Category: Humility

Thomas Anderson had stumbled onto a new reality, the Matrix, but he could not get his head wrapped around its ramifications quickly enough. Federal Agents were hunting him down. A simple computer programmer, Anderson was also a cybercriminal going by the alias name, Neo. Thus, Federal Agents leaving their calling cards is not what someone like Neo wants to encounter. Federal Agents, though, weren’t the only ones interested in Neo.

In the movie by the same name, the Matrix is a computer-generated simulation, like a virtual reality, created by intelligent machines to trap and control humans in a dystopian future. In essence what we see every day is the Matrix. Unbeknownst to us, the reality is that our bodies are trapped in a cocoon and its energy is used to feed our captures, the Machines. Neo’s discovery brought unwanted attention to him. Those hunting him were not from the Government, they were facsimiles of the Machines.

Morpheus, a leader of an underground freedom movement, was looking for Neo as well. Since Neo had inadvertently broken the code to the Matrix, Morpheus wanted to recruit Neo’s help. In meeting him and explaining the backstory of the Matrix, Morpheus offered Neo two pills. The blue pill returns Neo to the Matrix forgetting his encounter with Morpheus. The red pill takes Neo down the rabbit hole to experience a new truth. A darker dystopian truth.

The premise of the movies entertains the possibility that our senses betray the greater hidden reality revealing itself around us.  

The Bible often speaks of a dual reality. The physical existence around us appeals to our senses, while the spiritual realm experienced through faith is beyond sight, smell, and sound.

Elisha was in Dothan when the king of Aram sent his troops to capture him. Rumor had it, God revealed to Elisha Aram’s secret military plans, and in turn disclosed those plans to Israel. Like the 2019 Houston Astros or Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots, the prophet was stealing signs. In retaliation the King of Aram sent his entire army to capture Elisha at Dothan. When Elisha’s servant saw the massive army, he was in fact rightly nervous. Reassuring him, Elisha said, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 King. 6:16). I can see the servant doing a head count. “Well, there are two of us and a gazillion of them. How can you say we outnumber them?” Elisha prayed for God to open his eyes to reveal the truth. Reveal, God did. Suddenly, the servant saw that the hills swarmed with the army of God. What we see before us with our eyes is not always reality.

The first three chapters of Revelation reveal dark times for the churches in Asia Minor. Roman Imperial propaganda was either attacking the church for being unpatriotic or seducing the church to accept Roman cultural. With the pressure on the church to conform or to face retribution, Christians were facing a dark reality: churches were buckling under the weight of persecution or selling-out under the pressure to compromise. Chapter four opens with John being invited to look into heaven, and for the rest of the book he discovers the reality behind this world. What goes on down here has an impact on what goes on up there, and vice-versa. In short, God will fight for his church against any force that either seduces or persecutes his people.

Both stories highlight an important message. Something beyond our senses of sight, smell, and sound is happening around us.

A preacher was shaking hands with his members following a worship service. Whatever the topic of the sermon was, it challenged the way people perceived the world around them. One fellow told the preacher, “That sounds really good in a church building, but in the real world, it doesn’t work that way.”

He has a point, doesn’t he? Themes like forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, and grace don’t work well in a “dog-eat-dog” world where we are, in the words of Norm, “wearing milk bone underwear.”

The preacher addressed the member with his own gentle-kindness and grace by reminding him, “What we do here on Sunday morning is the real world, and what we do the rest of the week is a shadow of this reality.”

It’s likely that in 2 Corinthians 4:3 Paul is being accused of a veiled gospel, keeping people from knowing the truth. His opponents believed that Paul was purposely holding out on the Corinthians the complete gospel message. Paul flipped the narrative telling his church that it was not him who is veiling their sights, but the veil is on those who are perishing. Those who refuse to give the gospel serious attention are the ones who are veiled. In essence those who tune-out Paul’s preaching and tune-into his antagonists’ preaching are operating under a veil. They cannot see or perceive the truth around them. Thus, their reality is distorted.

Ultimately, a third party is at work, and he’s very crafty at what he does. Paul says, “the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers” (4:4). The phrase, “the god of this age” is clearly a reference to Satan, the Adversary, who works against Christ to stop the gospel from penetrating the darkness. Satan has always been at work, and while Paul calls him the “god of this age,” he works in any age to veil the people around him. The “unbelievers,” as Paul notes, are those perishing because they turn a blind eye to the gospel. That said, those who are unbelievers and perishing could also be aligned with Paul’s opponents, who stand in opposition of the gospel message he preaches. They believe a gospel message, but they do not believe the message Paul preaches, a message where the power of the gospel is displayed in the weakness and frailty of humanity. Such a message is the alternative reality to their way of thinking.

In a world of darkness, the answer is not to embrace more darkness but to allow the light of God’s gospel to shine through us (4:6). In our brokenness we bring healing. In our humility we bring confidence. And in our pain, we bring a balm. As Paul will conclude, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (4:6). It is not about us, but about Jesus. And when our role is noted, it is the servant’s role who seeks no glory nor attention, but who simply point toward Jesus.

Such an approach to ministry is counter intuitive. Those who rely on their sight, smell, and sound will believe that successful ministry has a charismatic preacher (or dynamic worship), who is eloquent with words, and shames those who are a challenge to their position of power. Serving one another in humility is like Neo grappling with the Matrix. In the real world, it can’t work. But who said we are to measure success by the world’s standard?

Years ago, at a small university in the Midwest, a student was getting frustrated by the lack of attention the community bathrooms were given by the university janitorial service. The toilets were unclean. No, they were disgusting. He reported his displeasure to the R.A., but no action was ever taken. The R.A., frustrated himself by the situation, assured the student that he had filed the proper paperwork and completed the correct requisition forms. After a month of dealing with the unsanitary environment, the student went over everyone’s head to the President of the University. He made the appointment.

On the day of the meeting the President greeted the young man and listened intently to the complaint of the student. He asked for clarification, like “how long this problem has been going on” and “who has he talked to about the situation.” The student knew he had the listening ear of the President, and at the end of the meeting, when the President assured the student that the bathrooms would be clean, the student believed him.

Sure enough, the next morning as the student got up to go to class, the bathrooms were clean. Not just one toilet either, but all of them, and the sink, and the floor. The student was thrilled and thought that he should send a thank-you card to the President. He never did, but he thought about it. In the meantime, the bathroom was never dirty again.

On the last day of the semester, the student set his alarm early so that he could get a good night’s sleep and get up to review for his hardest final. As he ventured into the bathroom, he could not believe his eyes. Bending over the toilet with a scrub brush in his hand was none other than the University president.

The world we live in limits our vision and feeds us misinformation about who we are and what we do. Our selfish egos are stroked and fed. The world that calls to us is beyond our senses of sight, sound, and smell. It is in that reality we are unveiled and step into the light to embrace Paul’s words, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (4:6).

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

Famous comedian Jack Benny was recognized twice with an Emmy for his work on his namesake television show in both 1958 and 1959. In 1988 he was inducted into the Emmy Hall of Fame for his lifetime of work. When he received his award, I’m thinking it was probably the one in 1988, his dry, banal self-deprecating comedic humor kicked-in as he confessed, “I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.”

A humble personal perspective from one of the greatest comedians of his era. I’m sure he appreciated the recognition, but it did not define him as a person, actor, or a comedian.

I have a friend in ministry who says, “I don’t deserve the praise lavished on me by my parishioners who believe I’m angelic, any more than I deserve the condemnation by my parishioners who believe I’ve been sent by the devil himself.”

Once again, a humble personal perspective from one of my favorite preachers. He is who he is, and is not defined by either the compliments or the accusations. I’m sure he lives somewhere in between the extremes. I’m just sure we can say the same about ourselves.  

Gayle Erwin once wrote a book called The Jesus Style. In it he defined the humility of Jesus as one who was neither moved by those who lavished compliments on him, nor disturbed by those who heaped insults on him. He was not flattered when his opponents tried to butter him up, any more than when they were saucy toward him. Jesus defined himself by his relationship to God, and the people he engaged had little to do with moving the needle.

A personal perspective wrapped in humility helps keep one grounded.

Tom Brokaw chronicled the GI Generation and dubbed them The Greatest Generation. They were the ones born, raised, and molded by the hardship and poverty of the Great Depression. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, they answered the call to go fight the war. Many of them were not interested in killing people, but were committed to stopping evil spread throughout the world. After winning the war, they returned stateside. Many returned to their homes where they lived out their lives quietly seeking an education, farming, working, and raising a family while never speaking of their experiences overseas. Some ventured back to the Pacific Islands, to Japan, Europe, or to the ends of the earth as missionaries because they saw the need to bring Jesus to those lands. Others, like John F. Kennedy, Bob Dole, and George H.W. Bush ventured into politics motivated less by power and more by service. Still others became scientists who figured out how to put a man on the moon and bring him home again. They built the infrastructure of America, physically, spiritually, and morally.

Brokaw was right in labeling these men and women The Greatest Generation, but if you asked those who were part of such feats, they might say otherwise. They probably would defer to America’s Founding Fathers as the Greatest Generation commenting, “We just answered a call,” or “We just served our country,” or “We just tried to do what’s right.”

A personal perspective wrapped in humility allows people to say what they will about you without changing who you are.

The apostle Paul clearly had experienced some of this himself. Not just the negative barrage of conflict where he was accused of being “bold on paper, but timid face-to-face” (2 Cor. 10:1, 10), but also the danger of being placed on some pedestal where he might be set up to fail.

Following Paul’s Damascus Road Conversion, he started preaching Jesus. Being a Pharisee, he was already immersed in Scripture. He didn’t need more Scripture, he needed his ego checked and blinders removed to understand Scripture (don’t we all?). Once that happened, everything fell into the place. The one who persecuted the church became its greatest advocate and ally. Boldly, he started connecting the dots for the people to show how Jesus is the long awaited Messiah who fulfilled Scripture. All of which baffled people on either side of Paul.

Luke tells us two things happened. First, the believers in Damascus questioned Paul’s authenticity. “How could someone change on a dime and transform that fast?” Mind you, Paul had been breathing out murderous threats against the church (Act. 9:1) and suddenly he’s ok with the church? Paul had been given letters by the High Priest himself to journey from Jerusalem to Damascus to arrest those who follow Jesus. How could one be turned so quickly? Most of us change very little, if we change at all. Rarely do we see someone turn one hundred and ninety degrees almost overnight. But Paul did change, and that bothered a number of people. We know that ultimately Barnabas went to bat for Paul and vouched for his character which seemed to settle the matter with the church (Act. 9:27). But in the present moment, people were slow to throw their hats in the ring with this new convert.

Secondly, Luke says that Paul’s “turn-coat” upset the Jews who sent him to Damascus in the first place. No kidding. He failed his mission, which stirred up a hornets nest. The Jews did not want him playing for the other team. I wouldn’t, would you? They knew how much damage Paul could do to their theology and to their power. He knew Scripture and he had direct knowledge of the inner-workings of the Jewish religious organization. He had the dirt on them, and they knew it. Likely feeling scorned, scared, and snubbed, they sought out to settle the score by plotting to kill him.

This is when the story gets good. Paul learns of the plot and how his new adversaries where guarding all the exits to the city to set up an ambush. What is Paul to do? Those who dared to align with Paul found a basket, a huge basket, large enough to hold a man, and put him in it. In the middle of the night, they lowered Paul through a window and over the wall of the city so that he could escape and go to Jerusalem.

Simply heroic. At least that’s the way I had always been taught to read that story. Paul outsmarted the villains and beat them at their own game. They should have penned a medal on him and given him an award. When that story is read in church, we should stand and cheer like we do when our sports team makes an incredible play. And that’s the way I have heard and read that story from Luke’s perspective in Acts 9 all my life. And it’s not wrong.

But Paul tells the story differently. As the apostle finishes his essay on boasting about the things that show his weaknesses in 2 Corinthians 11, he briefly covers his great escape. This story is Paul’s final attempt to show how God works through his weaknesses. He says that the governor of Damascus, ruling under King Aretas, had the city guarded with orders to arrest him. Paul is not just name dropping, but giving the Corinthians a time, place, and credibility to his story. These are real people in real time. Then he adds, without any fanfare, a stripped down version of the story. He simply says, “But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands” (11:33).

I can sense the shame where Paul was willing to stay and fight, but instead of fighting he left the city like a dog with his tail between his legs. Remember, Paul is not telling this story out of strength to show how smart or brave he was, he’s telling this story to show off his weakness, and dare I say, his coward-ness. Here Paul shows a man totally dependent upon God for his survival.

Reliance on God is the sign of humility. No longer dependent our own strength, brilliance, insight, or ingenuity, or more to the point, we no longer seek affirmation or someone’s approval, we seek the applause of heaven. We rest knowing that God is good enough, because to God we’re good enough. We are not good enough, it’s just to God we’re good enough. So we cut through the noise and the calls and the messaging that either props us up or tears us down in order to hear the clear voice of God. Relying on that voice is the basis for humility.

Nothing is wrong with Luke’s depiction of Paul’s escape from Damascus. He was writing from his perspective to fit his narrative all the while guided by the Holy Spirit. Nothing is wrong with Paul’s telling of his escape either as it fits his narrative all the while guided by the Holy Spirit. What is important to remember is that what people say about you may be true or false, good or bad, righteous or unrighteous, but it’s what they say about you. What you say or think about yourself in your relationship to God is more important, because a humble personal perspective always trumps any other perspective.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)