“Humbleness” || What Makes a Believer? || Week 3

Introduction to Today’s Message

Welcome to Week 3 of “What Makes a Believer?”. This series is about the different characteristics of what a believer is. There are a ton of characteristics to talk about according to my Study Bible. We’re taking the time to talk about seven different characteristics that I feel can be expounded upon. I want to reiterate something:

I DO NOT HAVE A DEGREE IN ANY FORM OF THEOLOGY. I AM NOT A PASTOR. I DO NOT HAVE ANY PREACHING OR THEOLOGICAL LICENSES. I AM JUST A YOUTH AND CHILDREN’S MINISTRY LEADER THAT ENJOYS DIVING DEEPER INTO THE BIBLE. THESE ARE MY OPINIONS BASED OFF MY STUDIES, SCRIPTURES, AND PERSONAL TESTIMONY. 

I say all that even though no one has come to me and questions what I’ve said, how I’ve said it, or that I’ve taken scripture out of context. I always want to call that out to make people aware of it before we jump into it. It’s a failsafe for me honestly.

Last week we talked about being faithful. This week, we’re talking about being humble. Humble is defined as “having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance”. This means not being arrogant. This means not being a show-off. Yes, you have talents, but you will operate in the background. You accept what talents God has given you, but don’t build your ego off of them. Have I explained what it means to be humble yet? It’s a hard word to explain because we usually talk about being humbled by what it’s not. The Bible talks about what it is, so let’s jump into the first verse.

1st Point: Psalm 34 Preview

Let’s talk about the book of Psalms for a quick second. This book went through a couple name changes over its lifetime. The original Hebrew text called this collection “Praises”, later designated by some rabbis as the “The Book of Praises.” The Greek translation called this “Psalms” or “The Book of Psalms”. The Psalms are Israel’s ancient, God-breathed, “hymnbook”, which defined the proper spirit and content of worship.

The Book of Psalms has a wide variety of authors. The Psalm that we’re reading from today, Psalm 34, is written by David. He wrote it when he “changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that He drove him out, and went away.” This comes from 1 Samuel 21:10-15. There’s no direct connection between this Psalm and the 1 Samuel scripture, but the same historical occasion occurs in both places. Abimelech was a dynastic definition, meaning it’s a title like Pharaoh. Abimelech comes from the Hebrew words of “father” and “king”. If the two passages are connected, the king here refers to King Achish from Gath, one of the Philistine Kings. Here’s what 1 Samuel 21:10-15 is about.

This is when David pretended to be crazy to get away from Saul. David got scared of Gath’s king, who he was trying to seek refuge from while running away from Saul, so he changed how they perceived him. He then pretended to be insane, scratching marking the doors of the city gates, and drooling down his chin. Drooling on one’s own beard was considered, in their culture, an intolerable indignity. Achish said something to the effect of “This fool’s nuts! Ain’t there enough crazy people around that you’ve brought this guy to lose right in front me? You think, I’m going to let him in my house”. So he sent him away.

Why did David act crazy? David was scared. David didn’t trust God to keep him safe. David was trying to run away from Saul because Saul got jealous and thought the best thing he could to regain popularity in the country was to kill David so people could follow Him. He ran to King Achish to seek safety, but because Achish was a Philistine King, and David was carrying around the sword of Goliath. Once that realization set it, David knew he had to go against the norm and act crazy to get away from this king.

So here we are. FINALLY about ready to read our scripture for today. This Psalm starts off as one of the greatest invitations ever to join together in praise. Let’s read the first scripture of today’s message

2nd Point: Psalm 34:2

Psalm 34:2 says: “I praise the Lord – let the suffering listen and rejoice.” This is proper boasting. This is proper praise. This is proper only because of the object, God himself. What does this mean? Well, we’re going to travel forward in the Old Testament to the book of Jeremiah. God talks about this in Jeremiah 9:23-24.

“…the learned should not boast of their knowledge, nor warriors boast of their might, nor the rich boast of their wealth. No, those who boast should boast in this: that they understand and know me. I am the Lord who acts with kindness, justice, and righteousness in the world, and I delight in these things,…”

We’ve talked about boasting a lot, but does it mean? There are actually two ways to explain it. Boasting, as a noun, is “excessively proud and self-satisfied talk about one’s achievements, possessions, or abilities.” Boasting, as an adjective, is “exhibiting or characterized by excessive pride or self-satisfaction.” Have we understood it yet? Great!

We’re aren’t to boast about our knowledge, strengths, and wealth? Uh-oh. Remember how I said last week that this wedding could be full of conviction. Here it comes.

3rd Point: Boasting comes naturally. 

How many of you have heard of these apps: Facebook? How about Twitter? Instagram? TikTok? Snapchat? MySpace? LinkedIn? You may have heard of a few of these, and I believe to be right in saying that these apps come with a bunch of boasting.

We boast about our relationships, our jobs, our possessions, our wealth, our achievements, our successes, and more. We do this in a sense of celebrating our successes and feeling proud of what we’ve been able to do. We don’t mean any harm to it. We don’t do it to be mean to some people…well some of us. We don’t do it to show off to people…well some of us. It’s something that comes to us naturally. I am NOT saying it’s wrong to be proud of what you’ve done, what you’ve been able to accomplish, what you do for a job, etc. I do believe there is some issue with posting about it on social media. I think some of the celebrations that we have don’t need to be shared with others. I think we can relish in our achievements on our own or those we talk to directly. Posting them on social media has a weird way of possibly twisting the intent of the post itself, hence the reasons I meant when I said we don’t talk about them to cause issues. There’s an interesting part to boasting that Jeremiah talked about though.

We’re supposed to boast that we understand God and that we know God. We are supposed to celebrate God’s part in our lives and our relationship with God. We can boast about our accomplishments…with celebrating God’s gift that he gave us. We can boast about our job…with celebrating the skillset that God gave us. We can boast about our wealth…with celebrating the blessings God has graced us with. It’s not about us. At all. It’s about God. Always. Be humble and don’t take the credit for things that God has graced you with.

4th Point: 1 Peter 5:5

This says: “In the same way, I urge you who are younger: accept the authority of the elders. And everyone, clothe yourselves with humility toward each other. God stands against the proud, but he gives favor to the humble.”

Who are the elders in this situation? It’s the pastors or the spiritual leaders of the church. The congregation/parishioners, especially the youth and young adults, are to give honor, respect, and attention to spiritual leadership. Submission is a fundamental attitude of spiritual maturity. What does submission mean? It means “the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” So this means we are to submit ourselves to the movement of the Holy Spirit. To not do what we think is right, but to act via what the Holy Spirit guides us too. The lack of submitting ourselves to the elders of the church not only makes ministry difficult (BIG TRUTH!) but it also forfeits God’s grace (see Proverbs 3:34 for reference). Now I want to say something before we move on to the next point. In my opinion, if you feel the Holy Spirit telling you that elders are not following God’s plan or doing something immoral, unethical, etc., you have my blessing to do the right thing regardless of the submission. You are to worry about God’s judgment more than the judgment of the elders.

Peter tells us to clothe ourselves with humility…like literarily clothe ourselves. It means to tie something oneself with a knot or a bow. This term though was often used as a slave putting on an apron over their clothes to keep their clothes clean. So recognize that “clothe ourselves” means to wear something over ourselves to protect yourself. We need to tighten something in a pretty little bow around us, and that’s humility. This literally means “lowly mindedness”, an attitude that one is not too good to serve. YOU ARE NOT TOO GOOD TO SERVE GOD. You aren’t above a servant attitude or a servant mindset. You are called to be like Jesus; to serve and to be served.

Humility wasn’t considered a virtue by the ancient world, any more than it is today. A virtue is a behavior that shows high moral standards. It’s also defined as a good or useful quality of a thing. To me, this almost sounds like it applies to humans today. We don’t consider being as humble as good or a useful quality. We don’t think we need to be humble. It’s the comparison culture of our society coming through. They’re doing this and celebrating this, so I’ll one-up them and I’ll celebrate my accomplishment, but better. We compare our lives so much of each other and that we forget how we got there. It’s the end goal…forget the journey. That’s not how it works.

I’ll be honest. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the work that God has done in me. Do I have a part in the process? Yes, and it’s submission. It’s about following God’s path and listening to Him and acting because of Him. It’s about learning what God’s vision is for us. It’s about learning what skills God has developed within us and how He wants us to use them. God has blessed me with the skills of relationships, the skills of writings, the skills of story-telling, the skills of public speaking, and others. I feel like I’ve used these gifts for His purpose. I also feel that these gifts are being developed even further. To be able to do more, to progress better, and to reach out to new opportunities in what I can do for God through his gifts. Nothing I do…now and forever…is not my accomplishment, but God’s accomplishment.

We’ll see you next week for Week 4 (the halfway point) of this series called: “What Makes a Believer?”. We’re talking about the characteristic of loving. Stay blessed!