{"id":2803,"date":"2019-07-19T15:30:38","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T15:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/?p=2803"},"modified":"2019-07-19T15:30:38","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T15:30:38","slug":"humbling-human-arrogance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/2019\/07\/19\/humbling-human-arrogance\/","title":{"rendered":"Humbling Human Arrogance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Humbling Human Arrogance by Coty Pinckney<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[This devotion is taken primarily from the third section of the July 21 sermon, \u201cThe Reasonable Foolishness of Christ Crucified.\u201d Audio of that sermon will be available soon at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eqotw.org\/media\/\">this link<\/a>.]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>The haughty looks of man shall be brought low,<br \/>\nand the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,<br \/>\nand the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.<br \/>\nIsaiah 2:11<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>&#8220;Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,<br \/>\nyou will never enter the kingdom of heaven.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Whoever humbles himself like this child<br \/>\nis the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.\u201d<br \/>\nMatthew 18:3-4<\/em><\/p>\n<p>God promises to humble all human arrogance. He will show Himself to be the only Being worthy of praise, as the Father exalts the Son, the Son exalts the Father, and the Spirit exalts both Father and Son. We must humble ourselves, therefore, if we are to be part of the summing up of all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10), when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).<\/p>\n<p>In 1 Corinthians 1:26-2:5, the Apostle Paul shows how God\u2019s humbling purposes have been manifested in his readers\u2019 experience. He asks:\u00a0 Who is part of this church? Who has come to faith in Christ crucified?<\/p>\n<p>If coming to faith were dependent on our being able to figure God out on our own, then you would have to be at least reasonably bright to be saved. Indeed, those who are of high intelligence would then be over-represented in the church.<\/p>\n<p>Alternately, if you were able to get into the family of God the way many get employment \u2013 through connections, networking, and influence \u2013 then you would expect to find that most saved people come from prominent backgrounds.<\/p>\n<p>In either of those cases, there would be some basis for our boasting:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe are in the church because we\u2019re smarter than those folks outside!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Or, \u201cWe are here because of our ancestry, because of how important our families are!\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But Paul tells the Corinthians (and us): Look around. What do you see? Are the believers especially intelligent? Are they predominantly from prominent families?<\/p>\n<p>No. Not many of the Corinthian believers were wise by the world\u2019s standards; not many were born to privileged positions. Instead, God chose and called predominantly those who seem foolish, those who seem weak, those who are not honored, even those who may seem deplorable \u2013 to humble the supposedly wise and strong and influential. This is in accord with what Jesus prays in Luke 10:21:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">&#8220;I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><u>God<\/u> is the active agent in salvation. And He chooses <em>not<\/em> primarily the most intelligent, <em>not<\/em> primarily the most prominent \u2013 why? 1 Corinthians 1:29: \u201cSo that no human being might boast in the presence of God.\u201d That\u2019s the bottom line. God humbles us \u2013 who, sinful as we are, need to be humbled. And He exalts Himself, He exalts Jesus the Son \u2013 the One worthy of all exaltation.<\/p>\n<p>So rather than boast in ourselves, we are (1 Corinthians 1:31) to boast in Jesus, in the cross. For it is because of God and His great plan that we are in Christ Jesus and therefore receive God\u2019s wisdom in the Gospel \u2013 righteousness, holiness, and redemption through Jesus\u2019 death on the cross.<\/p>\n<p>Then in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, the Apostle Paul tells us that even he \u2013 capable as he was of wowing folks with his intellect \u2013 did not do that. He didn\u2019t think, \u201cOk, I\u2019ll get their attention with my rhetoric, draw them in with my learning, then convince them with my powerful arguments.\u201d Why not? He tells us in verse 5: \u201cSo that your faith might not be based on the wisdom of men\u201d \u2013 not even on the wisdom of the Apostle Paul!\u00a0 &#8211; \u201cbut on the power of God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paul did not want to make disciples of Paul. He wanted <u>God<\/u> to make disciples of <u>Jesus<\/u> as he preached and lived out the Gospel. If he was drawing attention to himself, he was undercutting the Gospel, not faithfully proclaiming it.<\/p>\n<p>So as the Holy Spirit performed that mighty miracle in Corinth \u2013 the same miracle He has performed in so many of our hearts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>removing our hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh<\/li>\n<li>circumcising our hearts<\/li>\n<li>opening blind eyes to see the beauty of Jesus<\/li>\n<li>granting faith and making of each changed person a new creation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>God the Father was glorified. God the Son was honored. And these new believers could see: Paul was just a messenger. He was just an ambassador. The honor, praise, and thanks goes to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Human arrogance was humbled. God was shown to be all in all.<\/p>\n<p>That is our goal and desire within Desiring God Community Church:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To humble our own natural arrogance<\/li>\n<li>To stifle our own inclination to boast<\/li>\n<li>To honor the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as worthy of all praise and glory<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yes, the cross, the Gospel, God\u2019s entire plan seems foolishness in the eyes of those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18). But when we behold our God,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When we see Him for Who He is<\/li>\n<li>When we see Him as the only being worthy of worship<\/li>\n<li>When we see the goal of the Father to exalt the Son He loves<\/li>\n<li>When we see Jesus dying for the glory of the Father<\/li>\n<li>When we glimpse the coming marriage supper of the Lamb, and our own joint role as Bride of Christ<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then we see: This all makes sense. This is all perfectly reasonable. I was blind, thinking the cross was foolishness. I was arrogant, thinking I could figure God out. But now I see: He alone is to be exalted. I bow before Him and gladly give Him the worship and honor He deserves.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humbling Human Arrogance by Coty Pinckney [This devotion is taken primarily from the third section of the July 21 sermon, \u201cThe Reasonable Foolishness of Christ Crucified.\u201d Audio of that sermon&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1972,1973,158,1974,1803,279,1978,1976,756,1977,1217,1975,1722],"class_list":["post-2803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1-corinthians-1","tag-1-corinthians-2","tag-arrogance","tag-become-like-a-child","tag-boasting","tag-childlike","tag-god-alone-will-be-exalted","tag-haughty-looks","tag-humility","tag-lofty-pride","tag-prominence","tag-rhetoric","tag-worldly-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2805,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions\/2805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}