SERIES
Sojourn: Toward an Enduring City
2017-06-18T08:00:00-05:00
30 But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them.
23:1 And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.” 2 And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” 4 Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” 5 And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”
6 Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” 7 And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8 For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. 9 Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” 10 And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks.
11 The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.”
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. http://www.esv.org
In his classic book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes this about pride: “There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.” Because pride is so hard to detect in ourselves, God regularly uses the Bible like a mirror to reveal our pride. And like a good mirror does, the Bible not only reveals the defect of pride, but it helps us long for the beauty of humility.
It has been said that comparison fuels discontent. That’s true at times, but more often comparison simply fuels pride. In passages such as Luke 18:9-14, the Bible teaches that it is comparison to other people that fuels the sin of pride. Have you ever noticed that as weird, unsuccessful, or immoral as we may be, we can always find a reason we are better than someone else? It’s funny and sad all at once.
The antidote to this is not the pursuit of humility by brute force, but rather a comparison of another kind: the comparison of oneself to God. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, it is not looking within to our own character or looking outward to other people that helps us to flee pride and seek humility. Rather, it is looking outward to God’s character and God’s acts that compels this change. In Isaiah 6:1-6 and in 1 John 1:5-10, it is God’s perfect holiness and purity that exposes our pride, and drives us to repentance. And in Philippians 1:1-11, which we read together on Sunday, it is Jesus’ acts of incarnation and crucifixion that cultivates humility in us. When we get a taste of who God is and what He has done for us in Jesus Christ, our restless pride melts into humble security as the children of God.
Of all the many things the Bible says about humility, perhaps the most repeated is the promise of reward for the humble. Riffing on passages like Psalm 149:4 and Proverbs 22:4, Jesus echoed the promise this way: “For everyone who exalts himself with be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 1:52, 14:11, 18:14).” But Jesus didn't repeat this phrase simply to promote morality, and He certainly was not suggesting that salvation is earned or kept by our humility. Rather, Jesus is proclaiming that it is on the path of humility that we come to know God and ourselves rightly. And it is on the path of humility that we can walk secure as the children of God through the Son of God, who humbled Himself to be made like us that He might die for us.