Chapter 8 - Humility and Sin

 Chapter 8. Humility and sin. 

Sinners of whom I am chief. 1 Timothy 1:15. 

 Humility is often thought to be the same as sorrow for sin, penitence, and contrition. 

As a result, many believe the only way to grow in humility is to keep the soul continually focused on its sin. 

But we have come to see that humility is something deeper, something more.

 In the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and throughout the epistles, humility is often commanded without any direct mention of sin. 

 By its very nature, by the truth of what we are as creatures before our Creator, humility is the foundation of holiness  and of joy. 

In the life of Jesus Christ, both in how he lived and in what he gives to us, humility is central. 

Humility is the removal of self to make room for God. 

Where God is all, self becomes nothing.

Though this deeper aspect of humility, as the soul's lowliness before God apart from sin, has been my main focus, I must also say how greatly the reality of man's sin and God's grace deepens and strengthens the humility of the saints. 

 We need only look at the apostle Paul to see this clearly. 

Throughout his life as a redeemed and holy man, the awareness that he had been a sinner never left him. 

We remember his own words. "I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. Yet I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me; to me who am less than the least of all saints. This grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles. I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. But I obtained mercy. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. "

God's grace had fully forgiven and forever removed his sins. God remembered them no more. But Paul could never forget how deeply he had sinned. 

 The more he rejoiced in salvation, the more he was filled with joy in God's grace, the more deeply he knew himself to be a sinner saved. 

The sweetness of salvation was made real to him only as the memory of his sin made it precious. He never forgot. 

It was a sinner whom God had lifted up and crowned with love. 

The verses we have just looked at are often used to suggest  that apostle Paul was speaking of his ongoing daily sin. 

But a careful reading in their context shows this is not the case. 

These words carry a far deeper meaning. 

They point to something eternal, something that will forever shape the worship of the redeemed. 

They speak of the unending wonder and adoration with which the ransomed will bow before God's throne as those who have been washed from their sins in the blood of the Lamb. 

Even in glory, they will never cease to be redeemed sinners. 

Even now in this life, no child of God can walk in the full light of divine love without the deep sense that his / her only claim to grace is the sin from which he /she has been saved. 

The humility with which we first came to God as sinners gains a deeper meaning when we learn that such lowliness also belongs to us as creatures before the Creator. 

And then in return the humility that belongs to us as creatures takes on its fullest beauty and depth when it is filled with the memory of redemption. 

When we remember that we are living monuments of God's astonishing saving love. The true meaning of apostle Paul's expressions about being the chief of sinners becomes even clearer when we consider a striking fact. 

Throughout his entire Christian life, even in the letters where he opens his heart most personally, we never find him making any confession of ongoing sin. 

Nowhere does he speak of present shortcomings or failures. 

He never suggests to his readers that he has failed in duty or fallen short of the law of perfect love. 

Instead, there are several places where he openly defends the blamelessness of his life, using language that would be empty if it were not the simple truth of how he had actually lived. 

"You are witnesses and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you. Our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we have conducted ourselves in the world and especially toward you with godly sincerity and purity. "

These are not dreams or ideals. They are appeals to his real lived experience.

However we choose to explain this absence of personal confession, one thing is certain. 

It points to a life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

A life of holiness and integrity rarely seen or even expected in our day.

The point I want to underline is this. 

The very absence of any confession of present sin in apostle Paul's writings strengthens the truth that the deepest humility does not come from daily sinning but from holding without interruption the position of one who never forgets that is only standing before God is that of a sinner saved by grace. 

The more grace is known, the more this position is embraced, not as a passing feeling, but as a permanent and joyful reality, that our one true place, the only ground of blessing, is to live every moment confessing, I am a sinner, saved by grace. It IS NO LONGER i THAT LIVING, BUT CHRIST LIVING N ME, HERE AD NOW. 

Apostle Paul carried with him the memory of how terribly he had sinned, before grace met him. 

Alongside that, he lived with the present awareness of being kept from sin.

 Not by his own strength, but by the continual presence of Christ within.

And still deeper, he never lost sight of the fact that sin's power remained in the flesh, always ready to reappear,  held back only by the Zoe , Life of the indwelling Christ. 

"In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." 

This is true of the flesh to the very end. 

The glorious declaration of Romans 8, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death , is not the destruction or improvement of the flesh. 

It is a continuing victory worked moment by moment by the spirit who puts to death the deeds of the body. 

Just as health pushes out disease and light overcomes   darkness and life defeats death, so the life of Christ through the spirit is health, light and life in the soul. 

 Yet even in this victory there remains a constant sense of weakness, of danger, of complete dependence. 

This does not weaken faith. It purifies it. 

And so the highest faith and the fullest joy are joined to the humility of Christ that lives only by grace. 

A humility that knows itself kept by the moment-by-moment working of God's Spirit; to the praise of His glory.

The three passages already quoted, all reveal the same truth. It was the wonderful grace given to apostle Paul and his constant awareness of needing that grace that humbled him so deeply.

 The grace of God that was with him and enabled him to   labor more than all the others. 

The grace that called him to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

The grace that was exceedingly abundant with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 

This grace which by its very nature and glory as for sinners kept alive in apostle Paul a sharp and living sense of both his past sin and his ongoing need of God's keeping power. 

Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. 

This shows us the heart of grace. 

Its purpose is to deal with sin and to take it away. 

And the more deeply one experiences grace, the more fully one becomes aware of what it means to be a sinner saved. 

It is not sin itself that keeps a man truly humble. It is grace.

Grace that reveals and reminds him what he was, what he is capable of, and what God has done. 

In all godly humbleness , I declare that I am what God says I am; I have what God says I have; and I can do what God says I can do. 

It is not sin but the power of grace that teaches me to know myself as a sinner and makes the sinner's place the place of deepest humility and self-emptying the place I never leave. 

I fear that many people by using strong words of self-blame and harsh judgment of themselves have tried to become humble yet must sadly admit that a truly humble heart marked by kindness, compassion, gentleness, and patience still feels far away. 

Focusing on ourselves, even in deep self-hatred, can never free us from self. 

True humility comes not just through God's law that condemns sin, but through his grace that saves from it. 

The law may break the heart with fear, but only grace can produce that gentle, joyful humility that becomes like second nature to the soul. 

It was when God came near in his holiness and revealed his grace that Abraham, Jacob, Job, and Isaiah were brought low in true humility. 

The heart that waits on God as the Creator, seeing itself as nothing and God as everything, and trusts in God as the Redeemer, all in all for the sinner, will be so filled with his presence that there will be no room left for self. 

Only then can the promise be fulfilled. 

The pride of man will be brought low and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 

 It is the sinner who lives in the full light of God's holy saving love, experiencing the deep indwelling of that love through Christ and the Holy Spirit, who cannot help but be humble. 

Deliverance from self does not come by focusing on your sin, but by focusing on God. 

Chapter 9 - Humility and Faith (continue here)

Chapter nine. Humility and faith. 

How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?