Dear Church Family,
As we enter a new year together, I want to encourage our church family to resolve ourselves to some things.
On December 19th I preached on the topic of The Lowly Lord. It was a message that encouraged us to look to the perfect model of humility that Jesus chose for His life and lived out perfectly. The church at Philippi was struggling in their relationships, and so the Apostle Paul encourages them to look away from self and to look to Jesus. He explained to them that Jesus had always been God and as He came to the earth, He chose the form of a servant as He came to serve and not be served. Jesus prioritized perfect obedience to God the Father instead of clinging to His exalted position in Heaven. And then He also chose sacrifice and perseverance as He made his way to the cross for those lost in their sin.
The second point of my sermon on the 19th was simply for us to understand that we must prioritize humility in our lives, and then exaltation will follow. This is where we get things wrong so often. We mistakenly seek to exalt ourselves instead of living in humility with others. I shared a quote that reads… “The way of exaltation is always through humiliation. If that principle was true for the Son of God, how much more is it true for His followers”?
So, let’s spend our lives seeking to have the attitude of humility mark us. This is us living in such a way that we are mindful to what Paul warns the Philippians about in vv.3-4 of Philippians 2. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
To guard against selfish ambition, and looking to our own interests, let’s prioritize humility in our lives! Remember humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is simply thinking about yourself less. So, let’s have the attitude of humility mark our lives in 2022!! Resolve yourself to…
- Count others more significant than yourself.
- Look to serve instead of being served.
- Seek God’s will instead of your will.
- Be teachable instead of thinking you know it all.
- Live your life by God’s wisdom instead of your wisdom.
As we live resolving ourselves to these things, we are practically choosing to live in humility, which is exactly the way we are to live. This is us making a conscience effort to push back against a culture that tells us to exalt ourselves. Let’s prioritize living faithfully in humility right now in life and let God bring the exaltation in time to our lives.
I love you and I love being your pastor!
