Theological term
Humility
11 sermons · All terms
Hope in the Lord - Psalm 131
Psalm 131 sets before the believer a threefold portrait of the soul at rest: what pride refuses to do, what humble trust actively does, and what Israel is therefore commanded to do. David's calm and quieted soul — like a weaned child beside its mother — is not the product of self-will but of covenant hope directed toward Yahweh and his promises, ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the great Son of David. The sermon closes with three warnings against losing that hope: refusing to humble the heart, expecting what God has not promised, and fixing hope on anything other than God through Christ.
The Call to Repentance
James 4:7–12 contains ten imperatives calling the people of God to repentance — first toward God and then toward one another. The sermon traces the gracious foundation of this call in verse 6 ('he gives more grace'), showing that compliance with these commands is possible only by divine provision, not by human self-improvement. Repentance toward God encompasses submission, resistance of the devil, drawing near to God, moral purity, mourning over sin, and humility; repentance toward one another requires laying aside evil speech, judgmentalism, and the arrogance of treating personal preferences as law. The conspicuous order — fix the vertical relationship first, then the horizontal — is shown to be the theological logic of both the Decalogue and James' own chiastic structure.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 9, 2017 PM
Humility is not merely an outward posture of social deference but an inward disposition that every believer must cultivate, grounded in a right knowledge of self, of God, and of the gospel of Christ. Expounding 1 Peter 5:5–7, this sermon traces three movements: the command to humble ourselves toward one another and toward God, the means of doing so by casting all anxiety upon him in prayer and through the means of grace, and the reason to do so — namely that the God of heaven and earth, who proved his care at the cross and sustains his people through trial, will exalt the humble in due time. Pride is shown to be not merely loudness or arrogance but any self-trust that withholds dependence on God, and the remedy is the gospel itself: the one who humbled himself to the death of the cross is the ground and pattern of true humility.
The Preeminence of Christ
John 3:22–30 records John the Baptist's final official testimony concerning Christ, and in it the preeminent greatness of a man whose greatness lay entirely in his humility. Confronted by disciples troubled that Jesus was drawing larger crowds, John offers four responses grounded in God's sovereignty: the origin of his ministry was from heaven, its purpose was always to announce the Messiah, his joy was fulfilled precisely when the bridegroom's voice was heard, and Christ must increase while he must decrease. The sermon applies this pattern to every believer, arguing that humility is not directly cultivated but is the byproduct of being increasingly occupied with Christ, and that the cross is the only path to that self-forgetful life.
The Pharisee and the Publican
Luke 18:9–14 presents two men at prayer whose contrasting postures before God expose the heart of the doctrine of justification. The Pharisee's self-congratulatory prayer — cataloguing what he is not and what he does — illustrates the fatal error of self-righteousness: banking one's standing with God upon personal merit, which inevitably produces contempt for others. The tax collector's wordless self-renunciation — 'God be propitious to me, the sinner' — is the only posture that receives the verdict 'justified,' because justification is an act of God's free grace wherein the righteousness of Christ alone, received by faith, is the ground of the sinner's acceptance. The parable calls every hearer to kill pride, renounce all self-congratulatory religion, and cast himself entirely upon the mercy of God in Christ.
The Warning Concerning the Religious Leaders
Matthew 23:1–12 presents Jesus' warning to the crowds and disciples concerning the scribes and Pharisees, exposing the pride that drives hypocrisy, legalism, religious show, and self-exaltation. Jesus affirms the scribes' and Pharisees' office insofar as they teach the law of Moses accurately, yet condemns their practice as utterly contrary to that law. He then calls his disciples to a thoroughgoing humility, grounding it in the sole authority and teachership of Christ and the brotherhood of all believers. The sermon applies this to every form of spiritual performance — from social media piety to celebrity pastor culture — and summons the unconverted to the easy yoke of Christ.
The Greatest in the Kingdom
Matthew 18:1–4 confronts the disciples' dispute over who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven with a child placed in their midst as the model of kingdom greatness. The sermon exposes pride as a systemic spiritual disorder native to fallen humanity — present even among the regenerate — and argues from Christ's own words that the kingdom ethic inverts worldly ambition entirely: the greatest is the most humble. Three means of cultivating genuine humility are set out: knowing oneself rightly through Scripture, knowing the person and work of Christ in his self-humiliation, and knowing the glory of God as revealed in texts such as Isaiah 40.
Gideon's Victory Over the Midianites
Judges 7 records God's reduction of Gideon's army from 32,000 to 300 men before routing the Midianites — not because Israel marshalled superior strength, but precisely so that no Israelite could claim the glory of victory. This sermon traces four movements in the narrative: the assembling of enemies and the Spirit's coming upon Gideon, the divinely-ordered troop reduction, God's patient encouragement of a fearful Gideon through a pagan soldier's dream, and the midnight rout of Midian. The controlling thesis is that God perfects His strength through human weakness so that glory belongs to Him alone, a principle the sermon applies to the church's ongoing mission and to the gospel call addressed directly to unbelievers in the congregation.
Christ and the Centurion
Matthew 8:5–13 presents a Roman centurion whose faith surpasses anything Jesus has found in Israel, and whose encounter with Christ becomes a theological announcement: the Abrahamic promises are now being fulfilled in the inclusion of Gentiles and the judgment of unbelieving ethnic Israel. The centurion's approach to Christ models three marks of genuine faith — a plea grounded in misery rather than merit, profound humility before the Lord's authority, and unshaken confidence that Christ's spoken word alone is sufficient to heal. The sermon calls hearers to examine whether they stand in faith or unbelief, and to rest entirely in Christ's authority and grace rather than any personal worthiness.
The Prevention of Judgmentalism
Matthew 7:1–5 forbids not all judicial discernment but the petty, fault-finding, hypocritical spirit that condemns the speck in a brother's eye while ignoring the plank in one's own. This sermon, the evening complement to a morning exposition of the same passage, turns from diagnosis to remedy, working through seven biblical means by which Christians may actively resist a censorious spirit. The prevention runs from the internal (Spirit-filling, humility, a sober doctrine of sin) to the relational (charity, esteem for the brethren, continual recourse to Christ and his gospel), and the whole is anchored in the recognition that perfection in this duty awaits glory.
Be Clothed With Humility
Pride is the greatest enemy of the Christian life, and 1 Peter 5:5–11 commands believers to be clothed with humility — not as a religious technique, but as the necessary outworking of submission to the sovereign God who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. The passage moves through a fourfold structure: the command to be submissive and clothed with humility (v. 5), the implication that genuine humility toward others flows only from prior submission to God (v. 6), the disposition required — casting all care upon a God who cares for his people and resisting the devil steadfast in the faith (vv. 7–9) — and the benediction that sets fleeting suffering against eternal glory in Christ (vv. 10–11). The sermon closes with practical counsel on cultivating humility: the necessity of new birth, meditation on the cross, acknowledgment of dependence on God, thankfulness, and returning glory to God at the close of each day.