BIG IDEA:
THE SECRET TO HUMBLING OURSELVES LIES IN MAKING OTHERS GREAT — BOTH IN OUR PERSPECTIVE AND IN OUR PURSUITS
INTRODUCTION:
Most valuable secrets involve something people long to know and try their hardest to discover. Unless someone carefully conceals such a secret it reproduces rapidly until it cannot be labelled a secret any longer. Here we have a secret that God is trying to reveal, but no one seems to want to discover it or put it into practice.
I. THE TWO ENEMIES OF HUMILITY
A. Selfish Ambition
“Do nothing from selfishness”
B. Vanity, Empty Conceit
“or empty conceit”
Gromacki: “Someone has said that vainglory is the disease whereas strife is the symptom. The former is inward and the latter is outward.”
II. MAKE OTHERS GREAT IN OUR PERSPECTIVE BY VALUING THEM MORE HIGHLY THAN OURSELVES
“but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself”
Martin: “This consideration of the excellencies in another’s character, and especially the picture of One who was ‘meek and lowly (tapeinos) in heart’ (Mt. xi. 29) will check any tendency to ‘vainglory’, i.e. pride in our own moral attainments, on the one hand, and merciless fault-finding with someone else’s failings, on the other hand.”
III. MAKE OTHERS GREAT IN OUR PURSUITS BY MAKING THE PROSPERITY OF OTHERS A HIGHER PRIORITY THAN OUR OWN PROSPERITY
“do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”