We have talked of humility on occasion in our devotionals. We need to look at the Biblical definition of humility. There are people who pretend to be humble because they do not take a firm position on anything. They think that is how to be humble.
That is not the Biblical definition of humility. In our verse we see that God is high and lofty. He inhabits eternity. His name is Holy. He dwells in a high and holy place. Yet, God is willing to dwell with those who are of a contrite and humble spirit.
Isaiah wrote these words. They were given to Him by God. Isaiah was a humble person. However, he was not a wishy washy person. He had Biblical convictions. He was a prophet of God. He believed in the true God and would not be moved away from that position. He prophesied many things in the 66 chapters of his book. He told of the coming of the Messiah. He described the nature of the Messiah. He warned the nation of Israel of their sins and the need for them to turn to God and follow Him.
The humble person is the one who acknowledges the true God as his God. We are born with pride in our hearts. Every child has this sin in their life. Young children will say no to their parents. Imagine a little child saying no to his father or mother. We have all done this. We have all disobeyed our parents. We may not have directly said no to them, but we have disobeyed them.
A few people will come to the place where they listen to God and realize they are not going the right way. They will realize they cannot find true happiness no matter how they try. It takes humility to acknowledge that your life is not going the way you had planned it. You are not finding the contentment your soul longs for. It is important to realize that your best efforts have not given you what you hoped for and that you will never find that satisfaction you long for. Humility is not a matter of giving up on life and looking for a way to end life. It is giving up on self-effort and realizing the need to look elsewhere for help.
In Luke 8 we read of a woman who had a blood issue that she had been doctoring for twelve years. She found no help in those twelve years. She had spent all her money trying to find a cure and found none. She heard that Jesus was coming and she thought she would see if she could get close enough to Him to touch just the hem of His garment. She was able to do that and she was healed.
She had not given up on life. She gave up on seeking help from humans, even from “professionals”. She turned to God for help. She found the help she needed in God.
There are many marriages that fail because the couple was not willing to follow God’s way of marriage. A Biblical marriage is about walking humbly with God and allowing Him to lead you.
Some religions teach that parents should prearrange who their children will marry. God does not teach that. Parents can sometimes see things that their children cannot see, but they can also miss important things. The key to a successful marriage is to be saved and pray to God and seek His direction on life. This will also involve being a part of a good church where godly individuals can help to guide you in your choice of a partner for life.
If a person is too proud to seek wise counsel in life, they will have to go through the school of hard knocks. You can get hurt quite badly in that school. In order to make wise decisions we need better eyes and ears than we personally have. We need sharper minds that we personally possess. We need a clearer vision than we possess.
The Bible is God’s Word. God made man. The humble person starts with that fact. He or she understands that he is subject to the will of God. The humble person learns it is unwise to fight against God. As we see in our verse, the humble person sees how much greater God is than we are. The humble person is amazed that this great God would even consider us as people. God does not reach out to man because He needs us. He reaches out to man because man needs Him. It is important for us to come to see that.
It is also important to turn to God to meet our needs. God gives each person different talents and abilities. He wants us to develop them for His glory. Sometimes we can be so intent on going our own way, that we push God aside just to get to where we want to go. We ignore His leading and we pretend that we have His approval with the choices we are making.
The truly humble person does not always second guess himself. He needs to be able to walk with confidence. He needs to be able to make wise choices and be sure he has made the right choices. He needs to walk by faith in God. There are people who are quite sure they have made the right choices in material and earthly things. Yet they speak as though they are very unsure of Who God is and what He requires. God gave us His Word. The one thing He wants us to be sure of is Who He is. As we read in our text, Isaiah knew Who God was. He knew that God was much greater than he was. He was content with that reality. He acted on that reality and followed God according to His will. That is what a humble person does.
He gets saved first of all. He may have been saved through the help of a good local church. I believe every person that gets saved is helped by some other person. That is the way God works. The saved person will then want to get baptized and join a good local church. God shows us that in His Word. As he attends that church faithfully, he may find doctrinal issues that need to be addressed. If the local church does not want to address them, he will look for a church that will teach sound doctrine. God wants His people in a good local church. The saved person comes to understand that his purpose in life is to serve God.
There are places that offer cheaper land or cheaper housing. However, if there is no good local church there, what do you want there? If you are saved, that is not where God wants you. If you are called to be a pastor, God may call you to some remote area to plant a church. If He does, He will also show you how you will be able to live under those conditions. If you are not called to be a pastor, then you are called to be in a place where you can attend a good, local church. Read your Bible and you will see that.
The contrite person is the one who sees himself as nothing before the Lord. In Isaiah 6 we see that Isaiah came to see himself that way. He was able to see the greatness of God and he realized that he was undone. He was a man of unclean lips. He knew that God was calling him to be a prophet, but he knew he was not fit to be a prophet. God did not call Isaiah because he was equipped to be a prophet. He demonstrated that He would equip Isaiah for the work He was calling him to.
That is where life begins. When a person can agree with God on this basic and essential truth, there is hope.
Isaiah allowed God to make him the man He wanted him to be. He could serve God effectively because he was of a contrite and humble spirit. God revives the spirit of the humble. He revives the heart of the contrite one. That is God’s work. If we listen to the psychologists they will tell us that we need to hold our head high and we need to get our “self-esteem” in place. That is poison. That is what we do not need. The humble person will submit to God’s will and will find his confidence in God.
We see that in Saul/Paul’s life as well. Saul was a proud man. He was aggressive. However, he was going the wrong way. He was fighting against God. He needed to be broken. Thankfully, he learned the right lesson from being broken by God. He looked up and understood he was fighting against the Lord. When he did that, God could begin to work in his heart. He sat blind for three days and three nights. He did not eat or drink anything. From what we understand, he was all alone during that time. At the end of that time, God sent Ananias to meet Saul’s physical need. His spiritual need was to understand God’s calling for his life. God would give Saul his eyesight back because He chose him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Saul would need to travel and meet many people along the way. He would need to observe things and speak of things that the people of that time saw and knew something about. God changed Saul’s name to Paul, and He guided him to make the right applications from the many illustrations He gave him. Paul was an effective servant of God because he humbled himself before the Lord.
Biblical humility is not about never coming to a conclusion about what God says. It is about walking by faith as we have seen in the book of Hebrews. We accept what God says regardless of what others think. We have convictions that come from God’s Word. We stand upon those. We do not look around to see how many other people believe a certain thing. We look into God’s Word and see what He says. We build our lives upon the truth.
Only God can give us a right perspective on life. We need to know Him and walk with Him.
Pastor Bartel