Humbling Human Arrogance

Humbling Human Arrogance by Coty Pinckney

[This devotion is taken primarily from the third section of the July 21 sermon, “The Reasonable Foolishness of Christ Crucified.” Audio of that sermon will be available soon at this link.]

The haughty looks of man shall be brought low,
and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,
and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.
Isaiah 2:11

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3-4

God promises to humble all human arrogance. He will show Himself to be the only Being worthy of praise, as the Father exalts the Son, the Son exalts the Father, and the Spirit exalts both Father and Son. We must humble ourselves, therefore, if we are to be part of the summing up of all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10), when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).

In 1 Corinthians 1:26-2:5, the Apostle Paul shows how God’s humbling purposes have been manifested in his readers’ experience. He asks:  Who is part of this church? Who has come to faith in Christ crucified?

If coming to faith were dependent on our being able to figure God out on our own, then you would have to be at least reasonably bright to be saved. Indeed, those who are of high intelligence would then be over-represented in the church.

Alternately, if you were able to get into the family of God the way many get employment – through connections, networking, and influence – then you would expect to find that most saved people come from prominent backgrounds.

In either of those cases, there would be some basis for our boasting:

  • “We are in the church because we’re smarter than those folks outside!”
  • Or, “We are here because of our ancestry, because of how important our families are!”

But Paul tells the Corinthians (and us): Look around. What do you see? Are the believers especially intelligent? Are they predominantly from prominent families?

No. Not many of the Corinthian believers were wise by the world’s standards; not many were born to privileged positions. Instead, God chose and called predominantly those who seem foolish, those who seem weak, those who are not honored, even those who may seem deplorable – to humble the supposedly wise and strong and influential. This is in accord with what Jesus prays in Luke 10:21:

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

God is the active agent in salvation. And He chooses not primarily the most intelligent, not primarily the most prominent – why? 1 Corinthians 1:29: “So that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” That’s the bottom line. God humbles us – who, sinful as we are, need to be humbled. And He exalts Himself, He exalts Jesus the Son – the One worthy of all exaltation.

So rather than boast in ourselves, we are (1 Corinthians 1:31) to boast in Jesus, in the cross. For it is because of God and His great plan that we are in Christ Jesus and therefore receive God’s wisdom in the Gospel – righteousness, holiness, and redemption through Jesus’ death on the cross.

Then in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, the Apostle Paul tells us that even he – capable as he was of wowing folks with his intellect – did not do that. He didn’t think, “Ok, I’ll get their attention with my rhetoric, draw them in with my learning, then convince them with my powerful arguments.” Why not? He tells us in verse 5: “So that your faith might not be based on the wisdom of men” – not even on the wisdom of the Apostle Paul!  – “but on the power of God.”

Paul did not want to make disciples of Paul. He wanted God to make disciples of Jesus as he preached and lived out the Gospel. If he was drawing attention to himself, he was undercutting the Gospel, not faithfully proclaiming it.

So as the Holy Spirit performed that mighty miracle in Corinth – the same miracle He has performed in so many of our hearts:

  • removing our hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh
  • circumcising our hearts
  • opening blind eyes to see the beauty of Jesus
  • granting faith and making of each changed person a new creation

God the Father was glorified. God the Son was honored. And these new believers could see: Paul was just a messenger. He was just an ambassador. The honor, praise, and thanks goes to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Human arrogance was humbled. God was shown to be all in all.

That is our goal and desire within Desiring God Community Church:

  • To humble our own natural arrogance
  • To stifle our own inclination to boast
  • To honor the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as worthy of all praise and glory

Yes, the cross, the Gospel, God’s entire plan seems foolishness in the eyes of those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18). But when we behold our God,

  • When we see Him for Who He is
  • When we see Him as the only being worthy of worship
  • When we see the goal of the Father to exalt the Son He loves
  • When we see Jesus dying for the glory of the Father
  • When we glimpse the coming marriage supper of the Lamb, and our own joint role as Bride of Christ

Then we see: This all makes sense. This is all perfectly reasonable. I was blind, thinking the cross was foolishness. I was arrogant, thinking I could figure God out. But now I see: He alone is to be exalted. I bow before Him and gladly give Him the worship and honor He deserves.

 

Admit Your Need

Who is God? What is man? What is the relationship of man to God?

These are questions of worldview. The answers we give to those questions shape how we perceive and interpret the world around us.

Time and again, Jesus warns us that the attitude we assume in answering such questions, and the presuppositions we are often unaware of, can twist our thought processes and keep us from seeing the truth God has revealed.

Let’s look at three of Jesus’ statements in this regard.

First, Luke 18:24. A wealthy man who desires eternal life has just walked away sorrowful because Jesus has told him to sell all he has, give it all to the poor, and follow Him. Jesus then says: “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

Why is it difficult for the wealthy to enter the kingdom? One reason: Many rich people, like this man, think they are in control. They think that their wealth protects them from the vagaries of life. If they believe in God, they furthermore think that they have something to offer Him – that God needs them, that God even should be thankful to have them on His side.

Jesus offered this rich man eternal joy – the very life the man said he wanted! But he walked away, because he assumed that Jesus asked him to give up more than he was to gain. He assumed that he just needed to tweak his life in some way to make himself acceptable to God, worthy of eternal life. He assumed that his wealth was either a sign of God’s favor or in and of itself useful to God. Instead, Jesus revealed that it was a barrier between him and God. The rich man’s assumptions were deadly.

We’ll consider the second and third statements together:

Matthew 18:3:   “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 11:25-26: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

Jesus says that some truth – indeed, the most important truth – cannot be known apart from God revealing it. Although this statement is perfectly reasonable once we admit the possibility of a Creator God, many today begin with the assumption that Jesus’ statement is false. They assume that (a) we are rational beings and (b) we can come to know all important truths through reasoning and experimentation. With those assumptions, there obviously is no role for revelation.

But children know they need revelation. Children know they don’t know many things, and they need others to teach them. So they ask question after question – sometimes to the point of driving their parents crazy!

Children also know they are dependent creatures, who need the shelter and protection that others provide. Children thus know they are not self-sufficient – either intellectually or physically.

Note that this attitude is the opposite to that of the rich man in the earlier story. Jesus, in effect, told the rich man to become dependent on Him. And the rich man went away, sorrowful in his self-sufficiency.

Jesus tells us that all of us must assume the dependent attitude of a child. We must cease assuming that we can know all that is important apart from His revelation. If we continue to believe we are self-sufficient, we will never know what is of greatest importance. We will never see the revealed truth that is right before our eyes – the truth that the Father has revealed to little children – to both literal little children, as well as to those who have become like little children and so entered the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus tells you, He tells me: “You are needy people. Admit it! You need revelation; you need guidance; you need empowering. Acknowledge it! You need forgiveness. Confess it! Quit assuming that your intelligence, your riches, your education, your accomplishments, your position, your reading, or your moral life qualify you to come into God’s presence, or to stand as judge over Him, His Word, and His actions. Instead: Come to Me – humbly, broken, and contrite, like a little child – and I will give you exactly what you need! Come to Me – repentant, seeking, asking – and I will choose to reveal the Father to you.”

This is Jesus’ challenge: Quit trying to establish your own righteousness, your own brilliance, your own status. Quit assuming it’s even possible to do that. Instead, like a child, acknowledge your neediness. Come to Him. He promises to you rest, peace, and fulfillment.

Who is God? What is man? What is the relationship of man to God? Jesus reveals these answers – to those who become like little children.

Traveling on God’s Road

Whose road are you on?

Scripture often compares life to traveling:

  • We are to take care how we walk (Ephesians 5:15), not walking in the counsel of wicked (Psalm 1:1);
  • men often judge a particular road to be right, but it leads instead to death (Proverbs 14:12);
  • when God’s people turn off of His road, He will call to them, “This is the way, walk in it!” (Isaiah 30:21).

Among the many other comparisons of life to a journey is Psalm 25:8-10. To help us in our American context to capture the sense, I’ll change all instances of “way” or “path” to “road:”

Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the road. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his road.  All the roads of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

Consider this image: You are driving down the highway of life. You think you know the right directions. You think you know the most desirable destination. You’ve packed your bags; you’ve filled up the tank; you’re on your way. But God’s GPS – that is, the Scriptures – instruct you: “You’re on the wrong road! Your directions are wrong; even your destination is wrong! This is not the road to life; this is not the road to joy; this is the road to everlasting pain and sorrow, to lack of fulfillment and lack of purpose, to eternal rebellion and loss.”

  • Will you say, “Oh, that old GPS! It’s outdated! It’s unaware of recent road improvements!”
  • Will you say, “Ha! Never rely on a GPS when you’ve got a brain! I know shortcuts no one else has even discovered!”
  • Will you say, “I know what destination will really give me joy, and no one else can possibly know better!”

Or will you humble yourself before God’s GPS?

How do we do that?

Isaiah 66:2 uses the same Hebrew word for “humble:”

This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

To be humble is to confess that we do not and cannot know the right road apart from God’s GPS, God’s Word, God’s Scripture. To be humble is to acknowledge that all His directions lead us on roads of lovingkindness, roads of covenant faithfulness, roads of joy, roads of life – even when they lead initially to hardship and persecution. To be humble is not to be “overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance” (as a major lectionary defines the Greek translation of the Hebrew word in Psalm 25).

In commenting on verse 9, Charles Spurgeon writes:

[The humble] know their need of guidance, and are willing to submit their own understandings to the divine will, and therefore the Lord condescends to be their guide. . . . Proud of their own wisdom, fools will not learn, and therefore miss their road to heaven.

So: Whose road are you on? Whose directions are you following?

God has given us His GPS. He tells us to drive on His roads. He knows what is around the corner, what is past the next town. The road may be potholed; the pavement may be cracked. But He promises that, whatever their appearance, all His roads are steadfast love and faithfulness.

Will you then humble yourself, and travel on His roads?