Humility

God, you’re the great I am, which is a present reality. You were that great I am way back in the pages of the Old Testament and you will be that great I am far forward into the future for all of eternity. We’re just people and we need you to be and we need us to know and feel and experience the reality of your greatness. I’m humbled at the thought that I get to talk about you and the picture of humility. I pray that you’d help me do it well Lord and I love you.

I really do. Amen. Have a seat if you would this morning. I have some moments in my life where I feel my knees shake more intensely than normal. When I open God’s Word and I talk about something that I sense heaven is far more excited about than I am and that we are as people on this planet and that is Jesus.

And of course you know if you know your Bible at all he is the standard of every virtue of every thing that we should aspire to be and I guess I feel like God and heaven is real excited to hear us think about talk about ponder the presence of Jesus Christ. Amen church and so I want to I want to find our way to Philippians 2 but before we get there today is another entry in our series called healthy. Today has to do with a spirit

that God looks for us to possess. He wants us to be people of humility and thankfully as he does in every one of these discussions we’re having and messages that I’m presenting he gives us his word that guides us that shows us the path so I’m relieved to say that I’m also impacted by the Bible’s presentation of contrasts. There are times when we get to look at both sides of a subject or a theme today we’re going to do that this morning.

We’re going to talk about what humility looks like but before we get there we’re going to talk about the other side. What might even say humility looked like before it left the scene in a certain person’s life. I want to lighten the mood for a moment it will help me catch my breath a little. You don’t have to raise your hand with my question but have you ever had a colonoscopy? Gets one when they turn 50.

I wouldn’t know. So on my way to the procedure I was thinking to myself why me? I don’t know who you are but I love you for saying that. Why not? Okay so I’m thinking this is not the kind of lottery I wanted to win you know hey you’re the guy get in here you know we you know and then my thought I don’t know if you think this way but I’m thinking how much does that run and then I realize that’s a bad word don’t

use that word in this discussion at all so anyway I get there and the nurse actually answered my question how much and she says well the procedure will cost you nothing and and I’m Scotch Irish so that’s music to my ears right you know my dad told me when I was very young you know how the Grand Canyon came into being a Scotchman lost a nickel it’s got to be in here somewhere somewhere so anyway there you go but so here’s the deal and then she

explained herself she says and I went seriously and she says yeah it’s a preventive procedure and so you’re fully covered and I then I’m hold outlook chain I’m like sign me up give me two of no don’t do that so when we discussed her label preventive procedure she said and I’m quoting I wrote it down a colonoscopy exam is prescribed she actually I think read it to me because she could see that utter disbelief in my my look is prescribed for the purpose of detecting problems

before they occur so you can stay well and I thought that was the end of it then she added a colonoscopy can save your life and suddenly my jokester approach to uncomfortable things like the procedure the bit her words in fact found their way into my study this past week I’m sitting there trying to concentrate on my study and after having been traumatized by this procedure and they came to mind as I thought about a pithy proverb that most of you know maybe some of you

have put to memory but it’s Proverbs 16 verse 18 before destruction hottiness or a hottie spirit before a fall so I’m gonna leave that up there for a few minutes because I want you and you to take it in kind of as deeply as I did like pride goes before destruction and a hottie spirit before a fall then I started pulling apart words as I often do it and I’m my first impression was that pride signals problem ahead okay that’s that’s why it’s positioned where it

is at the beginning of this verse pride goes before destruction in other words there’s a condition precedent as a friend of mine likes to say and it’s the condition of pride think of it like smoke before a fire when we would make campfires smokes a good sign but that’s not what work that’s not where it’s gonna stay unless you make fires like I do in the rain and they don’t go anywhere but they just smoke but normally smoke eventually turns the fire or if you’re driving

a road you’re not familiar with even if you were familiar you would you would notice signs at certain points especially with switchbacks we used to call them hairpin turns dangerous curves ahead and why do I say words that you’re familiar with because you’ve read the similar road signs have at you dangerous curves ahead and there’s usually some symbol there on a on a warning sign and what that sign’s trying to tell you before is there’s trouble ahead if you don’t amend what you’re doing so slow

down in the case of the roadside so it matters not how we define what’s next in that verse destruction the words destruction and fall are for all of us a hundred percent of us would put them squarely in the negative column wouldn’t we there’s nothing positive about you don’t say hey yay let’s spend the day at destruction and fall if that’s we do that at Disneyland we don’t do this is not this is far removed from that so think with me a little bit most of

us can define the first word destruction without any help okay but I turned to a dictionary because I wanted to be a little more official in the definition of destruction and destruction is when some something or someone can’t be repaired.

Okay? You could think of all kinds of examples of this. I, for some reason, I’m not sure what triggered me, but I thought of the third game in the World Series in 1989, which was played in San Francisco. And maybe this hit home for me because I used to live in the East Bay on the other side of the Bay, and there was a very interesting disruptive event in that third game. A 7.1 earthquake hit just as Al Michaels and somebody else were getting the pregame done.

Suddenly everything shook and terror came across their face before the screen just went and sure enough, it was on. And that Bay Area was rocked to the core. In fact, 63 or so people died. Most of them across the Bay, where I used to live, Oakland, San Leandro, and in Oakland there’s a freeway called the Nimitz Freeway. And the freeway, because whatever, whoever came up with the idea, they did a double decker and it pancaked.

And you now know why our house, 63 people, lost their lives. Most of them were in that collapse. A friend of mine ran the car. Company that was called within 24 hours to have massive machinery on site because there was no fixing this. They had to claw through.

They had literally concrete eating machines that would take just giant chunks of it and remove it slowly, knowing that it now became a sacred site of a very great number of dead people. That’s destruction. No one showed up saying, hey, hold on, hold on. We can maybe fix this. We can prop it up.

It’s history. Carrot out and do something different, build something new. Let’s go with hottie. That’s the second word. And I have to confess, most of us don’t circle around that word too much.

We don’t think of it very often and it doesn’t, for most of us, scream, I think, as the text wants it to scream. Hottiness. So I did some more research on this word and I am convinced, once again, I’ve always been this way. God knows what he’s talking about and his words fit. So see if you don’t recognize some of the other words that live in the same neighborhood as hottie.

Ready? Proud, vain. This is how a preacher and expositor’s mind goes. I say the word vain, I think. You’re so vain.

You probably think the song is about you, don’t you? Right, okay. So you get vain, right? Vane is just somebody that’s just like, really? They’re arrogant, still in the neighborhood.

They’re conceited. They’re snobbish. Stuck up. I’m gonna hit the word that’s most familiar to you in a moment, I’m sure. Pompous.

Self-important. Superior egotistical, condescending. I’m not looking up right now, but I hope no one’s jabbing anybody right now at all in this gathering. Patronizing, smug, high-handed, full of oneself. I heard these a lot in my home growing up, cocky and big-headed.

I literally didn’t quite understand the big-headed piece. I literally would remember standing in front of the mirror going, going, is it? I thought it was literal, and it is literal, but it’s also in the hottie column. And then psychology has gone a step further for us, have they not? Narcissistic personality disorder.

Ask somebody who’s a counselor and they will fill in the details for you. The Bible is much more succinct. Narcissistic personality disrupts a big, big sentence. The Bible says in Second Timothy chapter three, verse two, people are lovers of self. It’s not a good thing.

All right. So this preventive warning that I’ve left up there uncomfortably long, Proverbs 16, verse 18, seeks to spare us a potential outcome, or in this case outcomes, destruction and fall. It seeks to spare us that that comes from a proud heart. And I think if God has his way through a couple of stories that contrast brilliantly in his Bible, you’re gonna leave here going, I don’t ever wanna be like that guy, and I wanna be like that guy. So the first stop, let’s start with someone who actually appeared on the scene 200 years ago, here’s roughly, give or take a few, after Solomon was a human person that penned these words.

And I have my Bible open to Second Chronicles 26. Would you turn there for our first stop this morning? Second Chronicles chapter 26. To meet a king here this morning who ignored, see how I can say this, ignored pride’s early warning. The roadside said, flow it down, Jack.

And he just gunned it. He kept going, blew right by the sign and you’ll see the outcome. His name was Uzziah. He had an AKA Azariah was his name. So let’s stay with Uzziah.

By the way, if you know your Bible, he is a pre-exilic king. The northern kingdom was fading fast. He was a king in the south. And they had another couple hundred years to go. But he was a king during the time, when he died actually, he was the one that member Isaiah in chapter six says, he went into the temple in the year King Uzziah died, this guy.

And he was thoughtful and reflective. And you’ll see why King Uzziah was a whole bunch of his life. Watch my hands now in this column. And then, a little portion of his life in this column. We’ll see the details now.

He started out as a bright teenager with a promising future. So he was the son, I need to point this out to you. He was the son of Amaziah and the grandson of Joash, which is even more fascinating ’cause his grandpa started being king at eight years old. He’s that one like child, king, right? And he had handlers.

They weren’t crazy in those days. Hey, let’s let the eight-year-old tell us what we’re supposed to do. But he was from that line in Judah, the southern kingdom. Or the south, it was still a united kingdom, but not for long. So that’s sort of some connecting points.

I told you he was a bright teenager. He was 16 years old. When his dad, Amaziah, died. Here’s his story, chapter 26. Then all of the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was 16 years old, and made him king in place of his father, Amaziah.

He was the one who rebuilt Eloth and restored it to Judah after Amaziah rested with his ancestors. Uzziah was 16 years old when he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem 52 years. His mother’s name was Jecholiah, she was from Jerusalem. Judah is in the south. Jerusalem was its capital.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord just as his father, Amaziah had done. He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of the Lord. This is not Zechariah that has the book named after him. We’re really not sure, just full disclosure, who this Zechariah was, but he was a prophet and he was somebody to pay attention to. Schooled this young Uzziah in the things of God were told here, the fear of God.

As long, look at these words, as long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success. So we’ll stop for a second. He did what was right, verses four and five tells us. And here’s the point of reference, just as his dad, right? Which makes me at least go, what was his dad like?

And you find out by backing up the bus just a second and you find that in fact, his dad walked well, walked with integrity for much of his life. But late in life, he became arrogant and proud over a military victory that he took credit for and that was overreach in a big way. I could show you the details here, but in view of time, It’s all captured in the previous chapter, chapter 25. Now, I do want you to see one verse in chapter 25 because it’s the, we would call this an epitaph. You know what an epitaph is?

So when somebody dies, it’s, we would call it maybe tombstone stuff, something in summary of someone’s life. And look at chapter 25, so the previous chapter, verse two. And this is talking about Amazon. Isaiah, Isaiah’s dad, okay? Looking back, his dad was, look at this, verse two, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

I wish the verse ended there, but not wholeheartedly. Seems to me that’s a description of a whole bunch of people I rub shoulders with. As a pastor. A whole bunch of people were, I think, as I talked to them in the present, I remember what they were. And I remember them as being zealous, passionate, Jesus lovers.

And I think, what happened? Where did this go south? You were walking so well over here. You were loving Jesus. You were the person I wanted to be like in that column.

You were the guy I wanted or gal I wanted to tell people, he could be like them. Remember Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11, therefore be imitators of me, he says, Paul says this, as I also am of thee, Jesus. If you know somebody like that, follow them. Follow everywhere they go. And I see some of that and I remember those moments in their earlier years and then I look at them in the present and I think what happened?

I think people thought that a lot about Isaiah’s dad and Isaiah. You were such a sold out follower of God. But it turns out, not wholeheartedly. I want you to remember those words. Hopefully you’re writing them down right now.

Chapter 25 verse 2, and it’s not even about Isaiah yet, it’s about his dad. And I mean it this way. Some of you have kids and you raise those kids and now there’s this feeling of, okay, I’m not so on like I used to be. Any parent with children at home will tell you, their eyes are on you all the time. But somehow this thing, you feel like maybe it comes with empty nest or something and you don’t feel like your moves are being watched or monitored or studied.

Y’all that is so, that’s the devil wants us to believe like that. That’s garbage thinking. You are 100% on for all of your life. And it needs to be a picture that avoids those final three words, not wholeheartedly. It could go on and on, we could stay here a long time.

You’re being watched. And last week we made the point that some of us have to fight through it and it’s a good fight. Remember these words? Second Timothy 4, 7. Fight the good fight.

Finish the course. Keep the faith. They’re not here this morning, my folks are doing that. My grandparents did that. If it sounds too big a prayer to pray, think about it before you pray it.

God if I ever don’t have that kind of heart, take me before I go south. I want to be the guy that finishes the course and with it a hold on tight to the faith. I promise you there will be hurricanes. In fact some of you we can trade places right now and you’ve lived a lot longer and you’ve survived a lot. Many more hurricanes to your faith.

And you could stand up right now and go you got it pastor. That’s exactly what this life is like. A series of hurricanes followed by a calm. Weeping that last through the night but joy finally comes in the morning. And then weeping again.

And then joy, you know what I’m talking about? You think wow. So, all right. This is quickly becoming three sermons so I better get back. All right, so what I want to do is get back to the story now and I want us to notice the very close relationship between success and seeking the Lord.

Verse five. So come back to chapter 26 verse five and you’ll notice with me, he sought God and notice at the end of the verse as long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success. So what is success? Because I like that formula. It’s down on the bottom shelf for me.

As long as I seek the Lord, success. What does that look like? I’m going to freely admit I don’t think it needs to be defined. Most of us say, you know, that’s attractive to me. I want success.

I don’t want the opposite. That’s for sure. So it’s appealing all by itself. Most of us say, yeah, sure, you know, fill up my bowl with scoops of that. I want that.

That’s what I want. So how did it look like in this king’s life that we’re studying this morning? Let’s pick up where we left off and see if we can understand and some measure of success. He went to war against the Philistines and broke down the walls of Gath, and Jabneh, Jabneh, and Abda, Ash, Dodd. We’re going to get to some words I’m going to just blow right on by.

He then rebuilt towns near Ash, Dodd and elsewhere among the Philistines. God helped him against the Philistines and against the Arabs who lived in Grubale and against the hard word. The Ammonites, brought tribute to Yuziah and his fame spread as far as the border of Egypt. That’s a long ways away because he had become very powerful. More details about his success.

Remember this all started? As long as he sought the Lord, God made him successful. Verse eight continues. “Yuziah built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate, the valley gate at the angle of the wall. Many that are going to Israel will see all these places in April.”

And he fortified them. He also built towers in the wilderness and dug many cisterns because he had much livestock in the foothills and in the plains. Read wealthy guy. Big rancher. He had people working his fields and vineyards in the hills and in the fertile lands for he was himself a farmer.

That’s what it means. He loved the soil. This guy can do it all. You getting that feeling? He’s not done.

Yuziah had a well-trained army ready to go out by division according to their numbers as mustard by and back. Jael, the secretary and hard word, the officer under the direction of Hananiah, one of the royal officials. The total number of family leaders over the fighting men was 2,600. But look what happens next. Under their command was an army of almost a third of a million, 307,000 men trained for war, powerful force to support the king against his enemy.

These were well equipped. These weren’t just a bunch of bodies that stood there and tried to hold a line of defense. Notice these were soldiers that had shields and spears and helmets and coats of armor and bows and sling stones for the entire army. You’re going to love this. This is an invention verse.

Look at verse 15, “In Jerusalem he made devices invented for the use on the towers and on the cornered defenses so that the soldiers could shoot arrows and hurl large stones from the walls.” What was that? Catapult. That’s where it came from. This guy invented it.

Maybe it existed, but he had a bunch of them. You get this. His fame spread. What a summary statement. Far and wide for he was greatly helped until he became powerful.

His fame spread far and wide I will furnish you the numbers without the details that you’ll get lost in them for 40 years of his 52 years. His fame spread four decades. He was on it. He was the guy to be like it. It’s the only conjecture.

I don’t know if it was done in those days, but I’ll bet a lot of little boys The boys were named Ziya. Parents do that when they’re pretty excited about, in this case, a king. 40 years of this, and then he drank Prides Kool-Aid. Predictably, trouble showed up in a big way. Remember back in verse five?

He was unfaithful to the Lord as God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. That’s what he did. He was a courageous priest. Read, you don’t do this and live to tell about it. They go in after him.

And they confront King Yuziah and said, “This is not right for you.” I don’t know what that moment was like, but it was probably that moment you might feel just before your head comes off. Right for you, Ziya, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Eren, who’ve been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary for you’ve been unfaithful and you will not be honored by the Lord God.

I’m sure, you know that expression, you know, I don’t want to be near that person when God pours out his, you know, fire from heaven. Stay away from them. That’s like hugging a tree in a lightning storm. You don’t want to. So, what do we have here?

Well, we have this gigantic infraction that takes a lot longer to unfold, but just write these passages down. Exodus chapter 30, you can read about this violation, this great violation, ’cause he could do it all, remember? He had land, he had livestock, he had wealth, he had success militarily, the land was at peace, everything was on a roll, everything was working well. Don’t come into the temple and pretend you’re a holy man. That’s for the pastors, the priests in this day.

Don’t go there. Those are special people that come from the line of Eren. This goes way back. That’s why I have you look at Exodus 30, here’s another one. Verse 16, verse 39.

It’s in one verse right there. Priests are the only ones assigned to lead and worship. But he’s walking around swinging the incense. Hey, anybody can do that? See, it’s working.

It’s a cavalier, it’s a tragic moment. His achievements, let’s talk about them. They were heady stuff. Sipping slow release poison over 40 years and the writer doesn’t hide from it. That’s why I’m gonna hold it up here a minute.

That’s where it happened. He became powerful and that led to him becoming prideful and that resulted in his downfall. Can we wanna get personal for a minute? How can we not? I wanna rewrite that verse.

Would you wanna rewrite it? Let’s do it. You can flip over your page and write it. Let’s write this verse over. But after, put your name in there.

There. Steve. But after Steve became powerful, put your name in there. Please don’t put my name in there, that’s so mean. So after, put your name in there, became powerful, became prideful, became popular.

Became like, had more friends on Facebook. Became pretty. Became sexy. Became handsome. Hold on, I’m not done.

We gotta make this personal. Became wealthy. This list just goes on and on, doesn’t it? That’s why I think when he became, in his case it was powerful. What is it that is at risk for you, that you become one of those things, popular, retired?

I got a big moan on that ’cause there’s a few retired ones. He became proud, which led to, put your name in there, Steve’s downfall. He died, lives in your heart is a good question to ask. How much pride lived in the king’s heart? A ton.

A ton. Know how I know? What we get to read right now is hard to read. But it’s required reading if we’re gonna avoid his same mistake. 80 priests came in after him.

And one with the high priest himself. And they confront the king. And the results, well, the intended result is, oh my gosh, I’ve, I’ve misstepped, I’ve terrible overreach, gotta back out. His results, well, look again at verse 19 at the beginning. Isaiah who had a sensor in his hand, ready to burn in scents.

Became angry. Next verse, while he was raging. He blew a head gasket, folks. I won’t do it ’cause my wife says, whenever you do that in the pulpit, it just looks so scary. But his veins were sticking out.

Hold your breath long enough. And they stick out and it’s this rage. The guy’s freaking out. Pick any other word. Sorry to you, mailmen.

He went postal. I love you. He went nuts. He just went, he went off. That’s what we’re reading here.

Rage and fury. Leading to a pathetic finish that we just gotta read. Isaiah comes raging the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple in adaptive. That moment, that moment. He didn’t go, you know, I’m feeling sick.

Leprosy breaks out on his forehead. When Isaiah arrived, the chief priests and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead. So they, this is just such a statement of incredible commitment to their job. They hurried him out. His leprosy was highly contained.

It was just this fear. Figured thing everybody ran for cover. They’re whisking him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave because the Lord had afflicted him. King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died.

Verse 21, he lived in a separate house. Leprous and she banned from the temple of the Lord. Jotham, his son, had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land. And there you have it. His pride led to his destruction and fall.

We could go on and on, but I want you to turn from here to a second fast story. It’s a very quick story, but it’s so beautiful and it’s in Philippians chapter two. It’s actually in a lot of places, but we’ll just stay Philippians two for a couple of minutes. In the New Testament, the contrasting picture and person that we’re told, if we’re told by the story of Uzziah to avoid that at all cost, and I think that’s the message, we’re told in this story in Philippians two, to emulate this at all cost. It’s just the opposite.

Verse three, let’s just jump right in. Each of you to the interest of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature, God, well let me stop for a second, in relationship with others, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. So obviously the person we’re talking about is Jesus. He chose to be humble, verse three, not proud.

He chose to be others-minded. Not what’s more natural, me-minded. That’s verse four. And then verse five says, how do it answers the question, how do you do that? And Jesus says, verse five, be like me.

Have the same attitude in you that you see in me. That’s Jesus. Verse five. And so what was he like? He was in very nature, God did not consider equality with God.

That’s something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus, though God, became a human, and as one translation has put it so beautifully, he moved into the neighborhood.

It’s a great picture. Incredibly humbling journey. I want you to look up from your Bible right now, regardless of the translation. And I’ve taken the time to put it in a translation known as the message. It’s actually a paraphrase and it’s a beautiful presentation of this.

Check this out. Jesus had equal status. These are the same words we just read. He had equal status with God, but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all.

Time came, he set aside those privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave and became human. Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death.

The worst kind of death at that crucifixion. That’s humility. How did it work out? This little section ends verse nine, therefore God also highly exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that’s above every name. That the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

Every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, amen? Jesus in his ministry, his teaching ministry some time before he went to the cross was teaching on humility as a God honoring, we’re calling them habits in this series. And Luke 1411 is one of my favorite. It really is if I can put it this way in a single verse, my message today, the message God gave me. After all of this, I came back to Luke 14 verse 11.

Those who exalt themselves think, Uzziah, think yourself from time to time, ’cause I did. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled. And those who humble themselves love themselves think Jesus Christ will be exalted to the highest place we just read it. Would you close your Bibles but keep your eyes open and I wanna tell you a quick story. It’s a story about a king who loved to humble maiden.

He was in charge of the kingdom. He was a single king. He came to his attention. There’s this beautiful humble maiden that lived in the far reaches of his reign, of his land. He just couldn’t get her off his mind.

It’s beautiful. And he began to think how could he gain her attention first and maybe affection? And say she could become the queen. Again, to think through how to do that and he thought I could suppose the issue of decree, I am the king. That’s right.

Write a edict, give it to one of my people and they’d go to that village where she lived and say the king has not requested something stronger than that, required you to come. She would come because no one ever said no to the king. But in coming he would welcome her and then begin to wonder are you here because you wanna be? Or because you’re afraid what might have happened? And he said no.

So he passed on that idea, paced the floor a bit more and came up with a second idea. I am the king and I have unlimited resources so I can wow her. I can blow her away with the benefits and privileges of royalty. I can buy her anything, her little heart desires. And then he quickly found his way to but she might come and become even the queen but I might wonder myself to myself.

Is she here because she wants to be? Or because she really likes the perks that come with being my wife and the queen. And he passed on that plan. Thinking long and hard, he came to the only other conclusion. He would have to leave the throne.

Renounce it. Not just leave it temporarily. Let it go. Leave all the trappings of royalty. All the sense of like sovereignty.

Put it aside. Change clothes and everything that goes with that former identity and go. To that far village where she lived and show up in commoners clothes and be the new guy in town. And maybe just maybe win her heart. So he did.

Wanna know how the story turns out? Jesus is that king. We are that humble maiden. We just read how he left the throne. Came humbly.

No power. No. No entourage died on a cross. To have all of your heart and mind. You get to decide how this turns out.

He’s made his move. I’d like you to bow your heads now. God we come to you in a very tender moment. Because what that story leaves out is the fact that you left your life. On a cross given for a lot of people, a lot of those you came for.

Laughing at you and rejecting you. And saying yeah thanks but no thanks. I don’t ever wanna be that person. So if you’re praying to him right now, I think the right answer is to say, Lord Jesus, I want you to have all all the freedom and the full and complete and continuous response of my heart to you in every way, every day. And if you’re not there right now, I wanna invite you as we sing as we complete this hour.

That you say Jesus, let’s change it up right now. That sort of started but stuttered. I don’t wanna do that. Not anymore. And if you’re thinking about somebody that’s not here, maybe you are.

You’re saying I’m all in and I won’t look back. And would you please bring them by name before Jesus right now? And then will you say, Jesus, I want to walk humbly with you, to follow you, and to live like you, to be like you, as one who walks humbly with his God. As the worship team starts to this song, would you just stay seated until the Lord says, stand up and be exalted. You’ve stayed humbled.

I want to lift you up. Ushers will come, they’ll gather up the offering, your prayer requests. And then when the Lord gives you the go, maybe he won’t, maybe he won’t. And he’ll say, stay seated. You sing it.

See you today.

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 6,246 words.