Posts Tagged ‘humility’
Better
“God has better plans for you than an easy life and victories to follow victories.” — Daniel Baker
Truth
Blaise Pascal (via Al Mohler) writes:
It is as much a crime to disturb the peace when truth prevails as it is to keep the peace when truth is violated. There is therefore a time in which peace is justified and another time when it is not justifiable. For it is written that there is a time for peace and a time for war and it is the law of truth that distinguishes the two. But at no time is there a time for truth and a time for error, for it is written that God’s truth shall abide forever. That is why Christ has said that He has come to bring peace and at the same time that He has come to bring the sword. But He does not say that He has come to bring both the truth and falsehood.
Fr Vincent Miceli writes:
The idea that unity is more important than truth is a particularly pernicious myth of our times. It leads to the disastrous conclusion that schism is a greater evil than the heresies and immoralities that penetrate and thrive within the Church. A doctor who cuts out a malignancy in time saves his patient, whereas one who leaves a malignancy untreated for fear of hurting his patient condemns that patient to certain death.
G. K. Chesterton writes in Orthodoxy (via John Piper):
What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert — himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine Reason. . . . The new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. . . . There is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it’s practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. . . . The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . . . We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.
Al Mohler writes:
This is our proper epistemological humility — not that it is not possible for us to know, but that the truth is not our own.
G. K. Chesterton writes (emphasis added):
Logic and truth, as a matter of fact, have very little to do with each other. Logic is concerned merely with the fidelity and accuracy with which a certain process is performed, a process which can be performed with any materials, with any assumption. You can be as logical about griffins and basilisks as about sheep and pigs. . . . The relations of logic to truth depend, then, not upon its perfection as logic, but upon certain pre-logical faculties and certain pre-logical discoveries, upon the possession of those faculties, upon the power of making those discoveries. If a man starts with certain assumptions, he may be a good logician and a good citizen, a wise man, a successful figure. If he starts with certain other assumptions, he may be an equally good logician and a bankrupt, a criminal, a raving lunatic. Logic, then, is not necessarily an instrument for finding truth; on the contrary, truth is necessarily an instrument for using logic — for using it, that is, for the discovery of further truth and for the profit of humanity. Briefly, you can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
Kurtis Smith writes, referring to postmodernism’s misplaced relativistic attack on power:
Nazism and racism aren’t horrendous because they’re violent. They’re horrendous because they’re lies.
John Piper writes on the necessary connections between friendship and truth:
Friendship hangs on believing the same gospel. The main joy of God-glorifying friendship is joy in a common vision of God.
See also Peter Kreeft’s article Comparitive Religions: The Uniqueness of Christianity.
Christ is Lord of our time
John Newton was a busy pastor. He wrote of having “seldom one-hour free from interruption. Letters, that must be answered, visitants that must be received, business that must be attended to.” Yet he had this perspective of God’s claim on his time:
When I hear a knock at my study door,
I hear a message from God.
It may be a lesson of instruction;
perhaps a lesson of patience:
but, since it is his message,
it must be interesting.
By our frequent reaction to the circumstances God brings our way, one would believe that we thought ourselves sovereign lords of our schedule. But the reality is that Christ is lord of our time. He gives us regular responsibilities to carry out for his sake. He brings us unexpected situations where we must patiently and humbly set aside our expectations and represent and serve him. And he gives us recreation and sleep as gifts. In fact, every circumstance that he brings about, and every way that he apportions our time, is in some fashion a good gift from him.
Let’s pray that we will better understand his lordship over our time, better see his goodness in that, and thus better trust in him.
Quotes from John Piper
Crossposted to Reflections on Upchurch
Lauterbach on censoriousness
Mark Lauterbach has just finished an excellent series on censoriousness, which he defines (from Jonathan Edwards) as “a disposition to think evil of others.” Lauterbach shares thoughts from Edwards and himself on this sinful tendency.
Isn’t God holy? Yes, but then I reflect on how my Lord critiques me
and I think of Ps 130 — if the Lord numbered our sins, who could stand?
But he does not — he is patient and selective and gentle with us.
This series has six posts:
- Censorious thoughts, 1, introduction;
- Censorious thoughts, 2, on pride;
- Censorious thoughts, 3, also on pride;
- Censorious thoughts, 4, on receiving criticism;
- Censorious thoughts, 5, on love; and
- Censorious thoughts, final, on encouraging and supporting the work of the Spirit.
Packer on the incarnation
How are we to think of the Incarnation? The New Testament does not encourage us to puzzle our heads over the physical and psychological problems that it raises, but to worship God for the love that was shown in it. For it was a great act of condescension and self-humbling. “He, who had always been God by nature,” writes Paul, “did not cling to his privileges as God’s equal, but stripped Himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born a man. And, plainly seen as a human being, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, to the point of death, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal” (Phil 2:6-8 Phillips). And all this was for our salvation. . . .
The crucial significance of the cradle at Bethlehem lies in its place in the sequence of steps down that led the Son of God to the cross of Calvary, and we do not understand it till we see it in this context. . . . The taking of manhood by the Son is set before us in a way which shows us how we should ever view it — not simply as a marvel of nature, but rather as a wonder of grace.
– J. I. Packer, Knowing God, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993; pp. 58-59.
Andrew Osenga on humility and gratitude
“And the bitter man is angry; angry man just thinks he’s right — too right to see mercy when he’s standing in its light! We can shed tears over dying, we can rage and we can fight, but we cannot forget that we were loved before we opened up our eyes — such foolish pride!” — Andrew Osenga, “The Story,” performed by Caedmon’s Call, In the Company of Angels II: The World Will Sing.
Watson on humility, gratitude, and deserving
Thomas Watson draws out the connection between humility, gratitude, and a right awareness of our sins and our deserving: “A proud man complains that he has no more; a humble man wonders that he has so much: ‘I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies’ (Genesis 32:10).”
Ramsey on Humility
John Stott quotes Archbishop Michael Ramsey in his lecture “Reflections of an Octogenarian.” Ramsey gave a series of lectures entitled “Sermons addressed to young men on the eve of their ordination,” and which are collected in the book The Christian Priest Today. Stott quotes Ramsey’s main points on humility as follows:
- Always be expressing gratitude to God: “thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow.”
- Always be aware of our sin: “take care about the confession of your sins.”
- Whether they are trivial or big, “be ready to accept humiliations, they can hurt terribly but they help you to be humble . . . these are opportunities to be a little nearer to our humble and crucified Lord.”
- “Do not worry about status; there is only one status that our Lord bids us be concerned with, and that is the status of proximity to himself.”
- “Use your sense of humor; laugh about things. Laugh at the absurdities of life; laugh about yourself and about your own absurdity . . . You have to be serious of course, but never be solemn, because if you are solemn about anything, there is a danger of your becoming solemn about yourself.”
- Lastly, “it is at the foot of the cross that humility finally grows.” Consider Galatians 6:14, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
Reflections Of An Octogenarian
Notes on John Stott’s lecture Reflections of an Octogenarian, q.v..
A conviction about priorities
Stott recommends one day a month of solitude.
A conviction about people
- How can you continue to love people who do not immediately appear to be lovable? Stott recommends Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor.
- Acts 20:28 — “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” He purchased these people with his own blood.
- The only way to persevere in care is to “remember who they are, and how precious they are in the sight of God.” All three persons of the Trinity are dedicated to their welfare.
- How small is our labor in comparison with Christ’s labor for his church?
A conviction about relevance
- “the task of christian communicator, which is not to make Jesus Christ relevant but to demonstrate his relevance to the modern world.”
- “in this simple, maybe rather elementary . . . diagram, evangelicals are biblical but not contemporary, liberals are contemporary but not biblical, and almost nobody is building bridges.”
- “we have to struggle to be as relevant as we are biblical”
A conviction about study
- “In our busy lives, study is usually the first thing to be dropped.”
- Lloyd-Jones: “you will always find that the men whom God has used signally have been those who have studied most, known their scriptures best, and given time to preparation.”
- Stott recommends one hour of study per day, one 4-hour session every week, one day every month, and one reading week every year.
- We have to study on both sides of the divide… students of scripture, but we need also to be students of the modern world.
A conviction about obedience
- John 14:21 — Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
- Jesus will reveal himself to his lovers; his lovers are proved not by their words but by their obedience.
- “The test of love is obedience, and the reward of love is the self-manifestation of Christ.”
A conviction about humility
- “insidious temptation to pride”
- “humility is not a synonym for hypocrisy; humility is a synonym for honesty”
- Michael Ramsey, ”Sermons addressed to young men on the eve of their ordination”
- “thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow”
- “take care about the confession of your sins”
- “be ready to accept humiliations, they can hurt terribly but they help you to be humble . . . these are opportunities to be a little nearer to our humble and crucified Lord”
- “do not worry about status; there is only one status that our Lord bids us be concerned with, and that is the status of proximity to himself.”
- “use your sense of humor; laugh about things. laugh at the absurdities of life; laugh about yourself and about your own absurdity . . . you have to be serious of course, but never be solemn, because if you are solemn about anything, there is a danger of your becoming solemn about yourself”
- “it is at the foot of the cross that humility finally grows”
Galatians 6:14 — But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Hosea
Discussion questions on Hosea. This material owes much to Phil Sasser, Mark Dever, and John Piper.
Summary
- Hosea and Gomer as a type for God and Israel. Israel’s odious sin, God’s judgment, and God’s loving restoration.
- God’s restraining love shown in pleading for Israel’s repentance, and prophesying and bringing judgment.
- God’s redeeming love shown in his promise to buy Israel back for himself.
- God’s restoring love shown in his promise to bring healing to Israel.
Our sin
- Phil talked about how the imagery of adultery reminds us how shocking sin is. Does this come as a surprise? Do you easily forget how personally our sins are taken by God?
- Phil. 3:13-14 cautions us to “[forget] what lies behind”. When we contemplate our sin we should not let ourselves become burdened by condemnation; Romans 8:1 comforts the Christian that there is no condemnation thanks to Jesus’s sacrifice.
At the same time, Eph. 2:11-13 calls us to “remember that [we] were separate from Christ” so that we may rejoice at having been brought near. And Paul recalls that he is “the worst of sinners” for the purpose of exulting in the grace and mercy he found in Christ (1 Tim. 1:12-17); he is moved by this consideration to proclaim that “to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
- What good can we gain from considering our sin?
- A right notion of our humble position before God, “evangelical humiliation.”
- A right notion of our position relative to others (we have no advantage or merit, and cause only for compassion and not pride).
- A better understanding of the greatness of God’s love and mercy to us.
- What should a right understanding of the weight of our sin provoke in us?
- Humility.
- Contrition and repentance.
- Dever reminds us that Christians must be always confessing sin and repenting of it. Not that God’s mercy is unsure — but our hearts are wandering and need continuous examining.
- Phil reminds us to bring words of repentance, as in Hos. 14:2-3. Do you urgently confess to God your need for his mercy?
- Gratitude and joy.
- Are there any practical ways that you find helpful in cultivating a heart of humility and contrition before God?
God’s mercy and holy love
- God’s holy displeasure with sin is on display in Hosea, but so is his great redeeming love. What great hope and comfort can we take from Hosea?
- God’s love is jealous and holy; he desires to restrain his people from sin.
- We stand in the shadow of the cross; we have received this great promised redemption.
- What of the “healing” promised in 14:4? Sanctification; God has delivered us from bondage to sin! Phil reminded us that sin is no longer our master.
- We have no hope apart from God. But he is a sure hope.
- What should an understanding of God’s great mercy and love provoke in us?
- Phil reminded us that our love and devotion toward God must be pure and not mixed or half-hearted.
- The great price at which we were bought (1 Peter 1:17-19) should inspire much gratefulness and affection.
- We ought to be provoked to a similar self-giving love (1 John 4:10).
Closing
Possibly close with a quotation from Charles Simeon biography, on humility and enjoyment of God’s glory and love. Simeon says:
With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. . . . There are but two objects that I have ever desired for these forty years to behold; the one is my own vileness; and the other is, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ: and I have always thought that they should be viewed together; just as Aaron confessed all the sins of all Israel whilst he put them on the head of the scapegoat. The disease did not keep him from applying to the remedy, nor did the remedy keep him from feeling the disease. By this I seek to be, not only humbled and thankful, but humbled in thankfulness, before my God and Saviour continually.
Piper writes:
the remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable. Simeon was utterly unlike most of us today who think that we should get rid once and for all of feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can. For him, adoration only grew in the freshly plowed soil of humiliation for sin. So he actually labored to know his true sinfulness and his remaining corruption as a Christian.
For the Christian, contemplation of our sin brings not condemnation but tearful joy at the greatness of the mercy shown to us, and the awesome greatness of the holy giver of mercy!
I gotta have my orange juice. 