"No One Is Ever Quiet!"
EPISODE 165
Lower Yourself to Lift Up Others
Is it possible to be proud of something … in a good way? And what does it mean to be “a servant of all”? This week we meditate on the praiseworthy virtue of humility. We go Finding Jesus in the Servant Song in Isaiah 42, making sense of the “broken reed” he won’t break and the challenge of wielding power justly. And in a Psalm 34 edition of Poetry in Motion, we consider David’s invitation to “taste and see” the Lord’s goodness for ourselves. As we prepare to conclude the What’s Good guided study next week, remember you can find all the videos and study guides at biblegeeks.fm/good.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: When we lift ourselves above others, we forget that our King lowered himself for us.
This Week's Challenge: Put someone's interest before yours by doing something they want to do.
Show Notes
Episode Transcription
in a public place where people are supposed to be quiet. No one is ever quiet. It's just ridiculous. Well, hello everyone and welcome to Bible Geeks Weekly Podcast. This is episode 165. I'm Bryan Schiele. - I'm Ryan Joy. - And thanks so much everyone for tuning in. We are, as you said so eloquently last week, we are in our penultimate discussion here in our What's Good guided study. This is session 12 out of 13 and today, everybody look at me, we're gonna talk about humility. - Yeah, yeah, there's the old story about the guy that got the award for being the most humble and then they took it away because he accepted it. So I think that's where you were going with that. - Exactly, yep. And I think that probably leads us into our conversation starter that we dropped not too many weeks ago. That was called Happy Debtors. - Doodle-oo, doodle-oo, doodle-oo. - This is What's Good. Happy debtors. What's the perfect foil for a beast? How about a handsome but arrogant villain? When Gaston calls himself a specimen, brags about cheap shots, and invites Bell to admire his trophies, he seems silly until he self-servingly commits Bell's father and incites a mob. We know a villain when we see selfish pride. It's why we loathe the Dursleys, despise Prince Humperdinck, and find satisfying justice in the demise of Esther's real-life nemesis, Haman. Because at our core, we admire those who humbly lower themselves while lifting up others. It's another noble virtue worth celebrating. So here's the big idea. When we lift ourselves above others, we forget that our King lowered himself for us. "The Lord of lords is gentle and lowly in heart." Matthew 11, 29. What an unexpected path to the top Jesus illuminates. We don't climb over others, we hold them up. As he said, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all, and servant of all." Mark 9 verse 25. Galileo challenged the belief that the universe revolves around our world. 400 years later, some still think they're the center of the universe. The delusion that Everyone owes you, makes life a battle for what's yours, but we deserved death. Jesus paid what he didn't owe, and everything changes because of that gift. We're happy debtors, loving others and sharing the gift. Narcissism stains our politics, entertainment, and interactions. Pride is fashionable, but we can still find humility. we can show our kids a first responders selflessness or an expert who keeps listening, staying open to reason. Where pride looks out for number one, humility looks not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2 verse 4, "Seeing others as equals, we consider them significant, sharing the glory of Christ's lowliness." Andrew Murray rightly calls humility the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all. So here's the big question. Will you be a servant of all today? So follow along with this guided study at biblegeeks.fm/good and may the Lord bless you and keep you today. Shalom. I'm just going to let you go first here in this conversation as being the more humble one of the two of us. Oh, you're winning the prize already. Well, the big idea we talked about there is that when we lift ourselves above others, we forget that our King lowered himself for us. And it's funny how you can just forget the most obvious things. Speaking of forgetting something just so basic, I forget my age. Sometimes I forget where I put my glasses, like while I'm wearing them. Yeah. - Yeah, and as strange as it sounds, when we don't keep front of mind throughout the day, the things that Jesus did for us and the fact that he lowered himself for us, in a way we've functionally forgotten that fact. And that's why faithful living often comes back to these three simple words that Paul wrote to Timothy. He said, "Remember Jesus Christ." 2 Timothy 2 verse eight. And it's so basic, it's so obvious, but are you suffering? Remember Jesus Christ. Are you drifting? Remember Jesus Christ. And maybe is your view of yourself getting a little inflated? Are your priorities and your talents and your interests becoming your focus? Remember Jesus Christ who lowered himself and became a servant to lift us up. It's basic, but we forget the most basic things sometimes. - I totally agree with that. And it leads us to the big question there in that conversation starter, which was, Will you be a servant of all today? Those two words for me are so challenging in that question. Like the question would be so much easier if it was just, will you be a servant today? But it's that of all part that really causes me a lot of trouble. 'Cause I think I could hopefully find somebody throughout the day that I could be a servant to. And it's easy. It's not really that hard to serve maybe your family in a small way or even to be the kind of person who lets somebody else speak first or holds the door open for somebody at the restaurant or whatever. But like, I think it's quite a different idea to broaden the scope of this and think about serving everyone. And that is, I think, the greater challenge, to be present and aware enough in every single moment with that intention that I'm gonna bless every person's life that crosses my path today. And can I do that? I don't know. Will I? Will I try to? Yeah, I mean, I think when you couple that with what you were just saying about Jesus, remembering Jesus, reminds me that he would have done the same thing. - That's the example of the one person who was servant of all. And I think, you think of that passage that we're drawing from there about who's gonna be the best leader is the one who is the servant of all, who's the greatest, the one who's the servant of all. I think the idea is that everybody that we want to impact the way we're going to do it, the way we're going to guide people, the way we're going to support and strengthen people is not by telling them what to do or ruling in some way that we think. Sometimes it feels like you just can leverage everybody into where you want them to go, but the way you make the impact is by choosing to serve and to lower yourself and think, what does this person need? So we're already getting into the heavy stuff. We haven't gotten very far, so maybe we should lighten it up here with a icebreaker question. Although this icebreaker feels like a trap, also I have to say, it feels like we're already getting heavy. It's this question, what are you proud of? This is an episode about humility, but what are you proud of, Brian? - Are we really allowed to do this? Can I share something I'm proud of? I think you're right though, it is a trap. This is a pretty dangerous question. - It's a trap. - So I have probably a lot of regrets in my life, especially early on. You know, I didn't make great choices when I was growing up and there's some things that I wish I would have done differently, but there is one thing I will never regret and that is standing in line at the Apple store at 4 a.m. waiting for the iPhone 4. That is definitely something I will never regret because there I got noticed by a local film crew as this goofy kid standing in line and I got interviewed about my obsession, like why would I be here at four in the morning waiting for an iPhone 4? And then that led to them inviting me to come and do a weekly technology segment on the morning news, and it's like, I'm not super proud of that, like I'm not overly proud of that, but it was one of those things that I just couldn't say no to, and no, I didn't get paid for it, and I never really got famous, quote unquote, for it, but it's just something that I'm never gonna forget, and a lot of other people could never even imagine doing something like that, so it's like, I'm somewhat proud of being on TV every now and again. I don't know. That's a silly example. Probably. No, it's a, it's a really cool example because that was a neat moment. And I guess what you're talking about is like, what gave you joy that you were able to do or be part of? Sure. And I did get, I guess I got snagged by the question, just like thinking, it took me down a spiral of like, Trying to make sense of being proud of something and when is that okay? And how does that work? So I was already in the, in the episode with this icebreaker question. Oh man. Because I feel like, yeah, I feel like this, like the word pride in the Bible is always bad. Yep. It's, it's always about exalting ourselves sinfully. But I think that what we're talking about here is more like when Paul called people his joy and his crown of boasting in first Thessalonians 2 19, he talks about that. I just did a sermon from Philippians 4, 3, where he reminds the people that he loved that he was pouring himself out for them and they were his crown and they were his joy. And the lesson I gave was all about how did Paul view his friends. And it made me think about whenever I look at people that I am really invested in and I'm committed to, like, I've spent time like you, I've spent a lot of my life trying to build you up and you've returned the favor, you know, you've tried to build me up. And that is really cool. Cause I can see where you used to be and where you are now. And that has very little to do with me, but I've gotten to be part of that journey. That's exciting. You know, our, our kids, we watch our kids. Everybody says my pride and my joy is our kids. And what we're proud of is not look at what I have made or something like that. That somehow it's, it's this person is who they are all because of us, but we've had a part in that and we've gotten to see that journey. And so it's exciting. No, I think you're dead on. I there's nothing wrong with boasting. There's nothing wrong with being proud of something, but it's that internal sense of pride. I think that that selfish motivated pride that really is the, is the problem here. 'cause you know, of course, God looking down from heaven when he sees certain people obeying him and doing things well, you know that the Lord God is proud of people, you know, as he looks down at what they're doing. - Yeah. - He's happy and, like you're saying there, he's joyful that they are serving him. And you can just see that emotion, obviously, that God would have toward people like that. So, of course, you're gonna be proud of your kids and you're gonna be proud of that silly accomplishment that you did or, you know, whatever it is. - Maybe we should make a note in the icebreaker question in the guide, what are you proud of in the good way? (both laughing) - What are you good proud of? Yeah, no doubt. Maybe that's a good clarification to make. All right, so let's go and find Jesus actually in the Old Testament. And there is a spot in Isaiah, a handful of spots actually in Isaiah, where we see these songs about the servant and his humility and all of the wonderful things that he's going to do someday. And here in Isaiah chapter 42, we see this servant song talking about the Lord from the Lord's perspective saying, "Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights." And so he goes on and talks about what his servant is going to do, how he's going to be a different kind of servant. He's not going to go bust down the doors like the Kool-Aid man. He's going to be, you know, much more thoughtful and reserved and careful. And he's going to do things in a different way than people were expecting. And then at the end of this whole thing, the Lord through Isaiah says, I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeons and from the prisons, those who sit in darkness. And so this whole servant song is about this one who he gives glory to, who he delights over. So where do you see Jesus here? Well, he's all over it because it's about him, of course. But the thing that jumped out at me was the difference between him and most people that we give attention to. Like, have you ever noticed that all the big celebrities seem to have this genius for making a splash? Yeah. There's, you think about somebody that just always is getting attention. They're just always publicity stunts and buzzworthy tweets and all these things that they do. But here that picture in verses two and three, I mean, it's really strange, really striking picture. I think of Jesus where he's just the opposite. It says that he won't cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the streets. And then it says he won't break a bruised reed or quench a burning wick. Like what in the world is going on with not bruising reeds and not quenching burning wicks. It's just such a weird phrase, but cool. And so I'm like wrestling with that. What does this mean? And it made me think if Jesus had a PR rep, he would drive them nuts because as this passage predicted, he totally refused to promote himself. Yeah. You know, how do you build a movement when you tell everyone to keep the word quiet, like he always did? And so I really appreciate this quote from Alec Matir's really good commentary on Isaiah. One of my two favorite commentaries on Isaiah, and it's really short, but he says, "He is not self-assertive, but he has a quiet, unaggressive demeanor. He's not out to dominate or shout others down and not out to advertise himself." This is Matir talking about this passage. It says, and he is not dismissive of others, however, useless or beyond repair, like a bruised reed might seem useless or beyond repair, but he's not dismissive of that. He won't break them, even though they're already broken down. However, past it and near extinction, they are like a smoldering wick. He won't dismiss them or move past them. He he's gently handling them with honor is I think the idea here. And so he's tending to the weak and he's not making a big show of himself. I mean, this is, this is the essence of humility. And why didn't he feel the need to do all that? Well, one reason is that his mission was never about him. So verse six says that he's the gift given by God for everyone else. He is not the giver. He's the gift. God says there, I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, God the Father giving Jesus, makes you think of John 3 16, as the one who will be the covenant. And so his mission is in service of God and it's in service of everybody else. It's not in service of himself though he ultimately is exalted. And that's I think obviously why we chose this as a conversation about humility. He is not doing this for himself and we see that throughout his ministry. He is constantly deflecting, he's constantly minimizing himself to really highlight God. It's not about Jesus as the focus of this all, but Jesus constantly was pointing to God and saying, "Look at God! This is God's will, this is God's words." And all that just sort of highlights his need to be lower and lower and lower. And we do, rightly so, honor Jesus and we look at him as as being so important, but clearly, he was not acting that way as he lived on this earth, which is, like you said, in those examples of how he treated people and the way that he interacted with people is just so cool. I love that. - I like what you said. Look over there, look at him. Don't look at me. You know, it's like it's always the pointing finger is always elsewhere, always up to the Lord, to the Father, and so our Lord is still pointing away from himself. - Yeah, so I was thinking about how I had a sort of weird interaction this week, and maybe if I could take a tangent for a second, but. - That's all we're doing. - That's pretty much it, right? So I've been riding my bike to work for the last, well, since the pandemic. It's been years that I've been doing this. And I ride my bike and I bring it into my office and I go through the turnstile and walk my bike through. I have my bike with me at work, so it's not outside. It's not sitting out in the rain. It's not really a big deal, but this last week, somebody in the security office got the smart idea to notice that I was walking through the turnstile with my bike and they suspended my turnstile access and they would no longer let me in the building with my bike. And yeah, that was not cool, dude. And so for whatever reason, I went into the office that day after being locked out and my boss's boss's boss, our vice president, he actually sits in our room, he works with us, and he saw that I didn't have my bike. "Where's your bike?" I said, "Well, let me tell you a story "about our security department." And so I explained to him what all happened. And wouldn't you know, not just like 10 minutes after that, there was a carefully worded and angry email being sent to the security office from my boss's boss's boss. So on one hand, I felt kind of bad about that. Like I may have gotten somebody in trouble by tattletailing on them to my boss's boss's boss. On the other hand, I thought, what kind of power I have access to. (laughs) And, you know, when you have the ear of somebody who is very, very important, for those who have such power, I think, yeah, you have a little bit of responsibility with that. And so, I don't know, it just kind of made me think as I'm sitting here, and I'm reading in the very first few verses here, where he says, "Behold my servant, "whom I uphold my chosen, "in whom my soul delights." Jesus has the ear of the Father. Later on, he says, "I give my glory to none other." He is the only one, this servant, who has my glory. And it's just this amazing relationship that they have. And for Jesus to have that kind of relationship with God, it could be so easy for me to imagine him wielding that power to get his own way, like that 10,000 angels song that we sometimes sing. It's not hard to picture Jesus fighting back or striking down his enemies and just taking the power in his own hands and really just being that kind of leader that I think the Jews expected him to be, going in and booting out Rome and doing all the kinds of things to bring them back to their national pride, but that's not what Jesus was. And with that great power he had, he wielded it very, very carefully. He was the king that was on his knees, who was washing feet. He wasn't calling on God to send fire and brimstone down on people to destroy them. He was the epitome of humility. What a cool shift of mindset, I think, than what we would naturally have. So let's move into our second segment here, and that is Poetry in Motion. ♪ Poetry in motion ♪ - That is one of my daughter's favorite songs that we do as a stab for our segments here on the episodes. But Poetry in Motion here. We are getting into Psalm 34. And of course, you know, if we're talking about humility in this episode, we're gonna find a psalm that has something to do with humility. This is a great one, actually. - Absolutely, yeah, we're going from a poem about one king, the great king, to a poem written by one of his ancestors, earthly ancestors, David. Psalm 34, it's interesting because in the superscript, it tells us the situation before the psalm even starts, that this is when he changed his behavior before Abimelech so that he drove him out and he went away. When do you feel most humble? Well, when you acted like a crazy person, drooling all over the place, and just like clawing at the door frames and slobbering on a king, and he sent you away because you weren't worthy of his time and that was how you saved your life. And so this is the, this is the context. This is a background for this beautiful, beautiful poem about the confidence we can have in God when we lower ourselves and enlarge him, and that's really the main point here, enlarge the Lord, magnify the Lord. And so because of that situation that David was in, he says, I'm always praising him. I'll always be blessing the Lord. And he gives an invitation to the humble and then an invitation to everyone. Let's magnify the Lord together here in these first three verses. And I think as we start this off with this opening paragraph, the key verse here in verse 2 is, "My soul makes its boast in the Lord, but let the humble hear and be glad." The humble among us will hear and will understand and will find joy in who the Lord is. And there's these seven different synonyms as you go through, you know, with the parallelism of the Hebrew poetry, these same, you use different words to say the same thing, and all of these words are about lifting up God. Bless, praise, magnify, boast, be glad, and exalt. And it just shows, as we think about again this context, that when we have that kind of sense of mortality, like David felt in that moment, and that need for God, and you can see his help clearly, that's when it's easiest to lose ourselves into the praise of God to magnify Him and lower ourselves. And so how can we, without being in that life-threatening situation, keep bringing ourselves into those places where we can see clearly who we are in relation to God, how much we depend on Him, how much we need Him, and how every day He is keeping us alive and delivering us and blessing us. So going from this introductory paragraph, where does David take us next? - Yeah, so he starts telling us really his story, which is pretty cool because he starts speaking in the first person pretty much exclusively here. He says, "I sought the Lord and he answered me "and delivered me from all my fears." Really this whole next section in verses four to seven are about how God hears, and not only does he hear, he also answers. And so in verse four, he talks about seeking and finding. Verse five, he says that he's going to see him without shame. Verse six, he talks about crying out to the Lord and being saved. And then he says in verse seven, that this is an other worldly delivery, that the angels of the Lord are actually protecting him and encamping around him. So he didn't just like drool all over himself to get out of this situation. He knew that there was something deeper going on, even behind the scenes that he could see. So verse six here, I think is a really powerful verse. He says, "This poor man cried." He's speaking of himself here. "This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles." He talks a lot about fear here, a lot about fear and being ashamed and trouble. And so you can see that he's really in the depth of something significant. There's a lot going on in his life right now. And so God does amazing work for those who are at their lowest. When somebody is at their lowest, you might think, you might get this sense that like, oh, well, the Lord is blessing only those who are rich and powerful and you know, that's not the case. He's doing amazing work with people who are broken and who are at their lowest. It's the devil who convinces people that everything's fine, that things are comfortable when they're rich and they don't need the Lord. But when you're down in the bowels of despair and you're going through difficult times, it's a lot easier for you to turn and look up to the Lord. And so leading into this next section, I think there's like a reading rainbow moment where he says kind of, don't take my word for it though. - But don't take my word for it. And I love it. So yeah, he basically says, look, you can see for yourself. Taste and see. It's really at the heart of this whole Psalm. He wants everyone to taste and see God's goodness and security, and then to fear him and seek him and you will have no lack. And that key verse, taste and see that the Lord is good. "Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." And so this word "lack" shows up a couple times here. From David's perspective, the Lord's servant lives better than anyone because you can count on the Lord to provide. And he gives this comparison to a young lion who's out on his own hunting. And I think when you remember that David is not some king living high like a royal in a palace at this point, he's on the run for his life. It seems like a fitting comparison to think of him like a lion out on his own just trying to find something to eat and yet he says, "I am not on my own. I am always taken care of. I never have lack because the Lord is there for me." And your dad, Brian, used to say something like, "The promises in scripture are testable," or at least some of them are testable. Do you remember saying that? - All the time. - I heard him say that a lot. You know, if you seek first, all these things will be added to you. You can check that out. You can test that. And he was, I think what your dad was trying to say is what David was trying to say here. Taste and see, try it out. David is so confident in what God has to offer that he wishes everyone would just go get a little taste of his goodness and you will want to join my song of praise and magnify the Lord with me. Taste and see is his invitation that's gonna lead to magnify the Lord with me as an invitation. So it's a really cool picture of someone who has found the answer and he just wants everybody to know why do you keep asking the same question everywhere you go? The answer is clear, the answer is the goodness of God. So going from that invitation to everybody to taste, Then he gives kind of a specific invitation here, going into verse 11. - Yeah, it's kind of almost like he opens up class and says, "Hey, class is in session." He says, "Come, oh children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord." It's kind of cool. He's given them a masterclass in what it means to fear God. And so in verse 11, he says, "Let's learn about what the fear of the Lord is." In verse 12, he says that, "Everyone wants to live comfortably, don't they? Aren't we all on the same page here that we all want to be taken care of. And then he says in verse 13, here's how you accomplish that. Watch what you say. And then verse 14, do good and pursue peace. It's a really simple lesson. If you were teaching kids this, I'm sure it would just be obvious to them what you were saying. Say good things and do good things. And that's what he's leading us to understand here. So I love verse 12. What man is there who desires life and loves many days? Well, how do we do that? We fear the Lord and fearing the Lord here is what is good. And just fitting into this conversation that we've been having, good is used a number of times here, used twice. And so he is talking about respecting God. And when we respect God, when we honor God, when we fear him like that, there's something fundamentally different about what we say and about what we do. And I think it's really easy for us to maybe get fixated on the rules and the regulations of following God, but God is promising ultimately satisfaction through our relationship with him. We will be cared for and taken care of. And you know what? It isn't just a one-sided relationship either. - No, no. We see that the Lord is looking to a particular group of people. We find right here in verse 15, what do God's eyes and ears look out for? He's looking toward the righteous. His ears are paying attention to them. What is his face against? His face is against those who do evil. And then he goes on to talk about what happens when we cry for help and who the Lord is near. And so he's giving us this picture of where God is. And we find a good summary in verse 18 when he says, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. A bruised reed he will not break. The Lord is near to the ones that are already broken in their heart. And we find the word cry twice here, verse 15 and verse 17. People are crying out to Him. Don't be too proud or forgetful or self-absorbed or whatever to cry out to God for help. He's listening for our cry. God is near us when we find ourselves crushed in spirit and look to Him for aid. But if we never seek Him, if we never have that kind of humble faith that we really look to him and call out to him, then his face won't ever turn to us. And David is just, he's just like preaching here. Come on guys, this is available to you. Just turn to him and follow his ways and cry out to him. But as we go from there into the end of the Psalm, where does David close out this picture? Yeah. So he has this really interesting way of closing this out, which he's answering a question that I think a lot of people would be asking in their own circumstances here. "Well, David, what about this situation?" 'Cause obviously David here is talking about his own troubles and the difficulties he's having, but you could imagine people saying, "Yeah, that's fine for you, David, "but what about this trouble I'm having? "Or what about this affliction I'm dealing with right now?" And he says in verse 19, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, "but the Lord delivers him out of them all." Like we have lots of troubles, and for all the troubles that we have, God has way more deliverance available than what we have in terms of trouble. And so in verse 20, he says that all his bones are kept and none of them are broken. Verse 21, he says that this isn't the way it is though for evil people. They're cast down, they're slayed, he says. And then in the very last verse of this Psalm, he basically explains to us that God is the redeemer of all who take refuge in him. That idea of refuge happens a lot here in this Psalm, But verse 22, this last verse, "The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned." And I see in this closing section here, a whole lot of very extreme language, like all or none. This is a really powerful way to close out this psalm. God has everything covered. And so things may seem terrible in the moment, but God's there. And all who are last in this life are gonna be first. All who are last will be first, brought back, rescued, protected. God's not gonna miss any one of the littlest ones. He's got everybody covered. And I think that's such an encouraging way to think about this. It's very much like the Beatitudes, that whole idea of shifting our perspective on our life and being poor in spirit and broken. That's what the Lord is really good at redeeming and protecting. - Yeah, this close makes me think of, do you remember in English class, Did you ever have to map out a plot line and it's like this mountain kind of shape building, it's building and it's building because there's just more troubles piling on and then there's a resolution. And so it becomes this mountain where everything is back to normal. Everything ends up good usually in most stories. And I think that sometimes I think that that plot line for people who are following God should always just be flat. I mean, like I know that it shouldn't be, But whenever I'm in the midst of a trouble, of a difficulty, it's like, you know, why is this happening? Why does, why is everything keep falling apart? I'm trying to do the right thing. Like it's the exception, not the rule, right? Like it's. Right, right. This is an anachronism. This should be here. Exactly. Exactly. As opposed to many are the afflictions of the righteous. There's always these ups and downs and ups and downs, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. So there's always a resolution and that's what our life is going to look like. It's like a waveform. It's going to go up and down and up and down. And that's what this life is. But there's always a happy ending at the end of it because God keeps taking us out of our troubles and bringing them through, but that's why we have a story. That's why we have something to show about who God is and who we are as we walk with him. Well, that's Psalm 34 and we could probably talk a whole lot more about it, but let's get into our final segment here on the episode. And that is our reach out question. ♪ Reach out, reach out and touch someone ♪ - So the question that we have for each other this week that we're gonna ask each other is, how has pride reared its ugly head in your life? Yeah, this is an easy one for sure. - Yeah, this is like the exact opposite of the icebreaker question and neither of them seem very easy really, but there's this amazing book by Andrew Murray, which I think we quoted in the conversation starter, but I really recommend it. It's called "Humility" and they're all free, But he argues really convincingly, I think, that pride is the source of all other sins because pride is us putting ourselves in relationship to God in the wrong way. It's us lifting ourselves up and saying, "We're gonna go our own way." And I say that as the introduction to this question to say pride has shown its ugly head all over the place in my life. But I think the biggest trend that I would see to confess here, as I think about where it shows up a lot is that I have a problem with overestimating the value of what I think about things. Like it feels counter to everything I actually think about myself, but if I'm honest, then I look at it, I'm like, yeah, you, you do. It shows up in weird ways and it honestly has been challenging at times to learn, to ask good questions and get out of the way of people, or to let go of my vision for a project so that I can have real partnership and let other people create their vision for it and feed that and then everything becomes better. Or learning that I'm way more effective when I say about half of what I want to say. And Obviously, this kind of thing can show up in a lot of different ways, but it's just another way of realizing that I'm a work in progress on this stuff. We're all just slowly letting God conquer us. As I thought about this question and all of the ways that pride can show up, it made me think of that hymn where we're all sort of making our way from verse one, "All of self at none of the towards that last verse, none of self and all of the, but we probably none of us should actually sing the last verse as if we have already arrived at none of self and all of the, but we're, we're sort of maybe, you know, I, I spent a long time in verse two, but I've been living in verse three lately. And then I backslid to verse two and not working our way towards, towards verse four. Anyway, that's, that's a way that I have been thinking about, uh, how pride can show up in my life, what about you? - Yeah, I think we have some very similar answers here. If your problem is overestimating the value of what you think about things, I think my problem is overestimating the value of my contributions to a project around me, which I think is kind of what you were talking about there. I can get super proud of the projects that I'm a part of, and that happens at work, or in the church, or even in my family. Like the stuff that I'm involved in, I get like super possessive of, and I feel like I have to just be in the middle of it. And so whether it's like software development or spiritual development, like I've totally noticed that lately it's something I've been concerned with. Like I shouldn't need to be involved in everything. Like I walk into the office sometimes and people will be having a meeting. This actually happened today. Somebody was having a meeting today. They were talking about some stuff that like I had answers for and I probably could have helped out with, but I walked by and I kind of felt like, well, why didn't I get invited to the meeting? And then they asked me a question. And so I jumped in and started trying to help. And I was like, no, I just need to walk away. Like this isn't my meeting. This is their job. They can figure this out. You know, and I think that happens in the church a lot too, you know, with trying to tackle some technological deacon related problem or whatever. It's like, no, no, you guys can take this. It's fine. But for me, I feel like I have this pull to just have to be in the center of it or have to be the one solving the problem or getting in there. Maybe some of it is a perfectionist kind of mindset where if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself or whatever. But my first reaction sometimes is to feel excluded when I see other people doing things without me that I'm kind of invested in. And maybe it's to be frustrated about that. And sometimes I hear people who view me as too busy or uninterruptible, that they don't wanna bother me, they know I'm real busy, but I wonder like, why those scenarios bother me so much? And I've started to see that it's kind of prideful and humility is really the solution to that problem. I'm not the only person capable of doing things well. I can't be the linchpin or the critical path on every project. Like when someone does a job, even if they do the job differently than how I would have done it, that's good and healthy for them. You know, that's a growing opportunity, a moment for them to take something and own it. I'm not gonna serve people by inserting myself into every task. That is not always the best way to serve people. And so kinda like you said, like moving out of the way, letting other people step in. And when I step aside and let other people grow and flourish, it really is thoughtful and careful of them. And so, I don't know, maybe it's kinda navel-gazy, but like one of the themes this year that I shared not too long ago, I guess, was being more connected to people. And in some ways, that actually means being less connected to people by trusting that they're gonna do good work on projects that I really care about and that I'm not gonna micromanage them. And like, I don't have to be involved in everything. And just because I wasn't driving the meeting or wasn't invited to the meeting or fixing the problem, well, that shouldn't be a problem. - It's amazing how freeing it can be to get out of the way. (laughing) There's two things that you don't wanna conflate that you and I both love doing stuff, love working on this stuff. And so it's like, okay, a part of me just wants to be involved in everything because it's also fun. Yeah. And I want to do that. I want to teach that class. I want to do it. But then there's, there is this other thing that can show up of maybe I think I can do it better, you know, or I have the, the answer. And, and there's some things I'm very clear that I would be awful to contribute, but also, but also these things that maybe I'm starting to inflate how much I can contribute, it brings you back to Romans 12 and verse 3 talks about having a sober estimation of what you really have to contribute, of what your gifts are. Don't be overly exaggerating it, don't be falsely humble, but really try to see clearly what is yours to do. And even if you are the best person for a particular job, sometimes the best thing for the church is for you not to do it or for you to show somebody else or for you to let other people develop those skills. Yeah, it's definitely a challenging thing to look at yourself and try to find where pride rears its ugly head because it is exactly that. It's ugly and it's never fun to look at. And that's a perfect lead into our challenge for this week. I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. we're challenging everybody to put someone's interest before ours. Put someone's interest before yours by doing something they want to do. So not just getting out of the way, but actually going along with them as, as your daughter takes you to yet another, what's the show? Frozen on ice or whatever. Another, another frozen on ice. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Oh, great. I remember when I went to Disney one time, they said, dads, this is for you because We know you've heard this song 10,000 times. Sing along, let it go. I love this challenge too, because for me, my family knows me really well. And I'm sure your family knows you really well. So they would probably know when they're asking you to do something that you don't really want to do. And like, I know sometimes Sharilyn like really wants to go to a movie. She wants to go sit in a theater and watch it on the big screen. And she knows how much I loathe sitting in a movie theater. And like, I really just cannot deal with being there. - Really? - In a public place where people are supposed to be quiet. No one is ever quiet. It's just ridiculous. (laughing) But she knows that I hate that so much. And maybe this challenge is for me to just suck it up and you know, not make a big deal about it, not make my face look gaunt or blow a trumpet on the street corner, but like just go do something that someone else wants to do, even though I might not want to do it myself. - Sherilyn, if you're listening, this is your chance to pick a big one. pick that romantic comedy that he never would want to see. And hopefully my wife doesn't hear this. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Well, as we complete this discussion, let's take a posture of humility and bow before the Lord and have a closing prayer. And the suggested prayer in our study guide for this week was, "Father, give us the mind of Christ that we might view others as He did," and that's of course pointing to Philippians chapter two, verses four and five. Father, as we come before you, we pray that you would have mercy on us. We pray that you would, in your steadfast love, look on us with compassion and forgive us. We're so sorry for the ways that we have wandered from you, for the ways that pride has shown up in our lives. And we pray that you would purify us and wash us. We pray that you would help us to see ourselves properly in relationship to you, that you'd help us to keep you on the throne of our lives, that you would fill us with your grace, and that you would help us to find opportunities to truly be a servant to the people around us. we wouldn't see service and humility as something that removes dignity, but something that exemplifies what it means to be human in the best way possible, to follow the example of Jesus. We ask you, Lord, that as we face affliction after affliction and challenge after challenge, that we would remember that you are with us and you deliver the righteous from them all. We praise you for the way that you continually bless us, and we pray for your care, and we pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, so if this was our penultimate episode in our conversation, we are going to have our ultimate or our final episode, the 13th episode in our guided study session about what's good, and that will be on purity next week. And so to prepare for that conversation, we encourage you to read Matthew 5, verse 8, 1 Timothy 4, verse 12, and Psalm 51, verse 10. There's gonna be a lot of discussion about creating in us a clean heart. And I think that's gonna be a really cool conversation to wrap this whole thing up. - Again, going back to Philippians 4, verse 8, "May we think on whatever is pure." And so this is, I think, a fitting place to end. - Yeah, for sure. especially as we think about ending this whole thing, it would be great. If you have not downloaded the study guides for these conversations to go onto our website at biblegeeks.fm/good, you can find all of these conversation starters, all of these guided study downloads available there on our website. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode, episode 165. You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player of choice or at biblegeeks.fm/165. And of course, as always, We thank you so much for tuning in. Until next week, everyone, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. (upbeat music)