to correct someone to approach it with humility. It's going to be a lot better received. And you could be wrong. It's possible. But he's warning. He's pressing in. He's not just letting things be. And all this leads to the fifth way that we rightly order our lives. Look at verse 56. He says, Your father, Abraham, rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw him, was glad. So the Jews said to him, You're not yet 50 years old and you've seen Abraham the fifth way. We rightly order our lives in verse 56. We look forward to the day of Christ. Look forward to the day of Christ. And this brings perspective to all of life. This brings humility in all of life. There is a day out ahead of us that's so much greater than now, and that doesn't mean we hate our current life that we don't make the most of it, that we don't try to enjoy it and live it to its fullest. But yet also we know this isn't the end game. There's a greater day out ahead. And he says, Here, Abraham saw my day. Now, there's a lot of confusion around that phrase. What does that mean? Abraham saw my day. There's a lot of different perspectives on this. As I read across commentaries, one view was that this is simply referring to there were this thing called the often is in the Old Testament, which were appearances of God in person. Some say some of those may have been Christ showing up before he was incarnate to make an appearance. And so maybe Abraham actually had in-person interaction with Jesus reincarnate before he came later. I think that's one approach, that's one possibility. I think a stronger view as I looked across this is, you know, back in Genesis chapter 12, God made the promise to Abraham through you all the nations of the world will be blessed through your line. One commentator said it this way. This was simply Abraham's recognition that it was through Jesus or through someone else out in the future, through his seed, through his lineage. It wouldn't be through him personally, but on out ahead of him, that God would ultimately bless the nations. He had a glimpse of this when he went to sacrifice Isaac on the mountain. Isaac's like, Where's the sacrifice? Don't worry, God will provide. And God did. He provided Abram so that Abraham didn't sacrifice his son, but also pointing forward to a day when he would provide the ultimate sacrifice for everyone, gets a glimpse of God, his day out ahead. And so we look forward to that day. We look forward to Christ's return. We know there will come a day when he returns and when we spend time with him forever. That's part of how we rightly order our life now. The last way we rightly order our life, number six and this shows up in verse 58, I'm going to read verse 57 again to set it up. And by the way, the first five all are building to this huge one in comparison, all very important. But in terms of how we rightly order our lives, this is the one that should hit us the hardest. When we get to verse 58. So the Jews said to him, You are not yet 50 years old. 50 years old would have been in the temple service retirement age. So you're not even old enough to retire. Yet you say you've been around or you'll be around after Abraham or you're before him or whatever. You won't die. How can that be? Are you some kind of Lord of the Rings? Ellis, who lives forever? No, he says you're not 50 years old. And you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was, I am now spent a fair amount of time talking about that phrase I am a couple of weeks ago. Just to recap, at one level, it's very common. Of course, you're going to see if you just do a search on I am. You're going to see it thousands of times in scripture. But words in context have a different meaning. And the way he uses it here is, without a doubt, without question, a direct connection to God, using that as his own title, as his own name, especially in the structure here. If he wanted to say, I'm just older than Abraham, many commentators pointed out he would have just said before Abraham was I was I was back there with him to. But he's not saying that. He's not saying I'm as old as Abraham or just a little bit older. I am the very originator of Abraham. In fact, I am the creator of the world. I am there's no other title that can be used for me Then I am. And so as we rightly order our lives in this pursuit of true humility, we got to recognize who Jesus is, recognize who Jesus is when he says, I am, and look, when you encounter those who say Jesus never really claim to be God, how can you say that He is divine? Even those who hated him, who wanted to kill him, who didn't believe in him, who didn't want to follow him, look at how they respond. They picked up stones to throw at him, verse 59. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. In the immediate instance, they knew exactly what he was saying. They knew that he was claiming to be divine, so much so that they're seeking to carry out capital punishment right away, claiming to be God himself. They don't even wait for the judge and jury pick up stones to throw. They knew what he was saying. They knew the claim he was making. And if we want to have true humility, if we want to move towards humility in life, you got to rightly order your life. You got to know where you stand with him, with the father, with others. I remember one summer, Julian, I served at a camp for kids, called out with athletes in action. This was when we were both in college and one of the groups that came in one week was a group of inner city kids. And it was a fun time. It was a great group, completely different dynamic than all the other weeks. It was so much fun. One of the times they had this Q&A session and the kids were asking questions of one of the pastors that had come with the group, and one of the girls gets up and she goes, How is it that God is always telling us to praise him? I'll read through the Psalms, and he's always like, Praise me, praise me, praise me. Is he that needy that he needs us to tell him he's all that? You know what? Fair question. Fair question. In fact, this week I was talking with a buddy of mine. He's a he's a pastor up in Indiana. And he said in the church he grew up in, he would often hear this, you know, garden. God needed us so much. He created us. He just wasn't complete without us. He had to make us to be fulfilled. In fact, he would be at funerals and hear stuff like, Man, God is getting blessed today with this one. Heaven is going to be a better place when this one shows up. But no, no, God didn't need us. In fact, the book we were discussing together, the whole point of the book was the fact that there is a beginning point in the universe shows it wasn't necessary. He chose to create us. He loves us, but he didn't have to. There wasn't something missing in him that we fill up. Somehow. He's not better off. He's not more complete because he made us. Now that doesn't lessen how much he loves us. In fact, it shows how much more he loves us. So fair question on the part of why is he always seeking praise as they need people to build up his ego? Is he that weak? Here's what the God said to her. He said, It's not that God needs to hear that He's all that you need to hear. That is all that and more because he is all that and more. I thought, Man, what a great response he is. All that and more. And we rightly order ourselves when we tell ourselves time and again, he is all powerful, He is in authority. I can trust him fully. I don't understand the situation right now, but he's the one I can depend on no matter anything else. And the times when I stop remembering that, when I stop declaring that truth to myself, that's when things don't go well. That's when the humbling begins. That's when that John Wayne quote plays out. And so my prayer for us today all comes back to first. Peter five, six, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you at the proper time. Let's pray God, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for your word. Our prayer is that through the power of your Holy Spirit, we would purposefully, intentionally humble ourselves before you, that we would remind ourselves of who you are, how great you are, that we would remind ourselves, Jesus, that you are God. We are not. That we would glorify the Father. We would not seek our own glory. I pray that as a church there would be a spirit of humility here that is just felt when people walk in and others would know we're not perfect. We don't have everything together. But at least we're trying to say that God is the greatest, that we lean on Jesus. We depend on Him. Lord help that to be our heart, our posture. You're our burden today. Thank you for so many who've lived that out so faithfully for so many years and set that example for us. Help us to do the same. Help us to be faithful. We love you, Jesus. We pray in your name. Amen.