Humility That Holds A Church Together

Pride feels powerful but keeps us small. We walk through Philippians 2 to show how true strength looks like Jesus laying aside status, taking the form of a servant, and choosing obedience all the way to the cross. That vision of humility isn’t groveling; it’s agreeing with God’s view of who we are—jars of clay carrying a priceless treasure—and letting that truth reshape how we love, lead, and serve.

We share the simple study habit that unlocks the chapter’s flow, then connect Paul’s call to lowliness with a deeper diagnosis of the heart. From 2 Corinthians 4 we name the enemy’s trick of blinding minds either with inflated pride or crushing self-contempt. We revisit Peter’s journey from boastful zeal to sober strength and John the Baptist’s clear north star: “I must decrease, he must increase.” Along the way, we challenge the illusion of celebrity preachers and remind ourselves there is only one mediator, one exalted name, and one Lord.

The heart of this conversation is Christ’s descent and the promise tied to it: God exalts the humble. We apply that to everyday life—marriage that asks “How can I serve you today?”, churches that watch for needs instead of attention, and believers who find freedom when Christ sits at the center. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord; wisdom bows now. Listen, reflect, and take an honest inventory: where will you decrease so that Jesus can increase? If this message helps you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Transcript

Therefore And The Call To Humility

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Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. I want to talk to you today about humility. And you can just know what my week has been like when we're preaching on certain topics and passages. We are wondering to ourselves, am I practicing what I'm about to preach? So the Lord has been challenging me this week with my humility. And it's been one of those kinds of weeks. And I want to point out to you here in the beginning of this chapter a wonderful word that I want to show you, and maybe we'll learn something today about studying the Bible. When you come to the Bible and you begin reading, for example, in Philippians chapter 2 and in verse 1, and it says this. Do you see that fourth word there? The word therefore. Every time you come across that in the Bible, you can ask yourself the question, what the therefore is therefore. It's in reference to what I preached to you last week in the end of chapter one. It's about those who are in the body of Christ. It's about those who are unified in Christ. It's about those who are fearless before our enemies. It's about those who will have a real relationship with the Lord. Let me ask you to raise your hand if you have a real relationship with the Lord today. Amen. Those that are born again, those that are born of the love of God, that God has loved you, you have realized that. You've realized that He's a savior and that you're the sinner. It's the most marvelous day of your life the day you'll realize that. And many of you can tell me about the day and the place and the time where the Lord saved you. Well, he says, in light

What Humility Is And Isn’t

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of that, if you're the church, if you're born again, now we can proceed into chapter 2. Are you ready? If therefore, if there be therefore any consolation of Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels of mercy, fulfill ye my joy, Pastor Paul says, he writes as a very fatherly figure. Fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. And he begs the church this, what I would beg of us. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind. I'm going to ask you to humble yourself today. I'm going to ask you to take spiritual stock and inventory of your heart's condition. Are you a humble person? Do you prefer other people? Do you think of others? That's what Paul is asking. By the way, when we get to verse 11, this is all gonna make sense. We must be humble. We must be humble. What is the opposite of humility? What would it be? Pride? Arrogance? Conceit? Self-centeredness? Do any of you love anybody because of those reasons? What I love most about him is his self-centeredness. It's my favorite, how that he really thinks of himself before anyone else. We hate that, don't we? In fact, the Bible says that God hates a proud heart. It's repulsive to you as it is repulsive to God. My dad would say, I've got no reason to brag, I've got no reason to boast, I've got no reason to be proud and prideful. But I don't let that stop me. I just and you don't have any reason either, but it doesn't stop you. We must ask God to help us with this. Now, when I talk about humility, let me start off by telling you, first of all, what it is not. Humility is not self-deprecating, it is not self-insultation, it is not putting yourself down, it is not self-depreciation or it is having a right view of who you are before God. What we should do is this we should have the opinion of ourselves that God has of us. Amen. Let me just act like a psychic here for a second. Your problem is that you have too low a view of yourself and too high a view of yourself at the same time. He's good. Yes, I am. That's right. That's all of our problems. We have a wrong view of ourselves. We think that we are trash and garbage and there's nothing good. And I'm telling you, Jesus didn't die for garbage. That is the opinion of the evil one. The opinion of the evil one is this you are better than you think, and you're worse than you think. We should not agree with the devil about who we are. We should agree with Jesus. Amen? Humility is this. It is not those things, but it is having the same opinion of ourselves that God has. Humility comes from love. It comes from God loving us. It comes from us receiving his love. That's how we get a right view of who we are. In fact, we can't have unity in our church if we have a wrong view of who we are. You know, one time there was this one church and only one church, where somebody had a wrong view of themselves, and it caused big problems of disunity in the church. It was just one church. It's never happened in other churches, but there was one church. That's the source of all of our problems, isn't it? Every committee, every group, every, I mean, if there's two of you together, there's a potential for problems because we're going to have either an inflated or a deflated view of who God says we are. Let me ask you to turn in your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And I want to belabor the point here just a little bit before we move on in the passage. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. If you're there, say amen. If you're waiting for it to show up on the screen, say amen. Okay, that's fine too. Listen what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4. Now, in terms of seeing yourself, notice the language

Blinded Minds And Jars Of Clay

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here that he says of the devil, of the evil one. We'll go to verse 4 in chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians. It says, In whom, talk about this world, the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not. He's in the business of blinding us, he's in the business of helping us not to see correctly, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Verse 5, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. Ourselves as your servants, for Jesus' sake. For God who commended the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And we have this treasure, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. So a few things there. He says, here's the truth about you, and here's the truth about me. We are jars of clay. We are made in the image of God, and you bear God's image. You made in the, the Latin would say the amago day. God has placed his stamp on you. That's why in Genesis 1 it says, Let us make man in our image. And you're like him. You are the glory of God, so to speak, that you think and feel and act just as he does. He's a thinking and feeling and acting God. But are we God? Are we royalty? Ah, no. We are, he says, treasures of earthen vessels. Jars of clay. Are we the valuable ones? Or is it the thing that's in the jar that makes it valuable? You see, we are just, well, we're made of the dust, is what God said that he made Adam of, formed him with his own two hands, and breathed life into him. We are but dust, we are this clay, earthen vessels. But it's the Christ inside of us that gives us our value. So the evil one, the God of this world, verse four, has blinded our minds so that we could not see clearly. But Christ has come. Middle of verse four, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto us. And Paul says this we don't preach ourselves or give to you ourselves, we magnify Jesus. What did Paul say? He said, When I came unto you at the Corinthian church, I came unto you knowing nothing except, help me out, Jesus Christ and him crucified. And Paul's great. I mean, he's marvelous, he's really something, but he says, I want you to know I've got a right view of myself or trying to have a right view of myself. It is God in me that's that's the only good that there is. You see, so when we say that we are less than, when we are, when we are lowly, when we are maybe unforgivable, unlovable, unredeemable, what you're doing, you are agreeing with the God of this world who has blinded our minds. We should look unto the God of the glorious light who has shin his light on us to see that we are, by the way, what is your house worth? It's worth what someone will pay for it. Amen. What did Jesus pay for you? That's what you're worth. You're worth an awful lot, dear brothers and sisters. We are not some exalted where we're better than anybody else, but we're also not lower and to be, you know, discriminated and cast aside. You're not that either. We've got to get on the plane and say, I am who God says that I am. And when we do that, we can have love with one another and we can have unity in the church, but not until we have humility. Go back to our passage in Philippians chapter 2. He's going to give a few examples here of this great humility that must be in the church. Let me read D verses 3 and 4 again. Philippians 2, 3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, your own interests, but every man also on the things of others. And this is an attitude of humility. This is what we are called to do. One of the disciples was not a very humble person. If I say that, who do you think of? One of the disciples who was not humble. Peter. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you exactly you're all right. He was very bombastic. He was very, you know, he was also one of those, you know, when we come into your kingdom, I want to sit on your right hand, like I want to be, you know, the biggest and the best. You know, and he was always running off at the mouth, and he could never take the temperature of the room. Anybody like that in here? Don't raise your hands. You might be. That's been me so many times I have had to put my foot in my mouth and apologize for lack of humility. Peter, later in his life, by the way, aren't you thankful that God's still working on you? Aren't you thankful that he's in the business of making meek people bold and he's in the business of making bold people meek? I'm in the latter category. My dad told me that God had given me a great boldness, a great boldness to speak.

Esteeming Others And Peter’s Lesson

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He said, But be careful that your boldness does not also require bail, right? Money. Yes, that's good. That's good. These things should be in balance. Peter, at the end of his life in his ministry, he says in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 5 and 6, he says, Humble yourself there under the mighty hand of God, that he may in due time exalt you. You see, God wants to exalt and bless, but he cannot if you will not humble yourself. Can I give you a chilling warning? The very next verse there in 1 Peter 5, it says, Casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you. That means realizing you have a need of God. The very next verse after that it says, Because the devil as a roaring lion is seeking whom he may devour. Put these pieces together, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, get a right view of who God says you are, and agree with that. Cast your cares, go to him with all of your needs. You can't do these things on your own. See how that passage goes? 1 Peter 5, you can check it out. It's by the way, that's what Peter experienced. The night before the crucifixion, Peter said, Lord, I'm gonna, I'm with you all the way. And he said, You guys are gonna deny me, you're gonna run away. He said, I'll never deny you, I'll never run away. He goes, Peter, before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you're gonna deny me three times. You're gonna deny that you even know me. He comes to Peter and he says, Hey Peter, Satan has asked me if he can have you. And he's like, Did you tell him no? Spoken for? He doesn't. He's here's here's what he says. And by the way, his great testing is gonna come when he does fail Christ, when he does, because there were two disciples that failed Christ that night. Right? He said, I have prayed for you that your faith would fail you not. That when you do fail and when you deny me, that you would not, I don't know, kill yourself. By the way, the other one, what was his name? Judas, and what did he do? He had this wrong view of himself. I can never be redeemed, I can never be forgiven, and the Bible says he took his own life. Probably out of some false level of humility. Right? That's below what God says you are. We don't want to be up here, we don't want to be here, we want to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Another great illustration of humility. Do you know John the Baptist? Not me, the other one. I'm the free will Baptist, it's different. John the Baptist was the cousin of Jesus, and he was the forerunner, he was the last of the Old Testament prophets, the greatest preacher to ever live. Jesus said, There is not a greater man born among women than John the Baptist. John the Baptizer, and he says, Be repent, behold, repair the way, the Lord is coming. That's what it is. And their ministries overlapped about six months. About six months after Jesus started his ministry, John was put in prison and beheaded. He was the first one to acknowledge Jesus even in the womb, his mother, and Jesus' mother, Mary. They came together, and John testified even in utero, who Jesus was in the other utero. John chapter 3, Jesus is coming and is baptized. And his disciples of John, it's in verse 30 there, but previous to that, the disciples of John Baptist, he had his own disciples. They said, There's this other guy, the one that you said at the river yesterday, that you baptized and you you proclaimed him. Everyone's going to him and they're all being baptized. They're going to him. It was ministry jealousy. They're all going to the wrong church. They want to go to the ministry. We shouldn't go to that church. I hope that church doesn't grow. I want my church to grow. Wouldn't that be an awful thing to say? John says, He's the one. No one can give anything to anyone except God. God can give it, and he's given this ministry to Jesus. He is the one, he's the savior. And he says this is something we all must say. Are you ready? I must decrease. He must increase. You see, that should be the battle cry of the church for every believer. I'm nothing and you're nothing. We're all servants of God. None of us are celebrities here. We deserve honor in a sense that because we are the Imago Day, made in the image of God, and you love God, and you're here and you're serving, and there's value to that. But exaltation, no believer deserves. Hear me now. There's no such thing as a celebrity preacher. It's an oxymoron. It's a stupid phrase. It should not be. We clap, we appreciate what it should be appreciated. We give honor where honor is due, but not exaltation. Exaltation

John The Baptist And Decreasing

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only belongs to Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is wrong for any man to call himself the mediator between God and man. The only priest is Jesus Christ. He's the only mediator. It is wrong for a man to call himself Father. The Holy Father? That is a name that only belongs to God, the vicar of Christ. That is a name only reserved for Jesus Himself. I don't deserve that. You don't deserve that. We have a right view, and John says it correctly. I must decrease. By the way, you must decrease as well. And Jesus must increase. Okay, all that to say the rest of our passage. Are you ready? Listen to what he says in verse 5. Verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. A mind of humility he's talking about. And he's going to give the greatest example. I've given you the example of Peter and of John Baptist. And there's even one of Timothy later in this chapter in verse 19. We'll read that too. But the main example of our humility is Jesus. He's the one we follow. Verse 6, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. It was his status, it was his standing, it was his title, but he laid aside some measure of his glory to come and be born in a barn and raised among us. Look in verse 7. But made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant. He was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. Think about the condensation, how he condescended to low degree to come and be among us. The book of Hebrews says it like this. What are we? Who are we that he would be mindful of us? That he would make of himself a little lower than the angels. Can you imagine the demotion that he gave himself to come and walk among us? Can you imagine the pain that it was in all of eternity past experiencing perfect glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and it was absolute perfect union? And he leaves that for a manger and a barn and a world full of people that will hate him, to shed his blood, to separate himself from the Father, to bear our sins, to become sin for us. 2 Corinthians 5 21. How low did he have to come to get here? And the Bible says he thought nothing of it, but it was the right thing to do, to condescend, to demote. And the pain was that he did not cling to his rights. He laid aside his glory, he took on himself the nature of man. He humbled himself there in verse 8, and he was obedient even unto the cross. Do you see that there at the end of verse 8? He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Here's humility. Humility

The Mind Of Christ And His Descent

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seeing the need of someone else. And placing the burden upon you to meet it. That's what when you go to a restaurant this afternoon, you're going to have a server. And their job is not to get in the way of your meal, their job is simply to enhance your experience, to bring you what you need, and to make your experience enjoyable. What if we live like that in this church? To look upon the needs of others and what can I do for you? What can I give you? How can I serve you? By the way, men and women, how would that do in our marriages? If we woke up and said, How can I serve this woman laying next to me? How can I serve my husband today? How can I serve my wife? How can I serve my children? I'm telling you right now, if we decrease that he may increase, that changes everything. You see, Jesus humbled himself. And did you see what God does there? Verse 9? He exalts the humble. Listen to what it says about Jesus here. Verse 9, wherefore God have also highly exalted him. God exalts the humble, he demotes the proud, he exalts the humble, and given him a name which is above every name. Now I don't know exactly what that means, but I think it means that he will give him the name that is due to him as Lord. One day he will be crowned King of kings and Lord of Lords. Because of what it says here, everyone's going to agree, by the way, you're going to agree as to who Jesus is. Verse 10. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye also have obeyed, also in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It is to us to give attention, to take over I said earlier, this stock, this inventory of our hearts. Because I'm telling you this, and here's the conclusion of the message right now. Every knee will bow before him one day. Everyone's gonna agree. Here's my question for you today. Wouldn't it be easier to bow today than to be forced to bow then? It's gonna happen. I mean, he's gonna come in clouds of glory, and everyone will agree. Here's the thing about hell hell will be full of people who know and agree with who God is. They will there will be no atheists, there will be no agnostics separated from God. They will all say he is Lord, he is king, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. What I want to say to you today, and my life is this my life is to say, confess him today. Bow today, kneel today, say, Lord, here I am to proclaim a right view of myself and a right view of who you are. By the way, we can't have a right view of ourselves till we get a right view of him. That's why we experience such unity in this church. We're agreed on these things. We love one another, we pray for one another. You can just see what happens at these altars when folks come. No one comes alone. It's marvelous. No one asks you what you're doing when you get up here. So, what are we praying about? Is it juicy? What's going on? It's just between you and God. They're here to support. It's not invasive. We are serving one another in this way. What I want to say to you is there is a day coming when you will bow before God Almighty. And I'm saying, today is the day of salvation. I want to invite you to stand right now.

Exalted Name And Every Knee Bowed

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Miss Donna, Miss Stephanie, you're gonna come and bring us a song, but I want to pray with you. And there may be someone here this morning who is unsaved and not sure, or maybe you have made that commitment, but you've never publicly professed who Jesus Christ is, Lord of Lords, and that you are his child, not just his creation, but his child. Today would be a marvelous day for you to come forward, to come and kneel and pray. And I'm telling you, folks will come and encourage you. This is a good place to be. You think about it. Let me pray. Father, we do give you honor and joy, we give you glory and praise. Oh Lord, that you would save someone this morning. God, that you would be of a mind and you are to forgive. The Bible says that you are in the business of saving those to the uttermost. God, would you bless and God would you help? Lord, it's so miserable for some who have placed themselves at the center of their life, where they are the authority, where they are the goal. But Lord, what freedom comes in Jesus' name when we kneel and say, No, Christ is King, Christ is God. I can be forgiven. Oh Lord Jesus, would you save something today? In Jesus' name. Amen.