John Bevere - When Humility Looks Like Arrogance

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Hey everybody, welcome to lesson seven of «Drawing Near: A Life of Intimacy with God.» The title of this lesson is «With Whom God Dwells.» Listen to the word «dwells.» Alright, so let’s go back to our foundational scripture: James chapter 4, verse 8: «Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.» Now I want to show you what sandwiches that one verse. Verse 6 says, «God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.» Verse 10, two verses later, says, «Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.»

Now the question is, where will He lift us up to? The answer is found in Isaiah 57, verse 15: «Thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity.» I love that. «Whose name is Holy, I dwell"—listen to the word «dwell,» not «visit"—"I dwell in the high and holy place with him or her who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble.» So the place that He is going to lift us up to is the place that He dwells, and that is in the high and holy place. Many in the body of Christ absolutely do not understand what humility is. I know for years I didn’t want anything to do with Christianity. When I was a high school student, in my first year of college, I avoided Christians because I thought they were weak, wimpy, and spineless. That’s how a lot of people define humility; it’s as if you walk around talking softly and would never confront anybody. Oh, that used to just repulse me. Later, I found out it was for a good reason: that’s not humility. Let’s talk about humility.

Consider David. Let me say this: often, people who are truly humble are mistaken for being arrogant and conceited. Look at David. As a young man, his three oldest brothers are at war with King Saul against the Philistines, and his dad says, «Hey, I need you to bring some supplies to your brothers.» So his dad gives him some cheese and meat. David comes to the battlefield, gives the supplies to the keeper, and when he reaches the battle lines, he finds all the soldiers in a strange battle position, hiding behind rocks and shaking for their lives. David looks at the soldiers, at his oldest brother and some others, and says, «Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?» Goliath, the giant, was coming out and defying the armies of God, saying, «Hey, send your champion out. If I win, we win; if he wins, you win.» When David makes this statement, «Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?» this is what Eliab, David’s oldest brother, says: «I know the pride and the insolence of your heart.» Now, the NIV records it this way: «I know how conceited you are.»

Okay, wait a minute—who is proud here, Eliab or David? If you go back one chapter earlier, God sends the prophet Samuel to anoint the next king of Israel among Jesse’s sons. Samuel comes to Jesse; Eliab is the first one brought out, and even Samuel thinks, «Whoa, this has got to be the next king!» because this guy is like six-foot-four, 256 pounds, strutting out there. Even Samuel, the prophet, is like, «Oh my gosh, this is the next king,» because Saul, remember, is head and shoulders above everybody. God says, «No, no, Samuel, not this one; I have rejected him.» Whoa, that’s a strong word for God to reject someone. There’s only one way that happens, and that’s called pride. The very thing that Eliab has, he accuses David of—of being conceited and proud of heart.

So, David was called a man after God’s heart; David was the one who pleased God and fulfilled all of God’s will, yet his oldest brother accuses him of being proud. How about the book of Numbers? In Numbers chapter 12, verse 3, listen to this: «Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.» Oh my goodness, can you imagine this? This is written in the word of God; this is the Bible, and it’s written that you are the most humble human being on the planet!

The Bible cannot exaggerate. The Bible cannot lie; exaggeration is a lie. Can you imagine that being ascribed to you—that you are the most humble of all nine billion people? I’m bringing it to today. I mean, what a statement! But no, that’s something you would never say about yourself. Can you imagine a pastor going to a conference and standing up saying, «Y’all, I’m humble, and I want to tell you about it»? They would throw things at him and walk out of the conference center, thinking he’s full of himself! But yet, who wrote the book of Numbers? Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, which means Moses wrote Numbers 12:3. Do you know what that tells me? You’ve got to be really humble to write that you are the most humble man on all the earth.

Now you’re sitting there going, «Wait a minute, wait a minute!» How different is this from Jesus? Listen to what Jesus said: «Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and learn from Me. I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your souls.» You know what Jesus just said? «Hey, y’all, you who are weary, come to Me, because I’m humble, and I’m going to teach you about it.» We just laughed a moment ago, saying if a preacher stood up and said, «Y’all, I’m humble; I want to teach you about it,» obviously, we’re not really connecting when it comes to humility. Yet God tells us that He dwells with those who are humble in spirit. This is why Peter tells us to clothe ourselves with humility. You see these clothes I’m wearing right now? I put them on on purpose. I actually thought about what I was going to wear last night before doing this taping, and I said, «I’m going to wear this new shirt I just bought.» So I purposely clothed myself. How are we supposed to clothe ourselves with humility if we don’t even know what it is? If we accuse people that are truly humble in God’s eyes of being arrogant and proud, like Eliab did with David, we need to talk about humility.

The humble person is the person that God dwells with, and this is all about drawing near to a life of intimacy with God. God is not going to draw near unless we are humble because He sandwiches «Draw near to God and He will draw near to you» with humility on both sides. So, it’s very important that we understand humility. So, number one, I’m going to give you the three aspects of humility. Number one, it’s our obedience to God. Number two, it’s our complete and utter dependence on Him. Number three, it’s the way we view ourselves. Let’s talk about each of these briefly.

Alright, number one: our obedience to God. James—let’s go back to our foundational scripture—he said, «God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.» Now listen to this: «Therefore submit to God.» You can see right there, submission or obedience is a huge part of humility. I’m going to prove that to you in the life of Jesus. Philippians, the second chapter, verses eight and nine say: «Jesus—now listen to this—humbled Himself and became obedient.» There’s humility in obedience. Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Now I’m going to remind you what Peter said. Peter said in 1 Peter 4, verse 1: «Just as Christ suffered for us in the flesh, likewise arm yourselves with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.» Now, I said this in a previous lesson: a truly godly man or woman doesn’t look for suffering. We look to obey God, and obeying God will encounter suffering because we live in a fallen world. Jesus humbled Himself—in other words, He became obedient to the point of suffering death. He obeyed His Father all the way to the point of the excruciating death of crucifixion. Because of that, God said He was humble. Now listen to what happened: «Even the death of a cross. Therefore God has also highly exalted Him.» Where was He exalted to? To the high and lofty place where God dwells.

So you can see Jesus is our example of humility. His humility was founded upon His obedience, and because of that, He was highly exalted. If you want God to exalt you, what do you do? You humble yourself! That means you become very obedient to what His Word says, no matter what the crowd around you is doing, no matter what they’re saying on social media, no matter what mainstream media is saying. «I’m going to obey God,» and God says, «If you do this, I will lift you up.»

Now there’s another way that this obedience manifests, and that’s in the fact that God always shows His children where He’s bringing them. He always gives us a glimpse of where He wants us to go and what He’s called us to do on the earth. God says, «For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.» If you look at David as a boy, God sent Samuel to him and had him anoint him, saying, «You’re going to be the next king of Israel.» Well, in David’s mind, «Oh my gosh, I know who the king is right now; it’s King Saul! Wow, I don’t even know who this guy is.» One day, Saul is being tormented, and he asks his guys, «Hey, is there anybody out there who plays skillfully, who God’s hand is upon?» They said, «There is Jesse’s son, a young man named David.» David comes, plays the harp, and then he goes out to battle the Philistines and kills the giant. Saul brings him in as his armor-bearer, and Saul becomes very pleased with David. David is now given to marry Saul’s daughter, and Jonathan, Saul’s son, becomes David’s best friend.

David’s thinking, «Man, everything’s going perfectly as planned. Saul is going to mentor me; he’s going to put me on the throne. This is so cool!» The prophet prophesied that over me. But then one day, the ladies said, «Saul has killed his thousands; David has killed his ten thousands.» Now Saul is trying to kill David, and David has to run for his life and live in the desert. Let me tell you something: Saul is chasing after him. David proves to Saul that he is innocent and not trying to kill him, yet Saul still tries to destroy David. At one point, David’s men say, «Hey, God put Saul into a deep sleep. Just kill him; he’s destroying our nation. You were prophesied to be the next king!» David says, «There’s no way I’m going to disobey God. I’m not going to stretch forth my hand against God’s leader, against His anointed.» David walked out of that camp. This is the obedience that pleased God; this is the obedience that proved that David was humble. Most people would have said, «That guy has killed 85 priests; that guy is trying to kill me! This is only self-defense; that guy is ruining our nation.» David could have taken the spear and run it right through Saul, but David was truly humble.

Alright, let’s look at the second aspect of humility: it’s our complete and utter dependence upon Him. If you look at Joshua and Caleb, they are excellent examples of being completely and utterly dependent upon God. If you remember, Israel has been in the wilderness for a year, and God speaks to Moses and says, «I want you to pick 12 leaders from every tribe, and they’re going to go into the Promised Land as spies. They will spy out the land that I am giving the children of Israel.» The 12 spies go into the land; they actually get a cluster of grapes so big that it takes two men to carry it back. Man, it is a land flowing with milk and honey; it is a fruitful land. The 12 spies come back after 40 days of spying it out, and the whole congregation is there. The ten spies, 10 of the 12, speak up first and say, «Oh my gosh, we’ve assessed the situation. There are fortified cities over there; they are well-skilled, trained warriors over there; there are giants over there!» The whole congregation begins to weep. Joshua and Caleb—actually, it was Caleb and Joshua—quiet everybody down, saying, «Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys! We can go in at once and take this land!»

Now this is interesting: if you look at the ten spies, they’re assessing the situation. They say, «Okay, we’re a bunch of slaves that just escaped Egypt; these are trained warriors over there; there are giants over there!» They think, «There is no way we can go in and conquer these fortified cities. We don’t even have the right weapons yet!» They’re thinking, «We’re going to protect our wives and children.» You might look at them and say, «Whoa, truly humble men! They’re assessing the situation accurately; they understand that for them to be arrogant and proud and go in and try to take this land, they would be putting their wives and children at risk.» Wow, these are humble guys! No, they aren’t; these guys ended up being hung in the presence of God—they were executed. God got angry and said, «How long do I have to put up with people who will not listen to Me?» He said, «The only ones that have listened to Me are Joshua and Caleb. They have a different spirit; they have followed Me fully.»

So if you look at the situation again and you really don’t know the story, you’re going to assess those spies as being humble—the ten spies, who are protecting their wives and children and looking at things with a level-headed point of view. You would say Joshua and Caleb are the proud, arrogant, insolent ones, putting their wives and children at risk and putting the whole nation at risk. But yet God said Joshua and Caleb are following Him fully, and the other guys had false humility. I’m going to tell you something: false humility will rob you quicker from the things of God than anything else.

So number one, humility is our obedience to God. Number two, our complete and utter dependence upon Him. What is number three? Number three is the way we view ourselves. If you look at Paul when he talks about the mind that was in Jesus, that He humbled Himself and became obedient to the death of the cross. If you look at what’s just before it in Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 through 9, Paul says, «Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble.» In other words, if you’re trying to impress somebody, you’re not being humble. Okay, got it? I want you to write that down: if you are seeking to impress somebody, you are not being humble.

I don’t care if you’re six-foot-seven and you can dunk a basketball: if you go out there because you want to show everybody, «I’m the man here!» and you dunk the basketball, and then just go, «Hmm,» well, you know that’s not humility according to this. You’re just sitting there trying to impress others. Think of others as better than yourself! Why don’t you think about how to build up somebody else? Does that mean we shouldn’t compete? No, compete; have fun! But you know, I’ve seen people that compete, and they win the match, and I’ve seen them honor the person they beat in such a beautiful way.

So think about that: it’s the way you see yourself. Be humble, thinking of others better than yourself. Don’t look out for your own interests but take the interests of others too. You must have the same attitude that was in Christ Jesus: He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death. What was He doing? He was considering you and me above His own interests. He took our sins, our sicknesses, our diseases; He took them when He didn’t deserve to die, because He esteemed us better than Himself.

This can also be seen in the life of the apostle Paul. In Philippians chapter 3, right after this chapter, he talks about two different things: what he accomplished before he was saved and what he accomplished after he was saved. A lot of people miss this. They think the only thing he’s talking about is what he accomplished before he was saved. But he’s actually talking about his victories in Christ after he was saved. What does he say about this? «Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do: I forget those things which are behind"—that’s actually what God had done through him since he was saved—"and I’m reaching forward to those things which are ahead.»

I’ve watched more people: God will use them in ministry, and all of a sudden, they start thinking, «Oh, I’m above other people!» Oh no, no, no! That’s not the way it was with the apostle Paul. Let me show you how the apostle Paul viewed himself. This is number three: the way we view ourselves.

In 56 A.D., he writes a letter to the Corinthian Church. I want you to hear what he says. In this year, 56 A.D., he said, «For I am the least of the apostles.» Now stop right there! He just wrote this entire church and said, «Look at all the apostles.» There are more than 12 apostles; I hope you know that. If you look at the New Testament, I think it lists about 23 apostles. Timothy was an apostle; Titus was an apostle. Paul said, «Look at all the apostles.» He said, «I’m the least.» In other words, what he’s saying is, «I am the bottom of the barrel; I am the lowest man on the totem pole.»

Now what is false humility? False humility is knowing the politically correct thing to say but you’re really not saying that; you’re saying something else. In other words, «Hey, what a great message!» «Oh really? It wasn’t me; it was God.» But inside you’re thinking, «Man, look at me!» That’s not humility; that’s false humility. You know the right thing to say, but you really want people to notice you. Okay, that’s false humility. You can’t write false humility when you’re writing the scripture; it’s a lie for Paul to say, «I’m the bottom of the barrel of all the apostles» if he’s saying this out of a false humility, knowing the politically correct thing to say. He’s lying, and you can’t have it in scripture.

So the only way the Holy Spirit is going to permit Paul to write this—"I’m the least of the apostles; I’m the bottom of the barrel; I’m the low man on the totem pole"—is if he really saw himself that way. If he really saw himself as the bottom of the barrel—listen to what he says: «But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all.» Who’s «they all»? The other apostles. Yet it wasn’t I, but it was the grace of God in me.

You know, people come up constantly to Lisa and me and say, «Oh my gosh, your books have touched our lives so much!» Inside, I’m laughing, thinking, «You know what? The reason my name’s on that book is that I was the first guy to get to read it. I could not have written a book that good; it was the grace of God in me!» And I really believe that. Okay, and if you saw my English scores in high school, you would believe it too!

Anyway, that was 56 A.D. He said, «I am bottom of the barrel of the apostles.» Now we’re going to go seven years later, and he’s writing this book called Ephesians. This book was written in 63 A.D.—seven years later, as I said. Listen to what he writes in verse 8, chapter 3: «To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given.» Of all the apostles, he is now bottom of the barrel of all the saints! He literally believes with all of his heart. Remember, you can’t write a politically correct statement in scripture. The only way the Holy Spirit is going to let him write that he’s the bottom of the barrel of all the saints in the church is if he really saw himself that way. Are you getting this?

Now I’m going to take you two more years further. Now we’re going to 64 or 65 A.D., right before he was beheaded, and he writes this letter to Timothy. He says, «This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief!» Not «I was chief»; «I am!» Okay, now wait! Now he’s saying, «I’m bottom of the barrel of all humanity!» He finally has the heart of Jesus Christ because Jesus said, «I esteem everyone on the planet more important than Myself; that’s why I’m going to die for them.»

Paul has finally got the love of God perfected in him. You know, we look at ministry today, and people are like, «They get on the platform and say, 'Hey, I’ve arrived.'» That’s the way I used to look at it when I was young in ministry 40 years ago. Our idea of arriving was being on the platform. Boy, am I glad God protected me from that, because I prayed a prayer that was kind of smart. I didn’t realize it was smart at the time. I said, «God, never let the ministry grow beyond the character You’ve developed in me.» Let me tell you, I had to go through a lot of pain, suffering, and wilderness to get the character that could handle what He entrusted to me.

I’m telling you, you have to understand this. If there’s any prayer, if there’s anything you take away from this whole course, please pray: «God, never allow Your promotion on my life, Your gifting on my life, to go beyond the character that You develop in me.» You’re going to go through a lot of pain praying that prayer, because let me tell you something: breaking is not easy. When God breaks us, when He brings us to a place of contriteness, the process is not easy. For David, it was the wilderness for all those years; for Moses, it was 40 years in the backside of the desert; for John the Baptist, it’s 30 years of training in the desert for a six-month ministry. 30 years of training for a six-month ministry.

But let me tell you something: I’d rather finish well! I’d rather finish well than have a massive ministry and not end well. That’s the heart you should have; that’s the humility we should pursue and chase after. Man, I tell you what, I’ve gone on so long; I have more to say. Let me just say this: there’s a lot more in the book about this. I feel this is so, so very important in the day and hour we live in when people are projecting themselves on social media to be the big man or woman on campus. People are trying to project themselves as being significant and important. Let me tell you something: think of others better than yourself!

So number one, humility is your complete and utter obedience to God. Number two, your complete and utter dependence upon Him. And number three, it’s the way you see yourself. You actually see yourself as not more important than the people you’re around; you are their servant. Jesus said, «I am among you as one who serves.»

Alright, so the choice is ours. We can choose to humble ourselves, or if we don’t, eventually, God will humble us. You don’t want God humbling you, because that’s not fun. We’ve talked about the importance of having an intimate relationship with God. We’ve talked about the importance of the fear of the Lord and humility. I will say the fear of the Lord and humility are the power twins of scripture. It’s so important that you understand that a truly humble man fears God, and a man who fears God is truly humble—and that goes for a woman too! Pride and rebellion are the power twins of the kingdom of darkness.

So we’ve learned that you’ve got to have the fear of the Lord and humility in order to dwell with God, in order to have intimacy with Him. Now, in the next two lessons, we’ll go into the practical aspects of how we actually engage with an intimate relationship at an intimate level with our Creator. You don’t want to miss the next lesson.