Are You Humble?

Are you Humble?                                                          Kelly Durant  7-16-06

 Matt 11:28-12:1

 28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." 

 In an old town a few years ago there was a man that got a horse and buggy ride from his neighbor. He had a sack of potatoes with him to sell in the town.  The driver said, Why don’t you put the sack of potatoes down, you don’t have to have them in your lap.  But the man replied, Well you have been nice enough to carry me in to town and I thought I would be abusive to ask you to carry my potatoes too.”  Actually, this is a good example of the people who do not give all their burdens to their Lord, they think that the are already abusive enough with God to be in His presence, but the problem is they do not let their burdens down to God. Jesus said His yoke is easy.

How many of you have seen a yoke on a farm? It connects 2 cows together so they can plow the field. Just think that Jesus goes with us in the field to plow, he is with us through His Holy Spirit. The great thing is that with Jesus, we learn to be humble, gentle, and we have peace, no matter what comes to us in life. He makes our burdens light. 

We need to be careful that as a culture, and I mean as Christian culture, that we do not lose our values of being humble, gentle, and peaceful! What we just read is that Jesus wants us to learn from Him, that He is gentle, humble, and He gives you rest. Let me repeat humble and gentle and peaceful. Ask yourself right now, am I humble and gentle and full of peace as Jesus teaches us to be?

Repeat with me, “I will be humble, gentle, and peaceful!”

Today, we will cover as we did last week, how we can recognize the false shepherds and pastors, the ones that come to dominate by force and put burdens on you that Jesus warned about not to take. What is the opposite of what we are learning? It is arrogant, aggressive, and conflictive! That describes very well many false movements and teachers!

Let’ begin from the beginning. God is our creator and in one breath he could destroy the entire earth, and the entire universe! But God continues to show his love and mercy through His Son Jesus, giving the people of the world time to repent from their sins so they can be saved. God the Father and Jesus the Son, choose to be humble, gentle, and peaceful. Jesus came into the world in the meekest of circumstances, in a poor manger, and he lived and taught meekness and love. We could define it this way, God chose to limit His power and He in many ways shows himself to us as “powerless” when in reality He has infinite power.

Jesus came to show us how to be living in “powerlessness” too. For Jesus to teach ,“I will be humble, gentle, and peaceful!” He confirmed He was not into power and into making others obey Him by force. He chose to refrain himself, he was not arrogant, rich, nor competitive, he was humble, gentle, loving, and peaceful.

Let me explain. In the world there is high stress, high competition, glory and riches for those who step on others who rise above the crowd and make their selves out to be somebody important. In the world there is a big problem for some people because they are never happy about who has the power because they want the power. Everybody, even amongst yourselves in your homes, I can almost be sure there is a problem with who has the power, and who is in control. In your jobs there is competition and there is stress because always somebody wants to be the next boss controlling everybody. Amongst Hispanics from different countries, amongst the races of black, white and brown, there is the never ending competition of who will be in control and get it by intimidation and aggression.

In this world we see wars, we sees families fight and divide, we see friends become enemies, we see so many things happen and it is all because we all want to have the power.

Jesus was the opposite, he was “powerlessness”; Let’s review one of His first sermons: Matt 5:3-10

3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called sons of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

God must weep when He see everyone so corrupted by their desire for power. Jesus wants us to be the opposite, He wants us to be powerless. He came defenseless and He showed His powerlessness by letting others nail Him to the cross. He chose to not just destroy the entire earth with His angels in that moment for a reason, He was waiting to save people like you and me so we would learn to be like Him and show this beautiful quality of God, the quality of powerlessness. I will be humble, gentle, and peaceful!”

Of course, when Jesus returns He will reveal His powerful side when He makes war on the rebellious people who have not learned nor taught his ways.

Jesus teachings on powerlessness is enlightening and his sole purpose to get us deep into the love of God so we can experience it, receive it, and give it freely

Jesus correctly noticed and wanted to heal our brokenness, limitedness, woundedness, and frailty, which are all intertwined with our inner personal struggling with power, peace, patience for waiting on God, and finally death.

If we can rightly discern from an early age that God is in control, that He has the absolute power, then we can mature and go on to other phases in learning.

It seems that powerlessness has always been inferred in scripture but it is most interestingly revealing to analyze it by observing the actions of God and those of Jesus Christ through this peculiar lens through which he has perceived it.

Just as Christ became a baby in frail flesh in order to understand us, we too face the realities of our frailness and limitedness in this world, clothed not just in a body prone to sickness and death, but also inhabited by a human spirit with a terrible tendency to be contrary to God’s nature. Pray now to change into what God needs you to be, in Jesus name! Amen!