Living Humbly

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Five Symptoms of Pride & Idolatry"

"Humility"

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Dannah Gresh: God is in the process of making you (and making me) more and more like Jesus. That means things that are true of Jesus should gradually become more obvious character qualities in our own lives with the passage of time. 

If you’re honest, you can probably think of a few areas of your life where there’s still a lot of growing to do . . . at least I can, and in fact, there is more than one area that needs some improvement! 

Can I ask you how’s it going in the area of humility? We sat down with some friends at the Revive Our Hearts lunch table to ask the question, “How would you rate yourself on the humility spectrum?” 

Stacey: Well, how do you rate yourself on being humble? I’m full of pride, often, in my head at least. I don’t think all of that comes out to other people, but it certainly is a struggle. If pride is ten, then in my head I’m often an eight or nine.

Stacy: I would like people to think I’m more humble than I probably actually am.

Sarah: But the thoughts in your brain—you’re like, “Am I really that humble?”

I will go with an average of five. I work hard to be humble, but I don’t think humbleness naturally comes to me. So, it can be a rocky road sometimes, where I want the glory, so that balances out with when I’m trying to be super humble, I think.

Stacy: I’m going to say that ten is being very humble and one is not, and I’m going to give myself a four. Because I’m incredibly competitive, I think I have a tendency to swing towards not being humble because I want to beat everybody at everything. But fortunately I met Jesus, and I’m a different person when I’m able to give things over to Him. So, I’m able to be humble because He gives me that, not because I’m able to do it.

Phil: Me, I’m just humble and proud of it, I guess.

Sarah: Oh, there we go!

Dannah: Thank you Sarah and Stacey and Stacy . . . and Phil, our very humble and proud producer of Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

So on the Friday edition of our daily program, Revive Our Hearts, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth was teaching about the beautiful humility of Jesus.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: In coming to this earth, in the life He lived here on this earth, in His suffering, His passion, His death—submission to the will of the Father. It’s an expression of humility, His humble, lowly heart.

Dannah: So if Jesus is humble, and God’s making us like Jesus, that means we need to be growing in humility.

And if we want to grow in humility, we need to be able to recognize its opposite—pride. Ah yes, that word with “I” smack-dab in the middle of it! 

I had the privilege of teaching on the Old Testament book of Habakkuk not too long ago. In chapter 2 we see the arrogance, the pride, of the Chaldeans. In fact, God pronounces curses or “woes” on them. I think we can learn some things and examine our own hearts from these woes.

We’ll pick up where I read the main thesis statement of the book of Habakkuk. It’s found in chapter 2, verse 4.

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Behold his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, [talking about the Chaldeans and their pride and how puffed up they were] but the righteous [in contrast] shall live by his faith.

So the idea of living by faith or called to live by faith is introduced to us in contrast to pride. We cannot be women who are walking out our lives living pridefully and walk in faith. They’re two opposite directions. You can’t do it.

Pride is the opposite of faith. You can’t move in the way of something if you’re going in the opposite direction.

In chapter 2 God takes some time to reveal to us five evidences of prideful living. And these evidences are called “Woes.” Not only are they God saying, “Woe—that’s bad.” But He’s saying, “Woe to you because I’m going to fix that in your heart.”

He’s talking about the Chaldeans, but I think He is also talking to us and asking us to examine our hearts to see if any of these five “woes” are present in our hearts.

The first “woe” we see—and if I were you, what I’ve done in my Bible is I’ve circled every time I see the word “woe,” and I’ve taken inventory of my heart in that specific area.

We see in chapter 2, verses 6b and 7a that they’re greedy and selfish, that “it’s all about me.” It says:

Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own [for how long?] and loads himself with pledges! Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble?

So He’s talking about how the Chaldeans would march into other people’s land and just steal from them, take from them. And then they would also sometimes make vassal nations, that is to say this nation was now subservient to them and had to pay them taxes. What right did they have? None! But they were greedy—“all about me.” They couldn’t live in harmony with the people groups that were next to them because they felt themselves to be so superior.

Now, we would never say that we feel superior to all the people around us, but we certainly do sometimes act it—when we have to have the best seat in the house, or when we have to go first in line. I mean, little things prove how much we’re thinking about others around us and how much greed is alive and well in us.

I couldn’t help in thinking through this (this is not what He’s speaking of in terms of the Chaldeans) but when it talked about the word “debtors,” I thought, Man, we really are a culture that loves to normalize debt. The average American household has about $100,000 of debt. That actually sounds low to me based on some of my friends who I know have had to dig out through having tons and tons of credit card debt, home debt, car debt.

Bob and I have really tried hard not to live in debt. God wants us to live free so that at any time our resources and our money are available for His service, for His use, not to make Dannah more comfortable.

Are we living greedy, selfish lives? Or are we living thinking about the person next to us and thinking about: How does my life serve and lift up the Lord?

The next thing we see, the next “woe,” is in Habakkuk 2, verse 9. It says: 

Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm.

And it goes on to speak about this, and it’s still speaking about stuff. Right? But a different tone. It’s talking about placing our security in things—our security in homes—our security behind gates.

The Babylonians had a huge gate. They had huge massive wide walls that horses and chariots could go across on that wall. Why did they have that wall? Because they believed that everything inside of it was what kept them powerful, what kept them important.

You know, we have the same problem. We place false security in the things that we own—the size of our bank account, how much reserve we have to make it through hard times, how big our house is, what kind of clothes we wear, how new our car is.

I’m not saying that sometimes the Lord doesn’t bless us with some of those things, and I think that He loves to bless us with some of those things. But are we thinking that that is what makes us secure? It can turn on a dime—and it has in multiple times through history. As economies have collapsed over and over again, people who thought they were in comfort, suddenly were in poverty. Our security is not in the things that we own.

The third “woe” is tyrannical power. And we find this in Habakkuk 2, verse 12, where it says: 

Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity.

The Chaldean people, as they rose to power through the nation of Babylon, were ruthless. There are paintings and drawings and renderings and archeological writings about how they would treat their captives. We see in the particular book of Habakkuk there’s some troubling language in here. It’s hard to understand where it talks about, 

You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook;he drags them out with his net. He gathers them with him in his dragnet (Hab. 1:14–15).

When I read that, I thought, Man, there’s a lot about fish in here. And I didn’t understand that. What is this? And I dug a little more deeply. Several of the commentaries I read led me to archeological documents, historical, ancient documents of antiquity that described how many of the people groups in that area—the Assyrians and Babylonians included—would often take a hook, like a fish hook, and stick it into the cheek of a captive, and they would line them, cheek to cheek, hook to hook, to march them into captivity. That’s horrible!

One of the drawings I came upon troubled me so much because it was a picture of an Assyrian king. He had his crown on. He has his royal robes on, and he looks so powerful and so regal. But it was a very gory picture. He also had two of his captives in front of him. One was bowing, and one was standing. Both of them had hooks in their cheeks. And the king was raising a sword to gouge out the eye of the one that was bending down.

They would take paintings like this, and they would put them in their museums. They were so proud of how strong and fearful they were as a people group. They were tyrants. They were terrorists. They were bullies.

I don’t think any of us are going to find ourselves in a picture like that one of the king, but we certainly do find ourselves putting ourselves so far above others that we’re hurting people that maybe God means us to protect. We’re reacting to people, maybe in our own homes, with unkind words. We might not carve out anyone’s eye, but certainly sometimes take a good stab at their heart. We can be tyrants with our tongues. Woe to us.

The fourth “woe” is found in Habakkuk 2:15 and several verses surrounding it. It says: 

Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink—you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness.

Now, I realize that in our culture today, where women sometimes are not treated with respect and honor and protection, the way that God designed them to be treated, that that can be a really inflammatory verse. It’s in there because God was upset about it. It’s in there because God was upset about it. And He says, “Woe to you.”

This kind of stuff is still alive and well in our culture. It wasn’t just the people that were being devalued, but, in Habakkuk, we find that God’s upset about how the land and the animals are treated as well. This is His land, His creation, His masterpiece, His art. And there is nothing more beautiful than the pinnacle of creation—His image—men and women created to look like Him.

Do we honor and respect that? Are we living in a culture that creates honor and respect for that? The Chaldean people did not. And I would suggest that sometimes our cultures also are guilty of that exploitation.

And the final “woe” we find in Habakkuk 2:19: 

Woe to him who says to a wooden thing—awake! To a silent stone arise.

The final “woe” we see is idolatry.

It seems crazy to me that somebody would carve something out of stone or out of wood and then bow before it and think, You can make me satisfied. You can meet my needs.

But don’t we do that with our lives every day when we put things in our heart to take up space, like entertainment, or money, or power, or our career. You name it—we can make an idol of it. We will carve it into something we will worship with our time, with our talent, and with our money. We’re guilty of this, too.

All of this is bookended by pride because it starts with our core verse where it talks about, “Hey! These people are puffed up, and they’re proud.” And then at the end we come back to idolatry, which, at the core of idolatry, is this whole sense that, “I can craft my own god. I can make my own god.”

Proud, puffed up people. People who don’t fear God. People who are struggling, just like I was, with fearfulness and living that doesn’t honor God, isn’t obedient to Him.

The only way I’ve found to overcome my fear of all the stuff that scares me is to tamp down, destroy, and strangle my pride, because that’s what it’s all about. “Do I look good? Do I look capable? Do I look like I’m enough?”

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Well, aren’t you glad that we never struggle with idolatry or pride like those wicked Chaldeans did? I say that with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek!

You know, living humbly before others requires that we also humble ourselves before God! That’s something Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth talked about not too long ago. Let’s listen.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: When we’re humble toward God, we recognize that we are not self-sufficient. We are not independent; rather, we are dependent on Him for everything—for every breath we take, for any good thing in our lives. We’re dependent on Him. 

We have nothing good that God doesn’t give us. When we’re humble, we recognize that. When we’re humble toward God we’re teachable, we’re pliable, we’re responsive to His Word. When we see ourselves in the mirror of His Word, we say, “Lord, you’re right; I’m wrong!”

We’re moldable; we don’t stiffen our necks as children sometimes do (and as grown-ups sometimes do, too). When we’re humble toward God we’re submissive to His authority. We say, “Yes, Lord!” Whether I agree with it or not, whether it makes sense to me or not, whether it feels comfortable or not, whether I can understand it or not. “Yes, Lord, I bow the knee.” I bow my head. I just say, “Yes, Lord!” That’s a humble spirit toward God. 

When we’re humble toward God, we’re willing to acknowledge and confess anything that He shows us to be sin. It’s another, “Yes, Lord!” Humility. God shows me that I have a root of bitterness and unforgiveness in my heart; I say, “Yes, I confess it.” 

I don’t argue with Him. I don’t defend myself. I don’t rationalize it or excuse or blame. I say, “Yes, Lord.” When we’re humble toward God we trust Him. We accept His providences in our lives. We accept His choices for our lives. 

One night last week, Robert and I were lying in bed just talking before we went to sleep. There were several things in our day and in this season of our lives that we were just talking about. Some of these things were burdens. 

We found ourselves at the end of the day just kind of discouraged—not toward each other—but just kind of bearing together some of these things that were happening that we didn’t know how to fix, we didn’t know how to change. We didn’t know what to do about this or that. We could just sense it in each other.

You don’t want to go to sleep that way, and so we were praying. We were trying to lift this up to the Lord. And the freedom, the release to sleep in peace, came as we humbled ourselves together before the Lord. The passage came to my mind as Robert was praying and then I read this short Psalm 131. Let me read it to you.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. (vv. 1–2) 

And so we calmed and quieted our souls before the Lord. We realized, I think, both us together, that when we strive, when we stress, when we try to figure everything out that . . . What did Chuck Swindoll say years ago? “Don’t try to unscrew the inscrutable!” We were trying to figure all this out; we were trying to be God, and we’re not! We know that, but we needed that reminder. 

We can’t fix all this. We can’t change other people. We can’t change certain circumstances. But as we calmed and quieted ourselves before Him we were saying, in essence, “We’re not going to become uptight, bent out of shape, trying to sort out all of this, trying to control all these outcomes.” We were saying, “We trust You, Lord, to figure this out. We trust You to show us what to do. We trust You to meet our needs and to direct our steps, and to work even through the hard things for our good and for Your glory.” 

And isn’t there freedom and a peace that comes when you humble yourself and say, “You’re God! I’m not. I trust You.” Humility toward God.

You remember what we read in 1 Peter 5:6: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” That’s what Philippians 2 tells us what happened with Jesus. He humbled Himself. 

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God. (vv. 9–11)

Right before Robert and I got engaged (I mean like, that week), we flew from two different places. We met each other in Little Rock and spent two days (eleven-and-a-half hours over two days, if I remember correctly) in counseling, premarital counseling, with a man who specializes in blended marriages.

Robert had been previously married; his wife died. He has two adult children and grandchildren. I didn’t have a former mate and children, but I had all kinds of ministry “children” and relationships. We just wanted to get wisdom about how to bring all this together and to just confirm that God was leading in this way.

It was wonderful. It was so, so helpful! This man said so many wise things; we’ve thanked him many times. But something I will never, ever forget—at least I hope I don’t!—was at the very end. After all those hours of helpful, wise counsel, he took us to 1 Peter chapter 5 (where we’ve looked today) and he read that passage to us.

And he focused on this part: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (v. 5). He said, “God opposes the proud,” and then he looked at us and he said, “So do others, including your mate. If you’re proud, whether it’s with your mate or his children or his grandchildren or other people, if you are proud, other people are going to resist you.” 

“God opposes the proud and so do others, but God gives grace to the humble.” And then he said, “So do others. When you humble yourself with your mate, with his family, with your family, with your friends, in your office, it works in not just marriage, but in parenting, in any relationship. You humble yourself, God gives grace, and so do others!”

You can never, ever go wrong on the pathway of humility—with the Lord, with your mate, with your children, your coworkers, your neighbors, your friends, your enemies, on social media. Everywhere! Are you walking in humility? F.B. Meyer said, “The only hope of a decreasing self is an increasing Christ.”

You want to be humble? Don’t ask God to humble you. He knows how to do it, but you don’t want that to have to happen! You want to humble yourself. How do you do that? Get a great big view of God—feast on Him, look at Him, focus on Him, see how great He is. And then ask Him to give you a true view of yourself.

That doesn’t mean you’re always self-deprecating or putting yourself down or, “I’m nuthin’! I’m just dirt.” No, that’s how we started out, but God breathed the breath of life into man; he became a living soul made in the image of God. God loves you. He values you. But you find your worth and your value when you see yourself in the correct perspective of who God is.

Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and in due time, at the proper time, He will lift you up.

Dannah: The way up is to go down. Let God lift you up at the right time. That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, helping us see the importance of humility in our relationship with God.

You can always listen to more of the clips we share on Revive Our Hearts Weekend by heading to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend. There are links to the full programs we pull from for what you’re hearing today. 

While you’re there, you should check out the Reflections on Jesus Scripture Cards. This is the size of a deck of playing cards, but instead of aces and queens and jacks and kings, there are verses about THE King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus. 

This is a wonderful way for you to prepare your heart for our coming celebration of the resurrection of Christ at the end of this month. Each card has a thought from Nancy’s new book Incomparable on one side, and then a Scripture verse on the other side. 

For example, I’ll just pull one out at random here. On one side we see some beautiful leaves and this quote from Nancy. “Jesus laid aside His rights and privileges as God and the independent exercise of His divine attributes—surely the most profound act of humility ever pondered or put into action.” (Wow, I wasn’t trying to get one about His humility, but there you go!) Then on the other side we read Matthew 11, verse 29, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart.”

And there are fifty-two of these cards, all of them attractively designed. They’re something you can use to memorize or meditate on God’s Word, or to leave with your tip for your server, or pass along to a friend who needs encouragement. 

I even wonder if children could make a memory game out of them. I don’t know. You can be creative in how you use them! 

We’ll send you a set of the fifty-two Incomparable Reflections on Jesus cards as a thank you for your donation of any amount to Revive Our Hearts. You can give when you visit ReviveOurHearts.com, and click where you see “Donate,” or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Did you know that at its core the gospel is humbling? Think about it. It takes humility to admit, “I can’t save myself. There’s nothing I can do to improve my standing with God.” We’ll talk more about that next week.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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