Be The Church: Be A Humble Church
November 10, 2019
Years ago I heard a prominent speaker make this statement: “The Church is the hope of the world.” I believed that statement then and I still believe it today. But over the last few decades “the Church” hasn’t been such a great beacon of hope. In fact, I’m reading a book right now called, “Jesus Called, He Wants His Church Back.” One chapter is called, “Fed Up With Church,” and in that chapter the author gives five reasons why people are fed up with Church. Now as I read that chapter, I’d like to think we were not like any of the descriptions he gave. For example the first one:
People are Fed Up With Churches that Treat People Like Outsiders I’d like to think anyone is welcome at Rock Springs and no one is treated like an outsider based on their immoral behavior or poor reputation. I’d like to believe we include others just like Jesus did.
People are Fed Up With Churches that Are Disconnected from the Real World I’d like to think we are not isolated from real problems in our world and are working to make a difference here at Robson, in the city of Eloy and around the world.
People are Fed Up With Churches that Are All About Money I’d like to think we are generous givers, and that we refuse to manipulate anyone into giving. In fact, I’m sometimes blown away by the generosity of our Church.
People are Fed Up With Churches that Have Convictions but No Compassion I’d like to think our compassion goes much further than giving to the Food Bank and Operation Christmas Compassion. That’s why we have an Eloy Mission Team working and praying right now to discover where God would have us serve next.
People are Fed Up With Churches that Replace Truth with Tradition I’d like to think that we stay true to God’s Word and don’t let any kind of tradition lead us to compromise the truth. In fact, I’d like to think we are not too bad as most Churches go. And I’d like to think that we are becoming the kind of Church God wants us to become. However, the problem with what I think, is just that: It’s my thinking. And my thinking can be biased. My thinking can be over-inflated. Because if I allow myself to ever think that we are somehow better than other churches, then I would add a sixth reason why people are fed up with churches. And that is this:
People are Fed Up With Churches that Think They Are All That! In other words, pride or arrogance has no place in God’s church. And when a Church thinks they are all that, when a Church thinks they are better than other churches, I’m pretty sure God doesn’t bless that Church. Because God’s Word says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Which leads me to introduce the next characteristic God is looking for in His Church: God wants His Church to BE A HUMBLE CHURCH God wants His people to be marked by the same characteristic as Jesus: humility. So if you brought your Bible let me encourage you open it to Romans 12:3-5, where God calls us to think differently about who we are His people.
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:3-5
Now, before we dig into what it means to be a humble church, allow me to remind you what has preceded this passage. Two weeks ago, we looked at the first characteristic God is looking for in His Church, and that is this: God Wants Us To Be A Worshiping Church. We saw that from Romans 12:1, where we were encouraged to give our all to God because God gave His all for us. In other words, as we grasp the mercy of God to us in Jesus, we will want to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Paul calls this is our true and proper worship. So God wants us to continually surrender our will to His will. And when we live surrendered to God, God is worshiped and we are now available to do His will. That’s the first characteristic God is looking for In His people: People who give their all to God to do His will. And we are to do this every day in every relationship and every situation.
That leads to the next characteristic God is looking for: God Wants Us to Be A Transformed Church. Now as people available to do God’s will, He wants to transform our minds to do His will by replacing our worldly value system with His value system. So He commands to not be conformed by this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And it is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who renews our minds through His Word. And as the Spirit renews our minds, He changes us and helps us begin to live and love like Jesus. Now the first way God wants us to live and love like Jesus is to be humble. That’s what we’re now going to unpack from Romans 12:3-5. For humility flows out of how we think about ourselves. In other words,
Humble People Think Differently About Themselves There are actually two aspects of our thinking that God’s Word addresses here, and the first is this:
We are not to think too highly of ourselves. Look at how Paul explains this: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given to each of you. Romans 12:3
Paul goes right to the root of our problem. Even though we have been the object of God’s great mercy; even though God has removed our condemnation, forgiven our sins, made us His friends, and adopted us into his family we are quick to think too highly of ourselves, of our own self-righteousness, and are quick to think we are better than we really are. One Theologian said it this way, “To himself, every man is in a sense the most important person in the world, and he always needs much grace to see what other people are, and to keep a sense of moral proportion.” Remember what we looked at last week? The world wants to shape your thinking so that life revolves around you. The world wants you to define yourself, to build your identity around your pleasures, possessions and prestige. So the more you have, the more you do, and the more you have attained in life – all this becomes the measure of your worth in this world. But God’s Word tells us is not to measure ourselves the way the world does.
Instead, we are to think differently about ourselves. Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what He does for us, not by what we are and what we do for Him.” (The Message) In other words, God’s Word commands us to think of ourselves with sober judgment.
You see, sober judgment leads us to recognize that in ourselves, we are truly nothing in comparison to Christ: That apart from what Christ has done for us, we have nothing good to offer God. To get the picture, think of the opposite of being sober. If you’ve ever seen a drunk person, they feel pretty good about themselves. A drunk swaggers with a bravado fueled by alcohol. A drunk thinks he is funnier, stronger, smarter and braver than he really is. But when a drunk sobers up, if he can remember what he did the night before, he realizes how foolish his behavior must have appeared to others.
So when we walk around with an over-inflated view of ourselves, we look pretty foolish to God. So the first way we are to think differently about ourselves is to never forget who we were and what we had done prior to the cross of Christ. Who were we? We were sinners. We were rebels. We were enemies of God who insulted God by going our own way. There was nothing in us that wanted to please God, so we lived to please ourselves. That’s who we were.
What had we done? Well, we may think we had done some good things. But listen to Isaiah’s indictment on our perceived self-righteousness: All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags Isaiah 64:6 This is why we are to think of ourselves with sober judgment. Apart from God’s grace we were nothing before God. Apart from God’s grace we had nothing to offer God. The only thing we deserved was judgment. But God gave us mercy. And we received His grace by receiving Jesus. Jesus is everything we were not. He is completely righteous and we were not. Jesus lived a sinless life and we could not. But when you put your faith in Jesus, God changed your life. He gave you the righteousness of Christ. And when you put your faith in Christ, your life now became acceptable to God. And when we continually remember what Jesus did for us on the cross, we keep ourselves from thinking too highly of ourselves. You see, our measuring stick for worth is different than the world’s measuring stick!
The world wants you to measure your worth by what you have and what you’ve achieved. But God wants you to measure your worth by your faith in Jesus. For it is your faith, how you now identify yourself as God’s child that tells you who you are. And by your faith, you now possess what Jesus achieved for you: you have forgiveness, friendship with God, adoption into His family, and eternal life with the one who loves you. And when these things that Jesus has given you identify you, you have a different measure of worth: And all that God has done for you and given you will humble you. And you will not think higher of yourself than you ought. You will think differently about yourself, you’ll be appreciative and humbled – you’ll have the mind of Christ. You’ll begin to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant Philippians 2:5-7
Humble People Think Differently About Themselves. They don’t think too highly of themselves because they are beginning to think like Jesus.
Now, that’s just part of how God would transform our thinking. He doesn’t want us to think too highly of ourselves. But now in verses 4 & 5 he is addressing the opposite tendency, and that is this: We are not to think too lowly of ourselves. Paul now tackles our tendency toward embracing a false humility. He writes: For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:4-5
Now, how do these verses address false humility? Track with me and you’ll see. But first, let’s talk about false humility: When we embrace false humility we down grade our sense of self worth so much, that we loose a proper estimation of ourselves. And what happens is this: We begin to think we are not good enough to serve in God’s Church. We stay mired in our unsaved identity as sinners – so we tell ourselves that we are too messed up for God to use, or we are too unclean for God to use, or we’re not gifted or talented enough for God to use. We say to ourselves: “God deserves the very best, and I’m not good enough or I’m not good at anything. He can’t possibly use me.” And if you’ve ever found yourself saying something like that, you’re still using a worldly way of thinking by comparing yourself with others in God’s family. And God’s Word here is basically saying, stop doing that.
What you are doing is this: You are still comparing yourself with others by worldly standards. You are buying into the lie that says you are not good enough. So you isolate yourself. You make excuses to not get involved. You wouldn’t dare join a Journey Group or Bible study for fear someone will see how little you know the Bible. You won’t join a worship team, because you believe others sing or play better than you. And you find ways to keep from connecting with the body of Christ, because other people seem to have it all together and you don’t. But God wants to you to stop thinking that way.
That’s why Paul goes in depth about what it means for you to be part of Christ’s body. He wants you, me and everyone here to know that Christ’s body is so far superior than any other organization on earth. In fact, it’s not an organization at all. It’s an organism. It’s His spiritual body. And if you’ve put your faith in Jesus, you are a member of His body! “so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” This is a radical, life changing truth. We all belong to Jesus, and we all belong to one another. That means every single Christ-follower is significant and necessary. I need you and you need me. We all need each other. And since God’s Word says you are a member of Christ’s body, your life now has tremendous significance. Now, because the grace and love of Jesus Christ is in you, and God wants His grace and love to flow through you to bless, heal and help others. You belong in His body, and each one of us belongs to one another. And it is this truth that makes the Church the hope of the world. For no matter what you have done, no matter how badly you have failed, no matter how broken or bruised you are, God has a new purpose and new life for you in His body. He connected you to Jesus for a reason – to belong with Him and every other person in His family. You are part of the new community of grace and hope that God is building. And that now elevates your worth in ways the world can never touch. So think about this with me: When was the last time you thought of the implications of Jesus making you part of His body?
If we all belong to each other – then connection in a local church becomes a paramount priority for every believer; a paramount priority for you! That means if you choose to remain disconnected from God’s people you withhold the gifts and blessings God gave you that His body needs. But it also means you will miss out on the love, the grace and encouragement God wants to pour into you from someone else His body.
If we all belong to each other and allow God to pour out His grace through us great things will happen: No one will ever burn out in ministry, every person will experience a sense of well-being, burdens will be carried, prayers will be answered, friendships will be forged, and people will be drawn to the Jesus they see in us, and we will become a community where people are loved and embraced just as they are.
And if we all belong to each other in Jesus we will find a significance in Christ’s body that’s found no where else. For we belong to Jesus and He will never let us go.
So here’s the thing: It’s not that we think too highly of ourselves that’s hindering God’s church today, but it’s that we too often think too lowly of ourselves. If we are going to be the kind of Church God is looking for then we need to see ourselves differently. We need to start seeing ourselves through God’s eyes and not through the eyes of the world. And if we can do that we won’t just be a humble church, we’ll be the kind of church God is looking for.
So where are you today? Most of us fall to one side or the other. For some of us, we struggle with thinking too highly of ourselves, for others we think too low of ourselves. And there’s only one way to fix this, it’s by keeping our eyes on Jesus and keeping our focus on the cross of Christ. For when we do that, we will think of ourselves in sober judgment, and begin to see our selves for who we truly are in God’s eyes: forgiven, friends, and family with God. And then we will become the kind of Church God is looking for: a Humble Church.
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