Humility and Faith: Faith Requires Humility

In an address I lately heard, the speaker said that the blessings of the higher Christian life were often like the objects exposed in a shop window - one could see them clearly and yet could not reach them. If told to stretch out his hand and take, a man would answer, "I cannot; there is a thick pane of plate-glass between me and them."  And even so Christians may see clearly the blessed promises of perfect peace and rest, of overflowing love and joy, of abiding communion and fruitfulness, and yet feel that there was something between hindering the true possession.  And what might that be?  Nothing but pride.  (Murray, Andrew (2011-03-03). Humility, Chapter 9: Humility and Faith, (Kindle Locations 567-571). Niche Edition. Kindle Edition.)

INVISIBLE PRIDE

Pride often remain invisible, a strange sickness in which blindness to one's own condition is a symptom.  Reading the Bible, God's promises are great, but often ignored or diminished because we get used to seeing them on the other side of the glass of pride.

The invisible barrier of pride comes out in various phrases.  "I can't do that!  I can't live without that!  Why would I want to give that up?"  Our wills are enslaved to our immediate desires and passions.  Pride says, "I won't do what I can't do on my own otherwise my desires might go unsatisfied."

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The cost is high.  As long as we walk by sight and not by faith, the glass of pride remains keeping us from the "blessed promises of perfect peace and rest, or overflowing love and joy, of abiding communion and fruitfulness."  In short, the things of the kingdom of God.  "Even the most secret breathing of pride, in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, or self-exaltation, is just the strengthening of that self which cannot enter the kingdom or possess the things of the kingdom, because it refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be there - All in All."  (ibid, Kindle Locations 580-582)

When we begin to walk by faith and not by sight, we find that "humility is simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust. . . .  Faith is the organ or sense for the perception and apprehension of the heavenly world and its blessings.  Faith seeks the glory that comes from God, that only comes where God is All. . . .  Pride renders faith impossible."  (ibid, Kindle Locations 583-584)  As Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."  (Matthew 18:3-4, ESV)

SALVATION THROUGH HUMILITY

Recently my pride hid from my eyes as self-loathing.  The anger of pride was directed inward.  I could not even ask for help.  I felt there was no place for me and no hope for me.  I believe some of it is seasonal, but there was something more intense and desperate as I struggled through my days.  I did not see it as pride.  Actually, I probably thought it was humility of sorts.

But in this self-loathing was also a complete lack of faith.  I had no trust in God, in what he made me, how he has walked with me, nor in where he might take me.  I was stubbornly determined to take my own path, even if it was self-destructive.  I can see how pride brings self-destruction.  It may be through despair or anger or lust, but the refusal to give in to God is the same.

I needed salvation, deliverance in an active sense.  Such salvation requires humility and faith.  "Salvation comes through a cross and a crucified Christ. Salvation is the fellowship with the crucified Christ in the Spirit of His cross. Salvation is union with and delight in, salvation is participation in, the humility of Jesus."  (ibid, Kindle Locations 585-586)  When God showed me that my struggle was with pride, not with any real deficiency, I was able to give in and call for help.

God's help almost always involves the grace of other people.  Instead of driving them off, I began seeking them out.  Instead of hiding myself and worrying about my peculiarities, I began to exercise them as gifts and talents.  Pride renders faith impossible partly (maybe mostly) because it renders relationships impossible.  Pride ends in collapse of the self and the ruin of the soul.  Humility welcomes relationships and seeks them out.  It opens the self to God in an attitude of worship and self-sacrifice, which rebuilds and fortifies the soul.

Lord, may my life be open before you as a living sacrifice.  May the glass of pride be shattered by the truth of my humble position, my humble needs, and my humble offerings to you.  May my humility not remain a mere abstraction, but show up in all my relationships as I lay my life down before you.  Amen.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;    my eyes are not raised too high;I do not occupy myself with things    too great and too marvelous for me.But I have calmed and quieted my soul,    like a weaned child with its mother;    like a weaned child is my soul within me.O Israel, hope in the Lord    from this time forth and forevermore.  (Psalm 131, ESV)

A Long Obedience: Worship that Rests

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work."  (Exodus 20:8-9)

 The Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath.  (Mark 2:22)

WORSHIP AS REST

God's command for rest on the Sabbath seems akin to a husband who "commands" his wife not to do anything while he takes care of dinner and kids on a day when she's sick or tired.  The holiness of such  rest is holiness that comes from faith and trust.  "Please trust me," he says, "I'll take care of everything."  Fortunately, God can do a better job that many of us husbands can.  The sentiment seems similar to me, though.

The danger of refusing such rest is not the same, however.  "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience."  (Hebrews 4:9-11)  This does not raise Sabbath-breaking to the height of ultimate sin.  Instead, Sabbath-breaking becomes a picture of a life oriented away from God.  A life without resting in God is a life without faith in God.

So I find Sabbath-keeping not merely a matter of going to church, nor of staying at home and recreating.  It is resting from my desires and seeking God's.  In a message to the people of God in a time in which they just practiced a religion and did not really seek God, Isaiah records God words:

"If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath

    and from doing as you please on my holy day,

if you call the Sabbath a delight

    and the Lord’s holy day honorable,

and if you honor it by not going your own way

    and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,

then you will find your joy in the Lord,

    and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land

    and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.  (Isaiah 58:13-14)

Again, it is easy to see this as a threat to "worship and honor God or else."  Perhaps, though, God is pleading with his people to come back and trust in him, seek his fullness and goodness, and ponder and reflect on his greatness and glory, but not for his good, but for ours.  Maybe we cannot make it without such rest.

WORSHIP AS AN APPETIZER

What does such rest bring?  Why would God be so insistent?  Eugene Peterson writes,

[One hour of] worship does not satisfy our hunger for God - it whets the appetite.  Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship - it deepens.  It overflows the hour and permeates the week.  The need is expressed in a desire for peace and security.  Our everyday needs are changed by the act of worship.  We are no longer living from hand to mouth, greedily scrambling through the human rat race to make the best we can out of a mean existence.  (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 56)

If what he says is true, then our everyday needs are changed by not participating in worship.  We will find ourselves "living from hand to mouth, greedily scrambling through the human rat race to make the best we can out of a mean existence."  I think he hits it pretty close to the mark.

Peterson describes our desire for peace as a desire for a "wholeness that results from God's will being completed in us, . . . the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates eternal life."  (56)  The desire for security

has nothing to do with insurance policies or large bank accounts or stockpiles of weapons.  The root meaning [of the Hebrew word] is leisure - the relaxed stance of one who knows that everything is all right because God is over us, with us, and for us in Jesus Christ.  The security of being at home in a history that has a cross at its center.  It is a leisure of the person who knows that every moment of our existence is at the disposal of God, lived under the mercy of God. (57)

A SHARPENED LIFE

Unfortunately, such wholeness and leisure are at odds with the lives most of us live in the secular and religious spheres.  The secular part of our lives are often engaged in frantic entertainment when work is put aside.  The religious part of our lives now looks surprisingly similar: entertainment and work with little time for a trusting rest that brings wholeness and that "relaxed stance."  How might we explain such wasted time to such a pragmatic society?  To the parts of myself that resist any waste of time?

Look at the mower in the summer's day, with so much to cut down ere the sun sets.  He pauses in his labour - is he a sluggard?  He looks for a stone, and begins to draw up and down his scythe, with rink-atink, rink-atink, rink-atink.  Is that idle music - is he wasting precious moments?  How much he might have mowed while he has been ringing out those notes on his scythe!  But he is sharpening his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives strength to those long sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him.  (Charles Spurgeon, quoted in A Long Obedience, p. 57)

Lord, let me not become blunt with frantic and meaningless labor.  Let me be sharpened by spiritual worship, gathered with those who worship in truth.  I do not want the activity of worship, but one that acts as an appetizer to the meal of a life with you.  Amen.