Being Filled With The Spirit: Humility

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ's teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today's focused discussion will be on being filled with the Spirit, humility. Humility is part of being filled with the Spirit, because you're only filled with the Spirit when you deny yourself, right? When you die to self, when you crucify self, when you set self aside, and you respond to the spirit, it is an act of humility that makes you filled with the spirit. Therefore, it is an act of humility that causes the thanksgiving, which proceeds from that filling. We come right back to the first sin of all sins, which corrupts the whole system, and that is the sin of pride. Right? That's what Satan started it all with, right? He looked around heaven and he said, Aha, God shouldn't have all this, I should have it. So he said, I will do this, and I will exalt myself, and I will. So forth, so forth, so it was I, I, I, I. And even Eve in the garden, she knew that she could be like God, I, I, I. It's always that way. Pride is the key to sin. So if you aren't thankful, it isn't really that you need to sort of stir up thanksgiving, it's that you need to experience humility, and humility backs you up to the concept of being filled with the spirit. Because it's only as you crucify self and deny self and yield to the spirit, that humility can be a reality. But if you're a humble person, then you'll be thankful for everything. Everything. You say, Well, some people say, Well boy, my husband isn't perfect. How did I get stuck with him? And the husband says, My wife is doesn't make it, she's Gosh, there must be other women in the world that people are really happy with. How did I ever get into this? People say, well, my job isn't what it ought to be. They don't treat me the way they ought to treat me, my family doesn't treat me the way they ought to treat me, people don't understand me, they're unkind to me. And they get a bitter, sour, gripey kind of approach to life. And you know why? Because they think they deserve better. Right? Boy, I should have a perfect person. I should have a perfect job. I should have everybody treat me just the way I ought to be treated. You see, it's all pride, you see? As long as we're proud, we'll never be thankful. And when you break the back of your pride and it grovels in the dirt, then you can experience what it is to be thankful for everything. Everything. So when are we to be thankful? Always. For what are we to be thankful? All things. How? Look at this. Fabulous statement. How are we to be thankful? Look at it in verse 20 again. It says this giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, here it comes, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, this is so fantastic. Listen, it simply means in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ means consistent with who he is, consistent with what he has done. In other words, no matter what happens to me, I can give thanks because of who Christ is and what he has done. No matter what happens in my life, it'll turn out to my good and to his glory, right? That's the fabulous truth of it all. Remember what I told you before? When we sing, it is Christ singing through us, remember that? And when we say thanks, it is Christ saying thanks to the Father through us. Listen, I couldn't be thankful for everything if it weren't for Christ. But because of Christ, the good things and even the bad things in my life all have a part in conforming me to the image that God wants me to bear, the image of his son. You see, I can't just say give thanks for everything, period. If you're not a Christian and you're not in Christ, and you don't have Christ interceding at the right hand of God on your behalf, and you don't have Christ indwelling in your life, and you don't have the sonship and the joint heirship that he promised, if you don't have that, then you can't give thanks for everything, because what you're going to get, you don't need to be thankful for. But on the other hand, if my life is in the control of Christ, and I am his son, and I am his child, and I am a joint heir with him in his kingdom, and if he intercedes for me at the right hand of the Father, and if he keeps on cleansing me from all sin, and if he is conforming me to his own image, if all of that's going on all the time, then I have cause to be thankful to God for everything. You know, we're by nature so self-seeking, because we think so highly of ourselves, and if we don't get it the way we want to get it, then we get upset about it, and we get unthankful. But Christ wasn't that way. Oh listen, we are to give thanks. This verse is saying also the way Christ gave thanks. If it's him giving thanks through us, it'll be the way his thanks was given. Did you know he was thankful to God? Matthew eleven twenty five, he says I thank thee, O Father. John six eleven, I thank thee. John six twenty three, I thank thee. John eleven forty one, I thank thee. He was thankful all through his life, and you look at his life and you got to wonder why, right? I mean he who had everything in glory came to this earth and humbled himself, became a servant, was spit on and scorned and despised and rejected and crucified, and he didn't deserve any of it, and yet he was thankful. Thankful. Listen to this. Though he deserved glory, he got humility. Though he deserved love, he received hate, and though he deserved worship, he received rejection. Though he deserved praise, he got scorn, though he deserved riches, he was poor, and though he deserved holiness, he received sin. And so it went, and in the middle of it all he never lost sight of thankfulness to God, because he could see the end in view. It was the joy that was set before him that allowed him to endure the cross. And look at us, huh? We deserve humility and we receive glory. We deserve hate and we receive divine love. We deserve rejection, but God gives us sonship. We deserve scorn, but we receive affection. We deserve poverty and he gives us riches, and we deserve sin's curse, and he gives us his righteousness. And then if everything doesn't go right in our lives, we gripe, see? Doesn't make any sense, does it? According to a medieval legend, two angels were sent to earth. One had the task from the Lord of gathering together all the petitions, and the other had the task of gathering the thanksgiving. The angel who went to gather the petitions couldn't carry the load back. The angel that went to get the thanksgivings came back with a few in his hand. Well, that's the legend, and legends can be far fetched and fantastic. But I'm afraid that one's not too far fetched at all. We're so long on requests, aren't we? Which is like signing your name, your self-indulgent servant John. And we're very short on thanks. Maybe that's the most common sin of all the saints. When do we give thanks? Always. For what do we give thanks? All things. How do we give thanks in Christ's name? Finally, to whom do we give thanks? God the Father. Verse 20 again, unto God and the Father. And I love the fact that he uses the word Father, because it's the benevolent attitude of God that is being seen here. It is God in his fatherliness as he bestows upon us the gifts of his love. God the Father emphasizes the loving beneficence of God to his children. He is always, always giving us gifts. He is the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning, from whom every good and perfect gift descends. Everything comes from him. Even the things that come through other people to you come from him, as he works through other people. It's Christ singing through us. Christ thanking God through us, and Christ giving through us. I had occasion recently to give something to someone. They had a need, and I had the wonderful joy of giving something to meet that need, and I always like to see the response when you do that, and how people respond, and I received a lovely note. And it was most interesting to me that the entire note simply thanked God. Just was refreshing. All through the note, it thanked the Lord. Never said anything about me, just thanked the Lord. And you see, there is a person recognizing God as the source of all things. When we start to thank each other, it kind of borders on flattery a little bit. But when we see God as the source of everything, we have the perspective of Ephesians 5.20. Oh listen, the Old Testament calls on this over and over again. Psalm 30, Psalm 50, Psalm 69, Psalm 92, 95, 100, 105, 116, and more. It just calls us to thank God, and thank God, and thank God. It says in Romans 121 that the heathen are characterized this way. When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. Do you see that? That is a characteristic of an unregenerate world. Thanklessness. God wants his people to be thankful. Paul says to the Philippians, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, make your requests known unto God with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving. Colossians 2.7 tells us to be thankful to God. Hebrews 13.15 says, Lift up your lips, and with your lips utter to God the praise that comes through thanksgiving. In the Old Testament, certain orders of the Levitical priests had no other job than to lead the people in thanksgiving. Do you know that all of the feasts and festivals of Israel were set for thanksgiving? The whole purpose of every commemorative feast, feast of weeks and tabernacles and trumpets and Pentecost and Passover, all they were were great national acts of thanksgiving to a God who had served his people so lovingly and graciously. Now listen, I'm going to close this point by saying this. You have three possible ways to respond. There are three kinds of people when it comes to Thanksgiving we can look at in closing, and I want you to look at the Book of Luke to see them, chapter 12. Luke chapter 12. First, some people never give thanks. This is the category of people who never thank God for anything. They think they've done it all themselves. They think they've made their own hay. Luke 12, 16. He spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no place to bestow my crops? And he said, This will I do. I will pull down my barns, and build greater, and there will I bestow all my crops and my goods. Boy, look what I've done, I've grown this tremendous crop, isn't it wonderful? I'm going to just store it all up. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. Just take the rest of your life to consume all the stuff you've got. God said unto him, You fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. You say, What's the point? This is the point. He didn't think he owed God anything, because he didn't think God was the source of anything, see? He thought he did it all himself. Look what I've done. I'll spend the rest of my life consuming my own accomplishment. And he said, You're going to die tonight. You're going to die tonight because you didn't recognize that nothing grows anywhere unless God makes it grow. There's no ground and there's no grain unless God makes it, and you have not been rich toward God. You have not recognized God as the source of everything. Therefore, you lose it all. See, these are people who aren't thankful for anything. They just think they did it. They earned their own fortune, they made their own way in life, they grabbed their own gusto, they did their own thing. God isn't even involved. That's one option. You can just be one of those people who never give thanks. And then there are others who give thanks, but it's hypocritical. Look at chapter 18 of Luke. This is the hypocritical thanks. Luke 18, verse 9, and here's another parable given to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. These are the self-righteous. Two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed, thus with himself. Notice he's talking to himself, and he says, God, he worships himself, so he's really identifying himself. I thank thee. Now listen. This guy hasn't got an ounce of thanksgiving in his heart. He's not thanking anybody but himself. He's saying, I'm so thankful to me for what I have accomplished, see? But he sort of tries to make it appear as if this is worship of God. I thank thee that I am not as other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. Oh, I'm so thankful, I'm so wonderful, see? The other man, tax collector, standing afar off, wouldn't lift up his eyes to heaven, but smote on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus said, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for every one that exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. You see, there are some people who never give thanks at all. Then there are other people who just go around thanking themselves under the guise that they're thanking God. They're self-righteous. That's hypocritical. There's a third category, in Luke 17, the truly thankful. This is a beautiful story, I'm going to read it very rapidly. Verse eleven of Luke 17. And it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, and as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off, and they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed, and one of them, how many? One of them. Only one out of ten? When he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. I mean only one is thankful out of ten. And he was a Samaritan, a half breed, an outcast. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? There are not found that return to give glory to God except this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath saved thee. I think it's saying, in other words, the ten got healing, but only one got salvation. Listen, that's true thanks. That's true thanks. The rest got what they wanted, and what they wanted was their selfishness fulfilled. They wanted to get rid of their disease that made them a social outcast. The other one, the magnificent minority, gave Christ what Christ wanted, glory. Do you see the difference? Some of us are satisfied to get what we want, and we don't even think about Christ. Others are concerned with the glory that he wants and deserves. Gratitude, beloved, is man at his best, ingratitude is man at his worst. David said, Thus I will publish with a voice of thanksgiving, and tell all thy wondrous works. We, of all people, should be thankful, you know. If we never had anything but Jesus Christ, we should be thankful, right? Because in having Christ, we have everything for eternity. A city missionary in London was called to an old tenement building. A lady was dying, and in the last stages of disease. The room was tiny and cold, and the woman was lying on the floor. This missionary tried to help this lady and asked if there was anything she wanted, and this is what she said. I have all I really need. I have Jesus Christ. Well, the man never forgot it, and he went out of there and he wrote these words. In the heart of London City, mid the dwellings of the poor, these bright golden words were uttered. I have Christ, what want I more? Spoken by a lonely woman dying on a garret floor, having not one earthly comfort. I have Christ, what want I more? He who heard them ran to fetch her something from the world's great store. It was needless, died she saying, I have Christ, what want I more? O my dear, my fellow sinner, high or low, or rich or poor, can you say with deep thanksgiving, I have Christ, what want I more? Thank you for joining us in this exploration of being filled with the Spirit, humility. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way.