Humility in Leadership

Tom Shrader introduces a leadership series by arguing that humility is the number one characteristic for successful Christian living and godly leadership. Drawing from seven biblical figures including Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Job, Jeremiah, and Daniel, he demonstrates that humility involves accurate self-appraisal, recognizing God as benefactor, personal insufficiency, transparency in dependence on God, and rejection of unwarranted acclaim. He emphasizes that humility is both a command and a prerequisite for salvation, contrasting worldly leadership principles with biblical ones.

“I'm convinced that the number one characteristic to living a successful in God's eye Christian life is humility.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Studies in Leadership

Recorded: January 30, 2003

Duration: 44 min

Themes: humility, leadership, pride, character, obedience, service, submission, godliness, struggling with pride, new to leadership, pastor, elder, mentor, parent, business leader, feeling inadequate

Scripture: Genesis 18:27, James 4:10, 1 Peter 5:6, Genesis 32, Exodus 3, Matthew 5:3, Joshua 7:6, Job 42, Daniel 2:29, Psalm 9:12, Psalm 25, Psalm 147, Isaiah 57, 2 Chronicles 7, Matthew 18, Romans 12:1, Romans 12:3, Romans 12:16

Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual formation, biblical leadership, servant leadership, christian character, spiritual maturity, discipleship, stewardship

Full Transcript

When I say brand new, I don't mean that we begin this series today, although that's part of it. This is some material we have not looked at for almost six years. I did not know that I had this series. I'm in the process—Susan and I are moving, and we're finding lots of stuff as we move. We've been in the house almost 21 years. I have a guy coming tomorrow to pick up—I probably am moving, I don't have a clue how many books. I probably have about 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 books that they're going to pick up and take away tomorrow. So that's it. There's just stuff everywhere, things that I don't need, and that's been really hard to do, but we're moving.

I found this series, and what's interesting to me is the topic: leadership. The reason I find it interesting is because I've spent a lot of time bashing leadership. I think I went on a search engine, typed in leadership, found 25,000 sites. I typed in follower, and I found 25 sites. So there's lots of discussion on leadership.

A Different Perspective on Leadership

I think for us to do another series on leadership doesn't have much value to you, except that as with everything, we'll take a different perspective. When we talk about leadership, just the very first week—studies in humility—would tell you that we're coming at it from a very different perspective. If you went over and you talked to some MBA students and you said, "What do you think you need to be an effective leader," I doubt humility pops up on the screen. And yet I think that's essential to be a godly leader.

I'm going to spend four or five minutes here on introduction that I think is really important. I'm convinced that the number one characteristic to living a successful in God's eyes Christian life is humility. I think that's the number one ingredient. If C.S. Lewis is right when he says pride's the anti-God state of mind, the ultimate vice, if it's through pride that Lucifer became the devil, then the flip side of that, the essential virtue would be humility.

In fact, and we'll talk about it today, I don't think you can even begin the Christian life. I don't think you will be a Christian if there is not humility in your life. And as a leader, I think it's important for you to understand that ingredient.

Everyone is a Leader and a Follower

You may resist the idea of being a leader. I want to suggest to you that it may or may not be in business. It may be in the home, maybe at the church, it may be in community service, it may be in the club or some organization you're involved in—you probably are a leader. Most certainly in your life, you're a follower. Those characteristics are very similar, at least in this area. If you're going to be a follower, there needs to be, in your life, humility.

Now, I don't want to take a couple of minutes—very important—I am not talking about following the teachings of Jesus. That's a very popular thing to do. Mahatma Gandhi gave testimony to the fact that he followed the teaching of Jesus. He read the Gospels every day. Every day of his life, Gandhi followed the teachings of Jesus. But he was not a follower of Christ. He followed the teaching.

Following Teachings vs. Following Christ

If you're going to be a follower of the teaching of Christ, not a follower of Christ, your ultimate destination is hell. Gandhi, if Gandhi died—we can't look into his heart, we don't want to play judge on this, but we do want to make sure we understand from a case study perspective—if Gandhi died, and his testimony hasn't changed, in other words, he was a follower of Jesus' teaching but not a follower of Christ, in other words, he said, "I can't believe that Jesus or anybody else died for me," then we would say to you, Gandhi's the nicest man in hell. But he's in hell. Let's make sure we understand that.

Thomas Jefferson did the same thing. Thomas Jefferson was an advocate of the teaching of Jesus. I told you before, you can go and get what's called the Jefferson Bible. I was at Borders last week, and I was in the American History section looking for something, and I just came to the Jefferson section, and there it was—the Jefferson Bible. Well, the Jefferson Bible is Thomas Jefferson taking the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John—he took out all the stuff he didn't like, he took out everything that was supernatural, and what was left was called the Jefferson Bible. It was titled, not the Jefferson Bible (that's what we call it), what Jefferson called it was "The Morals and Teachings of Jesus Christ."

Jefferson was a devout follower of the teachings of Jesus, but he rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah, or as God, as a man. So Jefferson—we got the nicest guy in hell, now we got the smartest guy in hell. But in hell. And we don't laugh—I laugh with you and I know what you mean, but it's a grievous thing.

I'm not saved by the teachings of Jesus Christ. I'm saved by the death of Christ. If I don't embrace that, I'm not a Christian. Once I'm a Christian, the teachings of Jesus Christ are fundamentally important to me—the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the other sections, the New Testament and Old Testament as well. When we talk about humility, we're talking about us as followers of Jesus Christ.

Humility is a Command

We're going to go through—you Type A's are in for a rugged day today, because I have lots of blanks. I don't have the overheads, I'll try to read them to you and be as diligent as I can, but please bear with me.

First of all, humility is a command. Humility is not optional. When we talk about humility, we're talking about a command. This is not optional behavior. It's not "do the best you can, if you can be humble, that's fine." No, the command is this: in James 4:10, "Humble yourselves before the Lord"—it's a command—"and He will lift you up." First Peter 5:6, very important: God is opposed to the proud. He's not neutral, He's not passive. It's not that He says, "Oh, that pride thing, that's a bad thing." No, He's opposed.

Literally intervening, He's opposed to the proud. I will tell you, and this is from personal experience and from scripture, when you begin to embrace humility and begin to resist pride, you will find a freedom in your life that you never dreamt possible. All of a sudden you're not worried about what everybody's thinking. All of a sudden you're not making stupid decisions based on what people might think or feel or say about you. You're following what the scripture says for you to do, you're obeying it, and all of a sudden you will find joy in relationships and life.

Here you go, I'll give you two examples. Wives submit to your husbands. Now, there's all sorts of moves and ways to try to interpret that now and try to put it in new light. Let's go to the original text, let's go to the Greek. What does it say in the Greek? Here's what it says in the Greek: wives submit to your husbands. And we're trying to come up with some way to make it mutual submission, 50-50. That's not what it says. It says wives submit to your husbands.

Well out of pride I want to resist that. What about my rights? Listen, if I just submit to him, don't I just become a doormat? All of a sudden, won't he take advantage of me? Let me take all the uncertainty out of it. I guarantee you he'll take advantage of you. It's a guaranteed thing, it's going to happen.

Here you go: husbands love your wives. In an understanding way live with her, nurture her. Well if I just come along and I nurture her and I love her, won't she be kind so she'll take advantage of me? I guarantee it. But what we're called to do is to humbly follow the Lord, wherever He's placed us.

I spent just one more second on that. I did a tape and I don't know if we have it at the office. I don't remember if I did it in here on what a woman really needs from a man, and then I did one on what a man really needs from a woman. I'm one of those rare people that understand both sides of this, I say humbly. Well that's a very helpful tape. I can't remember, it's been a long time. Did I do that in here one time? Yeah I did. Profound.

Gals I'll just help you out here and then I've got to move on. This wives submit to your husbands - if you fall into this ilk that's redefining things and want to say well that means this, and you want to get it out of there, then you better get out what comes right with it which is husbands love your wives. I find all sorts of people that want to explain wives submit to your husband and want to get it out of the way, but I don't find anybody that says tear out husbands love your wives. All I'm saying is you have to be true to your interpretation and you have to embrace both of them.

The Challenge of Defining Humility

Humility is a command. Humility is now defined, and now we're going to give you seven interesting insights into humility. Humility is one of those things where everything in us craves a list of things we can do to be humble. We are by nature legalistic people. We want measures, we want steps, we want five, six of these, and humility is no exception. Give me five things to do.

And here's the tragedy there: as you well know, if you give me five things to do and I do them, at the end of the week I'm proud of how humble I am. And that's what's going to happen. Humility is just being, it's not doing. I happen to believe by the way submission is the same. I keep going back to that, but somebody asked me once if Susan was in submission to me, and I said absolutely. And they said give me an example, and I said I can't give you one, but it's an attitude, it's an understanding that you clearly can see it.

Well, I'm going to give you, take this idea of humility and take it like a prism and just tweak it seven times.

First Insight: Humility Is Accurate Self-Appraisal

The first is by Abraham. Abraham is at this point in his life where he is pursuing what God has for him. God has now appeared in the form of an angel. We believe it's a pre-existing image of Christ, and this angel tells Abraham that destruction is coming to Sodom. Abraham begins to deal with this angel like he's Tex Earnhardt. He wants to negotiate a deal with Him. Would you destroy it if there were 50 people? How about 45? How about 40?

In the midst of this, Abraham says, "Though I'm nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous people is less than 50?" Here's the first thing we learn from Abraham: that humility is an accurate appraisal of yourself. Abraham understands who he is. He's nothing but dust and ashes.

In this world, and I don't say it's legitimate, there is this thirst to understand who we are. There seems to be almost an endless desire on the part of people to try to understand themselves, to find themselves, to go and to discover themselves. And we go to all ends. I made this comment to you before. I find many people that say, "I just have to get away and find out who I am and discover who I am." And that usually means a trip to the Broadmoor or a trip to Monterey. No one ever says, "I've got to find out who I am, I'm going to Casa Grande." I mean, it always seems whatever problems I'm in, I'm going to complicate them by spending five grand on a trip.

I'm going to save you the five grand. Just mail it to me. Mail me $2,500 and we'll call it even. If you want to find out who you really are, ignore yourself and study God. That's what Isaiah 6 says. Isaiah, all of a sudden he sees God. When he understands who God is, he says, "Woe to me for I'm undone."

A. W. Tozer says we have two essential flaws in our theology. One is, it does not ascend high enough. The other is, it does not descend low enough. It does not ascend high enough in our view of God and who He is. We've made God just another being, just a little bit higher than us, and it doesn't descend low enough. We've given man too much credit.

Every once in a while I will just find myself as pond scum. And often, especially in this, somebody will come forward...

Most often a woman, which is fine. It's the sensitive, gentle side, and they'll say, "Oh, you're too hard on yourself." I'll say, "No, I had to work real hard to get it up to pond scum. Should have heard what I started with," because I just know how I am. I know what we're like. We're sinful people. It is not hyperbole when Paul writes in Romans 3, "No one is good, no, not one." So you have to have an accurate appraisal of yourself.

Even in this whole idea of worship, I mean, almost every church is just torn on this area of worship and music. We've got one service for the old people, and one service for the young people, and one service for the people in between, and that's fine. I just wouldn't do it that way, because I think you want the old people and the young people and everybody in the same service. Pick a road you're going down, and make somebody unhappy, but at least you'll make a group of people happy, and you'll understand who you are. But virtually every church is just torn over this thing of worship.

Let me tell you how you fuel worship. It's not to get the music so emotional, and it's not to sit there stoic. Here's how you fuel worship: You fuel worship with a vision for the greatness of God, and then however it manifests itself will be worship.

Jacob's Example: Recognizing God as Benefactor

Here's the second thing. Jacob helps us here. Jacob's an interesting character. Abraham has Isaac, Isaac has these two boys, Jacob and Esau. Esau's the oldest, Jacob's the smartest, and Jacob essentially fleeces Esau out of his birthright. When push comes to shove, now it's going to hit the fan, Jacob takes to the road.

He finally meets his match in a guy named Laban. Laban has two daughters, Rachel and Leah. When Jacob meets Leah, he says, "How are you doing? I'll bet you can cook." When he meets Rachel, he goes, "Wow, that's nice." So he goes to Laban, he said, "I'd like that Rachel one," and Laban says, "Work for me for seven years." Faithfully, Jacob works for seven years. The wedding night comes, they have the ceremony, it's dimly lit, she's heavily veiled, they go in, they consummate the marriage, wake up the next morning—it's Leah. Bait and switch. So he goes to Laban, he says, "I wanted the Rachel one." He says, "That's another seven years."

So he's on the road, he's got all sorts of this. Finally Jacob, who really has just fleeced a lot, Jacob finally cries out to God. Genesis 32: "I'm unworthy of all your kindness and faithfulness you've shown to your servant." There's the second part of the definition from Jacob: a willing disclosure of God as your benefactor.

The Deceitfulness of Success

I was in the real estate business from the brokerage end in the very late 70s, very early 80s. I remember sitting around with these commercial brokers and I would hear them say, "I could sleepwalk through a year and make a hundred and fifty or two hundred grand. You don't have to do anything to make that." I'd say, "Well why is that?" "Well, because I work hard, I have market knowledge, I'm disciplined, I provide good service."

I got out of that industry in 85 and moved into this, which was a target-rich environment at the time. I would have lunch with these guys now in the later 80s, and I would say to them, "How you doing?" He said, "Oh, you don't know how tough it is. You know how lucky you are. You got out just in the nick of time. I'm making 25, 30, 50 grand a year and I'm barely eking it out."

I'd say, "Really, let me ask you a couple questions. Are you working hard?" "Harder than I ever worked." "Market knowledge?" "More than I ever knew because the computers exploded onto the scene." "Discipline?" "Well, I have to be disciplined because times are tough." "Good service?" "Well, there's so few clients, they're getting the best service we ever had." Isn't it interesting, those four things that just made it so you could sleepwalk your way to 200 grand and now you can't make 50? Maybe it's bigger than you. Maybe it's not you.

I watch today and I watch every day as you walk in. One of the great joys, and I mean this in my life, is this study. This is my favorite group that I do during the week. I love this study. There's an enthusiasm for me, a freshness for me. But I'm watching you as you're walking in today and virtually all of you got in here on your own. Some of you, one or two of you, are pretty sick just physically and it's a little harder. Some of you just sprint down the stairs. But all of you, no matter what condition you're in, it's a gift of God that you're here. It's a willingness to disclose that God is your benefactor. That God did this.

First Timothy 6, Paul tells us to be careful of the deceitfulness of riches. And I could take that into any area where you succeed. The deceitfulness of success. The idea is that I just do it. That all of a sudden I'm successful. Here's what I did. And the world wants to come and now you're doing seminars and traveling through the company and you're talking about how you did it. Listen, you did it because God gave you the ability to do it. You roll the dice. He determines the outcome. And sometimes it comes up deal closed and sometimes it comes up deal busted.

Moses: Personal Insufficiency to Accomplish Our Mission

How about Moses? Moses is an interesting guy. Moses teaches us a personal insufficiency to accomplish our mission. Moses is a guy who has a great deal of confidence and he should humanly. At age 40 he commits a crime.

He now is banished, spends 40 years as a sheep rancher. Moses was very confident in his talents and who he was. God now appears to him in Exodus 3. He says, "So now I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

He's the very guy that said, "I'm the guy." He went to God before this and said, "Listen, you're looking all over for a stud. It's me. I'm the guy that's up to this. In fact, I don't even need you to do this. I'll just do it on my own. Thank you." Now he's saying, "You know what? In fact, as we read it through it, he says, I've never been a stutter. Here's the guy that says, listen, I got it all figured out." After he says, "You know what? I don't think I'm the guy." God says, "I'll be with you."

Those might be great words for some of you today. If you're here and you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you might be in a room with 30 or 40 people and you might feel all alone. You just need to know God's with you. Some of you are in some very difficult, very painful, very hurtful circumstances. I can't take the hurt or the pain away, but I can tell you God is with you and remember that.

Personal Insufficiency - The Beginning of Christian Life

Moses teaches us personal insufficiency. He said, "I can't do this." That indeed is where a Christian life begins. Matthew chapter 5, verse 3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit," blessed are the spiritually bankrupt. You are not a Christian today until you come to that point where you understand that in and of yourself you are spiritually bankrupt. You bring nothing to the party of any value. All your works are wood, hay, and stubble. They're like a filthy rag. "I smell your sacrifices," God says. "I can smell them and they make me puke." There's of no value to that.

I'm in a plane and this is a few years ago and being five foot one has its advantages because I fit perfectly over by the window. So I'm kind of cuddled up by the window. I got my little thing and that day and age they didn't jam them like they do now. The middle seat's empty. There's a guy on the left and this guy, he said, "I'm gonna do some work here. Is it gonna bother you?" I said, "You're not gonna bother me." He said, "Do you care if I use the tray in the middle and the seat?" I said, "The only way it's gonna bother me is if I gotta go to the bathroom, but you use whatever you want to use." He said, "Alright."

So he's working along and he's got his laptop. He's got all this stuff going. "Am I bothering you?" I said, "No, you're not bothering me at all." So he works a couple hours, packs it all up, gets a book out. I'm thinking, well, I want to know what he's reading. So I look over and he's reading "Unlocking the Giant Within You," Tony Robbins. I said, "Now you're bothering me. Now we're gonna have to have a conversation. We're gonna have to dialogue about this a little bit."

So I said, "What are you reading, buddy?" And he said, "Oh, I'm reading this great book." And I said, "Who's the author?" He said, "Well, he's this guy, he's a motivational speaker and he just..." I said, "What's the theme of it?" He said, "Well, that there's this giant in us and we just have to get all these things out of the way and let this explode in the scene." I said, "Really?" He said, "What do you do?" And I said, "I'm a bit of a motivational speaker myself." He said, "Well, what do you think of this?"

And I said, "Well, my teaching would be the exact opposite. That there is no giant in you, that if we could get to the core, there's this sniveling wimp of a chicken who is petrified by everything, who is scared of the smallest thing. If the market goes up, we're afraid. If it goes down, we're afraid. If we're in bed at night and we think that Charles Manson is in the corner and it's our shirt on a chair, we're afraid of everything. That's no giant within you." So we talked, we talked for a while, we worked through it. But do you see that, that personal insufficiency? That's part of humility.

Joshua - Following in Great Footsteps

Here's the fourth thing, Joshua. Joshua is an interesting dude. He comes along after Moses and after the book of Deuteronomy says, "Moses is the greatest there's ever been. There's never been anybody like Moses. Here's your new leader."

If you're a little older and a sports fan, this is Gene Bartow following John Wooden. This is somebody following Joe Paterno. I'll tell you something, I was watching the Wildcats play the other day. I got a strategy now how to stop these guys on that full-court press. Just put a candy machine right there at mid-court and they'll never get that fast break. That was good though, wasn't it?

I'm watching this and I knew I had this lesson and it occurred to me the other day, they're playing on the Lute and Bobby Olson court, the floor. The next guy in is gonna coach at the Lute and Bobby Olson gym. You got no chance. It's over. I was talking to somebody the other day and I can't remember who it was, it's fairly familiar with sports on the coast and says that when the Wizard, when Wooden still comes to the games, it just casts a shadow all the way across the court. That he still just casts that shadow.

When you're Joshua, this isn't basketball, you're Joshua following Moses. You're gonna go in and you're gonna say, "Wait a minute, Moses never did it that way." I mean, that's how you're gonna hear it. Joshua comes in, he has extraordinary success and then thinks he's really something and now he has a series of defeats.

Honest Transparency in Our Dependence on God

Joshua all of a sudden understands who he is and he turns to God and he said, Joshua 7:6: "Joshua tore his clothes and fell down on his face before the Ark of the Lord and remained there till evening." Joshua teaches us an honest transparency in our dependence on God. Subtle change from before. There's a transparency. There's prayer.

There is nothing wrong with praying, "Father, I am in so far over my head, I don't have the foggiest idea what to..."

I don't know. Let me give you just a little thing on parenting. Parenting's like everything else. We've made everything in this world way too difficult. Parenting's real simple.

We had Sarah born New Year's Eve 1979. All we proved at that moment is that we could birth a baby. We didn't know a lick about raising a baby. I mean nothing. We didn't know anything. Susan obviously knew more than me. I knew absolutely nothing.

So we got this kid. There it is. In March of 1980, so three months later, I'm converted. God saves me. Three or four months after that, God saves Susan and all of a sudden I'm saying, well this parenting thing is a big deal. I just figured it was something Susan can handle along the way somehow, but I'm gonna have to play some role in this, I think. What should I do?

If you go to the Scripture, there's amazingly little information on this. Here's what we discovered. We had to fight our instinct because our instinct, especially with the girls, was to pull them in and try to protect them. We had to raise our kids to be independent of us but dependent upon God.

The Problem with Independence

I talked last week, I think in this study, about what makes America great and that is the system, not the people. I am, put me down for yes on freedom, economic freedom, political freedom, yes, yes, yes, yes. The problem that we can get in our thinking is that somehow we come to the rest of life or to God Himself and think we're still independent.

When our girls were small, we had so many boundaries around them. It was so tight. They'd hit a wall. I had people literally say to me, you're gonna ruin these kids, you're gonna drive these children to rebellion. I said, I don't think so. I'm gonna produce some good citizens here and with a lot of good blessing, God'll save them. I don't know that, but I'm gonna have some good citizens.

Those boundaries were so tight. I now have two teenage daughters and in our house there was not one rule. We didn't have a curfew, we didn't have a rule, we didn't have a cleanup, we didn't have anything. We had no rules. There was a how, because now these guys were saying you're gonna ruin these kids. Now I have a 14 year old daughter that they got 18 bodyguards watching her and they've got her all locked in.

It's pretty hard. Once they get to 12 or 13, if you don't have it done by then, you got issues, my friend, and you're trying to figure out what to raise them. It's very simple. You just raise them to be dependent upon God. That's what I used to tell the girls. Don't worry about making mom and dad happy. You make God happy, because if He's happy, we're gonna be real happy with you.

Transparency Before God

So there's this transparency. I'll tell you, there's just sometimes, you know, the old cartoon, help Mr. Wizard. There's just some times to cry out and say, God, I don't, help me. Ought to be transparent in your praying.

Job's Awesome Opinion of the Almighty God

How about Job? Well, Job. Job helps us with an awesome opinion of the Almighty God, an awesome opinion of the Almighty God. If I say to you, Job, and we do word association, you say, patient. I say, Job, you say, patience. He's so closely associated with it. I'm not kidding you. I think if I put a hundred people in here and said, Job, I'll bet you 90% of them would say, patience.

Do you understand that Job, this is really important. It's really simple, but it's real. Job didn't have the patience of Job until chapter 42. We don't have time to go into it, but in Job chapter 1, Job has, by any measure, a bad day. I know, it doesn't matter how you cut this. It doesn't get any worse than this. The only thing that wasn't taken away from him is the one thing he would have gladly given up, and that was the wife who said, curse God and die.

Now, his friends begin to say, you know, Job, you got to look at this. Everything's gone. Everything. You must deserve this, Job. Finally, Job begins to wonder himself, and he goes, finally reaches a point where he says, the guy God, I got a question for you. He's ready to ask Him why. Why me, God?

God's Questions to Job

And God says, all right, Job, I got a question for you. We'll just, let's just run this and then I'll get to your question. Where do we keep the snow? How does the eagle fly? There's about three chapters of these questions. And then God says, all right, Job, what was it? And Job says, well, you know what? I'm gonna get back to you on that.

Because in Job chapter 42, Job says this as he assesses his life: "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, listen, and I will speak. I will question you and you shall answer. My ears heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you."

Johnny Erickson Tata, who, as a young lady, experienced a neck injury in a diving accident, has spent decades as a quadriplegic. Beautiful woman. You know, I don't know if you've seen any, she paints pictures with a brush that she holds in her teeth. I don't know how they do this stuff. Johnny wrote this: what I learned from Job was that God will never have to give me an answer for anything, and I will have to give Him an answer for everything. He is the Almighty God.

The Almighty God

And I say it again, second time today, some of us have so familiarized ourselves with God that He's just the big guy upstairs. I mean, here you go. When Major League Baseball last year were looking for their key moments in baseball, there was one where Kirk Gibson, remember, he can barely walk and he comes up, whack, he hits that home run, and he's running around the bases and he's doing that. In the interview after it that night, Gibson said, today the guy

God is Not "The Big Man Upstairs"

Let's break this down. Number one, He's not a guy upstairs. Number two, if He's a baseball fan at all, He'd be a Cub fan. Nobody needs Him more than the Cubs. We need Him desperately.

I was at spring training last year. I got to one spring training game. My dad has season tickets for the Cubs, and I go to one game. I don't know, we'd been there about two hours, so it's the top of the third, and I go down to get a hot dog. This guy's coming out, and he's got a great looking long-sleeved t-shirt. I like to wear a lot of long-sleeved t-shirts. He's got a great looking long-sleeved t-shirt with the Cub logo here on the patch. He turns around, and the back said, "Any team can have a bad century." I said, "Where'd you get that shirt? I want that shirt so bad."

Well, God's not a big Dodger upstairs, or a big Cub upstairs, or the big man upstairs. He's an awesome holy God, and if you don't get that, your theology is not ascended high enough.

Jeremiah's Response to God's Call

Jeremiah's the weeping prophet, and he watches and has the assignment of calling the people of Israel to repentance. Early on in the book, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, "Before I formed you, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." "Ah, sovereign Lord," I said, "I do not know how to speak. I'm only a child."

I think Jeremiah teaches us a healthy respect for wisdom. Fortune magazine had a cover story titled "Life Begins at 50," saying that 93% of the CEOs in the country are in their 50s and 60s.

I met with a guy a week ago tomorrow, young man, great young guy, terrific young guy. Humanly speaking, if you look through my eyes, God's just going to do great things with this guy. He's 21, terrific kid. He said, "You know what I just got to do? I just got to remember that life does not end at 30." I said, "Really? You think that's the case? It's not over at 30." I said, "Let me tell you something, pal, it's just beginning."

The Wisdom of Age

I was talking to somebody today who's in their profession, they're in their early 60s, and saying, "I think I'm doing the best work of my career right now." So we were talking about retirement. You know, I don't know what I'd do if I went home to Susan today and said, "Hey, Suze, I'm going to retire." She'd say, "This is over. This is never going to work. What are you going to do all day? You're going to drive me crazy."

Now, some of it may be because some of you are there, you're ahead of me. It may be that I'm looking at retirement through my eyes now, so I'm just trying to say I'll have this energy that I don't know. God didn't design us to retire. He designed us to say it's okay to stop working for money, but not to retire.

One of the great things about being old is if you're listening, you get wisdom. And you're very humble when you begin to understand that. I continue to seek out men who are in their 60s and 70s who can say to me, "You know, this is how the cow ate the cabbage. You think you know something. You don't know anything."

Daniel's Humility Before Nebuchadnezzar

The last one that we look at is Daniel. You know Daniel from the lion's den. Daniel's a young man, probably in his mid-teens, when he comes against the king of the world, Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, and Daniel has the interpretation of that dream.

Daniel chapter 2, verse 29. Daniel says, "As you were laying, O king, my mind turned to the things to come. The revealer of the mystery showed you what was going to happen. As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than any other living man, but so you, O king, may know the interpretation, and you may understand what went through your mind."

On the surface, I think you could miss the dynamic of that moment. Here's the king, desperately wanting to understand this vision. No one can explain it to him. In comes this guy with the answer. Humanly, there'd be a big desire to come in there and say, "Well, well, well. Neb. Can I call you Neb?" Wouldn't there be that temptation to somehow take credit for this? And Daniel says, "It's not because I'm greater than anybody else."

Rejecting Unwarranted Acclaim

Daniel teaches us a strong rejection of unwarranted acclaim. Be careful, will you? Especially those of you—and I'm not talking about spiritual gifts. Everyone who's a Christian has a spiritual gift, and some of those gifts are very visible. Some of you have a gift, like the gift of mercy, that is most often exercised in a one-on-one setting, or in a pretty private setting, and so there's not a lot of acclaim that goes with that. But some of you have very public gifts.

Oftentimes, even the gift of service can be a very public gift, certainly the gift of teaching, very public gifts. You need to be very careful when people come up to you and say, "You know, you're a really talented person. It's really amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." You better make sure you understand that they're thanking God for the gift He gave you. They're not trying to blow smoke at you, and you are not to take credit for that.

I never—Larry helped me a lot with this, because I started to teach, and this even sounds so silly, I would have people come and say, "Boy, that's really good, that's really good stuff," and I didn't know what to say. And Larry said, "Just say thank you, and tell them to thank God, and as you say thank you to people, you thank God for the gift He's given you."

Maybe it's not in this area, maybe it's just in the area that—we were talking to somebody today, and they said, "He just has the Midas touch." Well, do you understand that's from God? Maybe God's given to you these extraordinary gifts. It's important for you to understand that.

God Rewards Humility

Humility is rewarded. We have a series of ways here. Let me give them to you. You have the Scriptures in front of you. Psalm 9:12 says that God avenges those, but does not ignore the cry of the afflicted. It's rewarded with access and action.

Psalm 25 tells us that it's rewarded with guidance and insight. God guides the humble in what is right, and teaches them His way. How does He guide you? He guides you through the Scripture, He guides you through teaching, He guides you through other people. The Holy Spirit plays a work in your life - you're guided. Psalm 147 says the Lord sustains the humble. That is, it's rewarded through advancement, perseverance, continuation. We may get weary, we may get tired, but we won't quit.

Isaiah 57 shows we're rewarded with relationship and renewal. The Lord speaks, He said, "I live in a high and holy place, but also with Him is the one who is contrite, lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, revive the heart of the contrite." You and I experience a healthy relationship with the Lord. If you're here today and you're a Christian, you're as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there. If you're a Christian, nothing can break your union.

I was raised in a religion that thought, maybe I'll be saved, maybe I won't be saved, I could sin my way out of God's grace. That's not what the Scripture teaches. The Scripture teaches that if I know Him and love Him, that He who began that good work in me will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus. Nothing can break that.

Humility, according to 2 Chronicles 7, is rewarded with forgiveness and restoration. "If my people who call on my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, I'll hear them from heaven, forgive their sins and heal their land." Again, it's important we can misapply that and say that applies to the United States of America. It speaks to the nation of Israel, but the principles would be transferable to us.

How Humility Is Developed

Lastly, four things. Humility is developed by, first, self-determination. Matthew 18, whoever humbles themselves like a child. The idea there is that this is something that we are doing, that we begin to remove the arrogance and pride from our life. We humble ourselves like a child - simple, trusting.

Romans 12 says our humility is developed by self-sacrifice. "Therefore, I urge you, brethren, in the views of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice." Through honest self-appraisal, Romans 12:3, "do not think more highly of yourself than you ought" - an accurate view of yourself. It's very important, and we talked about it, and again, those tapes, I should have mentioned that at the beginning, those tapes are available from the first two weeks of this year. But we took the one week where we looked back and we said this is important to evaluate yourself. If you want to do that accurately, get two or three friends, get a spouse. Ask them what you're really like. They'll help you.

Humility Through Self-Control

Humility is developed by self-control. Listen to this, if you would. I've read this passage a thousand times, and I'm telling you, for whatever reason, I simply forgot it. Listen to this. Romans chapter 12, verse 16, "do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position."

Isn't it interesting that as we move up the ladder of success, whatever that's defined at in your sphere of it, we tend to associate with like-minded, successful people. I think what that scripture is saying, and it's got a whole bunch of other things - don't be conceited, don't repay anyone evil for evil - but I think it's saying if you want a healthy view of life, and you want perspective, and you don't want to be humble, you're not going to find it in the corporate tent that the phoenix opened. You're not going to find it lunching with the phoenix 40. You're not going to find it with the up-and-inners.

I think that's the problem, and I know there's ministries that are geared to the up-and-inners. That's fine. I'm okay with that. I understand the unique problems, but one of the problems with the up-and-inners is they're not with the down-and-outers, and so you become very arrogant. There's something about being with broken people that breaks you, that reminds you of how fortunate you are, and how blessed you are by what God has given you.

Looking Ahead

Eight weeks looking at leadership, we begin with a characteristic that's almost ignored, and yet we think it's foundational to good leadership, and that's humility. Next week, we look at loyalty. We'll spend our time on that.

Father, thank You for this life that we have. God, I pray that You would make us humble people, dependent upon You, accurately seeing ourselves as we really are, broken over our sin, rejoicing in Your forgiveness, seeking Your guidance. God, let us live that way. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.