God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, 1 Peter 5:5

Most people think humility is being nice, polite and not being proud about yourself, but humility is not a human trait, it’s a God trait.

Man’s measuring system

Humans measure themselves by the level of their position, emotions and possessions … how much money they have, how many friends, status, employment, spouse, children, success, no waste, how big a house, car, good deeds, not getting angry, empathy, compassion.

God’s measuring system

God’s measuring system is completely the opposite. He measures your spirit as to whether you are in Old nature or New nature, knowing that what you do in the flesh is an expression of your spirit, what comes out of the heart defiles the man, Matthew 15:19.

Old Nature = Pride                                                                        New Nature = God’s Nature

envy = you’re getting a better deal than me                                   Thanksgiving for good & bad

blame = you made me do it                                                            Forgive = cancel the debt

mood = complain it isn’t happening the way I want                        Trust = no mood

resist = don’t tell me I’m wrong                                                        submit to Authority

fear = I’m scared of what I might lose                                              Faith = Your way, God

I want it NOW                                                                                  Wait = in Your time, God

judge = you’re not doing it right                                        Judge righteously = seeing through God’s eyes

The Ten Commandments expose old nature & point you to God’s nature

Old nature is your inherent human sinful nature. Do as much good as you like, be as successful as you like, be as sweet as you like, it doesn’t count in God’s measuring system. God measures your old nature as sin no matter how good it is; He’s only interested in your New Nature.

Your New Nature is not you, it’s God’s nature in you and it only operates when your nature is dead, Luke 14:26,33. This is a daily requirement of consistently giving up what you want and surrendering to His will. This is humility. New Nature is God’s nature, therefore, New Nature is humility, and New Nature is Love. Therefore, Humility is Love. You enter New Nature through repentance, not good works. Repentance is God’s way of covering your sin; therefore, repentance puts you in New Nature, automatically.

You can measure whether you’re in new nature by your mood. Clearly, moodiness is complaining that it’s not working out the way you want or expect, or complaining that it’s not fair, and therefore, it’s opposite to trusting God. Someone may have sinned against you but when you react in old nature you’ve just exposed your sin too.

God often uses correction from an authority to see if you’ll react with moodiness, or own you were wrong. Most people believe that correction = I’m no good, or I’m stupid, and react with a mood either inside or out. Correction is a good test of where your heart really is. Many wounded people don’t even recognise they’re in a mood because their pride has learnt to block their painful emotions and they trick themselves into believing a lie about their goodness so they never experience any hurtful feelings. You can’t get saved if you live for your good emotions and subconsciously use neutral blocked emotions to deceive yourself about the sinful condition of your heart. You don’t solve anything whilst you’re in a mood. You’d better hope there is righteous authority around to correct your pride.

What is humility?

Humility is consistently giving up what you want and surrendering to God’s will. Humility is seeing your sin and turning to God for His forgiveness for your sin. Humility is trusting God rather than surrendering to your emotions and ending up in a mood.

The opposite to Humility is Pride. Pride does it by itself for itself. Pride says, don’t tell me what to do; pride says, I’m not getting what I want; pride says, I’m not getting what you’ve got; pride says, you’re not doing it the way I think is right. Pride says, I want it now. Thus, another word for Old Nature is Pride.

PRIDE                       is opposite the                       TEN COMMANDMENTS

Me first                                                                      1. God first

Look at ME, what about ME?                                    2. No idols

Talk about ME                                                           3. Don’t misuse the Lord’s name

Work, sport, shop, play for ME                                  4. Keep the Sabbath holy

Don’t tell ME                                                               5. Honour authority

Hate (1 John 3:15)                                                      6. Don’t murder

Love the world                                                             7. No sex outside marriage

Steal                                                                            8. No stealing

Deceive, lie, don’t blame ME                                       9. No false witness

Envy                                                                           10. No coveting

When you do anything for yourself, by yourself, you’re practicing pride and you fracture the Ten Commandments, James 4:11. Fracturing the commandments is sin, 1 John 5:3. Sin repels God, whereas love attracts God, and living in new nature is love because it is God.

Jesus died to save you from you ie your pride, your old nature. Pride runs its life on its feelings; always chasing the best feelings and experiences and avoiding bad feelings at all costs. Humility diagnoses its pride by its feelings and accepts bad feelings and experiences as part of the package God permits for my good.

Pride tries to change its behaviour to be acceptable so it won’t get into trouble. Humility owns its sin and through this door God changes your heart which results in changed behaviour. Everything looks different when you look through the eyes of humility.

It’s not mind over matter, it’s surrender to the circumstances and even the bad feelings, because you trust His will.

Why be humble?

God prospers the humble, he opposes the proud. God blesses via humility, He curses via pride, Deuteronomy 28. Holding grievances is obviously not the pathway for God’s blessing.

By Humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honour and LIFE, Proverbs 22:4

You can’t get to heaven without going through the door of humility

You can’t have communion with God without humility

Pride produces fear and division. Pride gets absorbed in the FEAR of what people think of ME.

Pride repels righteous people and attracts the proud. Humility attracts the righteous and repels the proud.

Humility influences your wife and children towards God. That’s exactly what happened in Pilgrim’s Progress when pilgrim addressed himself and lost his burden of pride at the cross. Stephen humbled himself at his unjust stoning and Saul got saved. Jesus humbled Himself at His unjust crucifixion and, at the end of time, all Israel will be saved.

How do you find humility?

You can’t find humility by trying in your own strength to be good; that’s the same as a monkey trying to pull himself out of a quicksand bog by tugging on his own beard. You can only find humility by repenting of your sin and trusting the Lord’s atoning blood. The trouble is, most people think they’re pretty good and can’t see their sin. Funny how we can see everybody else’s sin but can’t see our own. Before you can say you are humble you have to see your sin.

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God by casting all your cares on Him and vigilantly opposing Satan’s temptations to entice you to live for your pride, 1 Peter 5: 6-9

What’s repentance?

Repentance isn’t saying sorry, it’s owning your sin and giving up your wants to God’s will … “OK, God, what you want.” You can’t repent if you don’t really own your sin. You can’t repent if you blame someone for causing you to sin. You can’t repent if you retain your rights in contrary to God’s.

There are two Greek words for repentance; ‘metamellomai’ meaning I’m sorry that I got caught for doing wrong, and ‘metanoeo ‘ meaning Godly sorrow for having done wrong resulting in a turnaround of behaviour. Judas repented (metamellomai) and went to hell; Peter repented (metanoeo) and became the head apostle of the church. It wasn’t their sin that was the issue, it was their repentance.

You can reverse a grievance by trusting God, repenting of your sin against someone who’s hurt you, and forgiving the person who’s hurt you.

Why don’t people really want to find true humility?

Why are people happy with their own dose of humility?

People are happy with their own form of humility because they don’t really want to pay the price for true humility. Most people prefer to keep the blame feelings. Most people prefer to keep the fair feelings, like” I’ll forgive if you say sorry”, or “why should I forgive when you’re the one who hurt me and I haven’t done anything wrong?”

Humility is expensive; it costs you everything, and for most people they prefer to think God’s grace will permit them to play with the world and still be saved for heaven. That’s a lie of Satan. The bible says if you’re a friend of the world you’re an enemy of God. The bible says if you’re neither hot nor cold I will spew you out of my mouth. Most Christians think they’ve paid the price and are willing to give up everything, but few see the depth of their pride and can’t see their sin; most think they’re pretty good. That’s why Jesus said He’s coming back for prostitutes and sinners, not those who think they are the righteous.

It’s your choice … either address your pride reaction, or waste your time addressing your painful feelings. You won’t get free until you address your own pride, not everyone else’s.

May God open your eyes to your subconscious tactics of avoiding painful emotions to convince yourself of your goodness before you lose your salvation by staying blind to your wounded pride sin.

Pastor Phil Bright