Creflo Dollar - The Motivation Behind Humility - Part 1
We've been talking about humility. And I pray that it's something that's becoming very clear in your thinking, and that you're understanding that God is wanting to do some amazing things in your life. Amen? And so if you have your Bibles let's begin here this morning in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verses 5 through 7. This morning we're going to focus on the motivations behind humility. In other words, what is it that fosters humility in a person's life? It's something that we've been trying to unpack. And today I'm really going to just really believe God for us to understand the practicality of unpacking humility because God's made some tremendous promises around it.
So we're going to look at the motivations behind humility. What motivates a person, or what should motivate you to walk in humility? 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 5 through 7 he says, "Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subjected one to another, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud," that's the opposite of humility, "and he gives grace to the humble". He resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. He says, "Now, humble yourself". So he resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble. "So humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time". Look at verse 6 in the New Living Translation. "That he may exalt you in due time". So when we choose the life of humility, he says there's going to be a time, the right time for exalting you. The NLT says, "So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God," ability of God, "and at the right time he will lift you up in honor".
How many of you know that I trust God for the right time in my life? Amen? I don't want to desire something so bad that I don't consider is this God's timing for my life because that's going to be, it's going to, you know, timing's everything, and God knows the right time. So I want to depend on him for the right time. I don't want to get to, you know, wanting God to lift me up for all the wrong reasons, wanting God to exalt me for all the wrong reasons. I ignore the time. I even ignore why. I mean, this is what it means to live a life where you're dependent upon God. And so I'm looking at this, that there's a time of exhortation, there's a time that God say that he's going to exalt you.
And I think right now as believers we ought to go ahead and begin to expect the time of exhortation, and I believe we are in that season right now. That God's getting ready to do something so awesome in your life that you will have no other choice but to say, "This is the Lord's doing, man". You'll start looking at everything that happen, and you're like, "This God. This is God who did this". Amen? And you'll just begin to praise him the more. But it's something about the path of humility. And I'm not talking about understanding humility in the traditional sense. We have got to understand how to unpack this. We've got to learn how to walk the path and then trust God to show us how to live this life of humility.
Also, in the Book of James, while we're on it, James chapter 4 and verse 10, he says about the same thing there. James 4 and verse 10 he says, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and," watch this, "he shall lift you up". There it is again. He shall lift you up. The NLT says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor". So it looks like, you know, the path of humility is also going to bring you down that path of being lifted up, that path of being exalted, that path of being lifted up in honor, but it's going down that path of humility. And I think sometimes Christian people we don't really examine our lives or maybe we haven't unpacked this enough in our past to answer the question confidently that, "Yes, I am living a humble life. Yes, I am walking down that path of humility". It can't just be a word that we mention every now and then.
This is the path that as Christian people we've got to learn how to walk down that path and can't ignore this. This is a key issue. We can't ignore this place of humility in our lives. So we've got to understand what it means. So let's go and begin this today in where we left off last week. I think this is the fourth week. John chapter 13. Let's go there. St. John chapter 13, and we're going to eventually work our way from verse 1, down. All right, now, if I understood what I now understand today I would have said to you that John chapter 13 is a chapter about humility, but I paid more attention to the cheaper, and I didn't get deeper. Ain't nothing wrong with that. That's what happens when you keep living and keep developing and all that kind of stuff. But there's just so much you see here, and it's all about humility, and it's the key thing 'cause Jesus is getting ready to go into Passover, and he knows his time is up, and this is what he's leaving us. Check this out.
John 13, verse 1 he says, "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father," now, watch this, "having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end". He loved them unto the end. They Amplified says, "He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end". So this question came up as I was looking over my notes yesterday, the question of what's the relationship between walking in love and walking in humility. There's a huge relationship there. What's the relationship between walking in love and walking in humility?
Now, we spent some time trying to convince this church that your faith should rest in the love of God. In other words, it's not how much you love God, but the priority should be how much you believe God loves you because when you believe that God loves you you'll have no problem loving him, you'll have no problem loving anybody else. 1 John says we loved him because he first loved us. So when it comes to your healing it's got to believe, "I believe God loves me. Therefore I'm healed. So my faith rest in the love of God. I believe that God heals me because I know God loves me. I believe that God loves me, therefore I'm righteous. I believe God loves me, therefore I'm protected. I believe what".
Look at how your faith is finding rest in the love of God. So I believe God loves me. Say that out loud. "I believe God loves me". Okay. I believe God loves me. I receive his love. But what does that have to do? What does the love of God have to do because Jesus said during his time here on the earth he loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end? So when I say love is humility, in fact, I'll say it like this. To love is humble. Love is humble. That's the relationship. Love is humble. And when I say that I mean to express something about the way love behaves. When I say love is humble, then I need to talk about how love behaves. And when you see how love behaves, you see that love behaves in humility. "Love is humble". Say that.
To be humble is not to be convinced, this is what it doesn't mean. It's not to be convinced that you are worthless or unimportant. When we talk about humility it doesn't require you to deny real gifts. Humility is not a handsome man or a woman trying to convince him or herself that they're ugly. Humility is not a brilliant woman pretending that she is stupid. And that's what some people think humility is. You know, you're this one thing, and now it's really fault humility. You're going around, "Well, I'm really stupid". You're brilliant.
You remember those singers that used to get up and sing, doing, you know, the little concerts. You go sing, and they used to get, you know exactly what I'm saying. They'd get up, they'd say, "Well, you know, my voice is not like it needs to be, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to sing this song, but y'all pray with me. I'm going to do my best," and then tear the church up. No. Humility is recognizing, watch this, our dependence upon God. It is consciously giving to God his proper place at the center of all things and over all things so that I see myself as his dependent creature, neither more nor less important, hear that, neither more or less important than every other member of his human family, but I see myself as someone that's dependent upon him. I'm no bigger or better than somebody, neither I'm I lesser than somebody, but I depend on him.
So love is humble, it's not proud when it recognizes the equal worth of everyone and seeks to serve everyone. When you're walking in love and you're walking in humility, I see equal worth for everybody. Uh-huh. That's not how it is. Sometimes in the church is not even like that, and so Christian love reaches out especially to help those whom the world so often considers unworthy of protection, unworthy of help: the weak, the poor, the stranger, the immigrant, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, and the unattractive, the unwanted. Can you humble yourself to love that way or somehow you've convinced yourself you're more important? Leave that up to somebody else. We got to get a hold of this, ladies and gentlemen. We got to get a hold of this. Everything that love is, patience is. Love is patient.
Love is, 1 Corinthians 13, I'm looking at that. Love is able to put up with suffering and wrong for a long time without giving up. Some of you have put up with someone one day, you done. Love is kind. Love actively seeks to do good to others in ways both small and great. But now check this out. Love is not, and these are just three words I want to look at because it's the same thing about humility. Love is not boastful, love is not arrogant, and love is not rude. Now, this is my foundation. You need to get this. I hadn't started preaching yet. I'm trying to get us all on the same page. See, the opposite of humility is boastful, arrogance, and rude. Love is humble, it is not boastful. Humility is not boastful. Love is not arrogant. Humility is not arrogant. Love is not rude. Humility is not rude.
If we can figure out how to walk in love, we have found the path of humility. Is that practical? Boasting, arrogance, rudeness. I thought I'd take a little time to make sure you can see. I'm going to, I want to show, I want to say this, I'm going to say when you see this, you see boastfulness. But what do we mean by that? Boasting is trying to enhance my reputation by drawing attention to my exploits or all my possessions. Boasting, I'm trying to build up my reputation by doing something to draw attention to all of my exploits and all of my possessions. Boasting is that. Boasting is usually a sign of insecurity. You know that? When you sit there and hear somebody boasting all the time, they are insecure people. Those who brag about how great they are are generally those trying hardest to convince themselves. Can I get a witness?
The real reason people boast is because they want others to admire them. Isn't that sad? But for some reason they're boasting because they're trying to get somebody to admire them. Somebody says, "Oh, I thought you had to be in the Spirit to see that". No. You can be just waking up, and just take these notes right now, and you can identify a boastful person. And that boastful person is not walking in love and that boastful person is not walking in humility. But it's not really for you to check everybody else out, this is for you to check yourself out. This is for you to judge yourself to make sure that you are walking down the proper path.
Let's look at arrogance real quickly. Arrogant people are puffed up with an overinflated sense of their own importance and value. Arrogant people are puffed up, over inflated with their own sense of their importance and value. You just walk around, trying to convince everybody how important you are. They think they're bigger and more important than anyone else. That's arrogance. So because of that they try to use other people. They're pushy and graspy, they're controlling, and they're bossy. So check yourself out the next time you are pushy, graspy, controlling, and bossy. Somebody said, "No. I'm just feeling honory". No. You are arrogant. That just happens to come out when you're feeling honory. The arrogant they get where they want to go by climbing over the backs of their neighbors. The arrogant do not have friends, they only have rivals or servants. An arrogant person evaluates others on the basis of what they can do for him.
Are you evaluating other people on the basis of what they can do for you? Think about that the next time you do something. As Christian people you already know everybody want something. It may be good, it may be something that's cool, but don't fool yourself. Everybody want something. Listen. If you meet Waldo today at church, and Waldo for some reason want to get with you, you got to ask yourself, "Waldo, what you want"? Go on and ask Waldo, "Waldo, what you want? I can save you some time and money".
Those who are arrogant never serve others. They never serve others. They only use others to serve them, and they make them feel more important when they can get somebody to serve them. I had a guy who was starting a church, and he asked me when we were going over all the departments, he says "Well, what about personal protection team"? I said, "What do you need with a personal pro... don't nobody know you. Don't nobody even know you enough to do nothing to you". I said, "So let's deal with the real issue. You got to get rid of that arrogance. That's arrogant. You are looking for somebody to give orders to, and that's not what this is about. People that serve you ought to want to". Amen.
Number three, real quickly 'cause I need to get preaching. Rudeness is the third one. Rudeness. Rudeness refers to behavior that is disgraceful and indecent. It's to treat them or to treat people in an offensive and an insulting manner. Now, what do I mean by that? Rudeness is a way you behave toward those whom you dismiss as unimportant. You really ought to get yourself ready when you're even thinking about walking past somebody that's unimportant. Somebody that just simply holds the door open for you, you think you could say thank you or a good morning. But when I look into the church, and I go to these meetings and the convention, and I see these highfalutin, wonderful brothers and sisters in the Lord, I'm like, "Who do you think you are"?
And I make sure I go out of my way to give some kind of compliment to that person that only God knows how long they've been there doing that, but you don't ever get this attitude like, "This is what you're supposed to do". It's the way you behave toward those whom you dismiss as unimportant. So you ask yourself this the next time you're in a situation and you're behaving. And I know this is nothing for you to do cartwheels over, but we got to learn how to examine ourselves and judge ourselves. I'm telling you, you ain't got time to be in somebody else's business. You got enough to deal with your own situations. When you're rude to someone you're saying in effect, "You don't matter". When you're rude to someone, you're in effect saying, "You're beneath me. You're too insignificant for me to care about the way I treat you, too insignificant for me to care about the way that I treat you".
And I told you the number one thing that God is looking for is not how many Bible principles you know, and how long you pray in tongues, and how pretty your tongue is. "...'cause my siding tidy tie". Nobody cares about that if you're not treating people right. Nobody cares that you pray 3 hours a day, or that you fast twice a week, or that you laid hands on somebody who wasn't really dead they were just unconscious and you raised them up from dead and then you renamed your ministry Raising From The Dead Ministry. Nobody cares about that. Let's get rid of the arrogance. Let's get rid of the boasting. Let's get rid of the rudeness. If we're going to boast, let's boast in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because what do you have that you didn't receive from him?