CHRISTIAN HUMILITY
‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’
Php_2:5
What is the humility for which the Christian must strive? If the Bible seems to give an uncertain answer, remember there is a great distinction between the teaching of the Old Testament and that of the New.
I. The great distinction.—In the Old Testament, for the Jew humility meant a feeling towards God only; towards a man who was rich or powerful he would bow down, but he felt no regard for him. Even those who were described as poor and humble were often full of pride—pride of wealth, pride of birth, pride of intellect, pride of virtue. Turning next to the New Testament, we see that while the words ‘humble’ and ‘humility’ are not often found in it, yet the quality they represent can be found on almost every page. There was the example of Jesus and of St. Paul, His chief follower. In the Epistle to the Philippians St. Paul condemns instances of pride as enemies of the Christian life. St. Paul, after enumerating his own qualifications, condemned all boasting when he said, ‘Howbeit, what things were gain to me I counted loss for Christ’; and the same thought is brought out elsewhere when he says, ‘If I must needs glory, I will glory in my infirmities.’
II. In what does this Christian humility consist, and how does it answer to some current ideas on the subject?—It does not mean the repudiation of the powers that God had given to man: that would be ingratitude. St. Paul gratefully recognised his gifts. Nor does it mean that a man must distrust himself, as those who, to avoid doing wrong, do nothing. St. Paul lent no countenance to any such idea. The Roman Church has always insisted upon the submission of the intellect of all its sons to those in authority above them—the layman to the priest, the priest to the Bishop, the Bishop to the Pope—but how far such submission was from St. Paul we may see from his Epistle to the Galatians. It is ours to seek to know and to obey the truth, and that demands a large measure of independence of thought and action. To submit one’s intellect to another is not true, but false, humility. Wherein, then, did St. Paul’s humility consist? Three points may be observed which will help us.
( a) He valued few things so much as his own independence of thought and faith, yet he sacrificed it for the sake of others. He was prepared to be all things to all men that he might save some.
( b) He was accused by his own converts at Corinth of deceit and unfairness, yet he suppressed his natural feelings of indignation and answered their charges.
( c) He occupied a foremost place among the rulers of Jerusalem, yet he placed all his gifts at the service of each little Church; and, lest they should begrudge the cost of food and lodging, he worked with his own hands for his own support. Thus we see that St. Paul’s humility was simple, direct, unaffected.
III. We pass on to consider the example of the Lord Himself.—But one incident will suffice, that of the washing of the disciples’ feet, and we lay stress upon the teaching of the words ‘If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.’ What can we learn from this?
( a) That perfect humility is consistent with the full recognition of power.
( b) That as there could be no question of self-discipline in our Lord’s case, me see that the action was right and beautiful in itself. It was an act done to poor fishermen. Is there, then, such great worth in man? Yes; and that brings us to the root of the matter, for nothing is more prominent in our Lord’s teaching than the value He set upon individual souls. Thus we see that Christian humility has two aspects: it bows with the deepest reverence before the Majesty of God, as in the Old Testament; and it recognises, as in the New, the brotherhood of man.
IV. How, then, shall we describe the humble Christian?—He is one who knows that the nature which all men share is something very great and very precious; and he learns this truth, not from the Psalms, but from the Gospel of the Incarnation. He is one who knows that the value of each single soul is equal to his own. That is one way of stating the truth, but there is another. Let us turn our prose into the poetry of St. Paul by quoting that wonderful passage from another of St. Paul’s Epistles, changing only the word ‘charity’ into ‘humility,’ thus: ‘Humility suffereth long and is kind,’ and so on to the end of the ‘poem.’ Is it not plain that humility is nothing but charity in its earthly aspect? Humility is charity’s earthly cloak, but it will fall from her shoulders when she enters the courts of the King Whose name is Love.
—Rev. Canon Glazebrook.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
CHRIST THE PATTERN IN SERVICE
‘Behold My servant!’ ( Isaiah 42:1). ‘Ich dien’ (‘I serve’) is the motto of our royal prince, but it is also the motto of the Prince of princes.
Let us endeavour to contemplate our Blessed Lord as the servant of the Father; in His descent; His dependence; His devotion.
I. Let us contemplate Him in His descent.—If we would understand what it cost the Lord of glory to become a servant, we must remember who He was and who He is. What is the great hindrance to service? It is unwillingness to stoop. How the Master by His blessed descent has abased the pride and self-consciousness of men! How He bids us take the lowest place, that we may lift up those we go down to seek!
II. We see more fully this lesson of humility when we consider our Lord’s dependence.—‘The Son can do nothing of Himself.’ Oh, wondrous pattern of an emptied life! Then, if this be so, do I not see the necessity of being self-emptied? If I am to live a life of faith, must I not be self-emptied? Christ emptied Himself of His glory; must not I be emptied of my meanness?
III. Consider the devotion of His life of service.
( a) Its voluntariness.
( b) Its unobtrusiveness.
( c) Its compassionateness.
( d) His sternness.
( e) His laboriousness.
( f) Its faithfulness.
Sacrifice lies at the foundation of service. To this He calls us; may we hear His voice, obey His Word, follow His example, and accept His power, for His name’s sake.
—Rev. E. W. Moore.
Illustration
‘Sweetly sings George Herbert:—
“ ‘Hast thou not heard that my Lord Jesus died?
Then let me tell thee a strange story.
The God of power, when He did ride
In His majestic robes of glory,
Resolved to light, and so one day
He did descend, unrobing all the way.
“ ‘The stars His tire of light, and rings obtained,
The clouds His bow, the fire his spear,
The sky His azure mantle gained.
And when they asked what He did wear,
He smiled, and said as He did go,
He had new clothes a making here below.” ’
(THIRD OUTLINE)
THE MIND OF CHRIST
Here St. Paul is discussing mainly the necessity of certain Christian duties and certain Christian virtues, and he points to the example of the God-Man, Christ Jesus.
I. The model.—The mind which was in Christ Jesus. It was—
( a) Disinterested.
( b) Humble.
( c) Gracious.
II. The imitation.—‘Let this mind be in you’: the same moral and spiritual excellences. His thoughts, desires, motives, actions, must all be ours. A higher or better model to imitate we could not have; and a less perfect one would neither have sufficed for Him nor for us. Is it possible to copy it? Yes. The standard is high—exceedingly high; but it is not altogether above and beyond us. By longing for it, praying for it, and believing for it, we shall gradually and certainly ‘come unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’ Our mind a transcript of His mind, His heaven will ultimately be our everlasting home’ ( 1 John 3:2-3).
Illustration
‘Those are true and beautiful words, which the little shepherd boy was singing at the bottom of the valley, in the Pilgrim’s Progress:—
“ ‘He that is down, needs fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride:
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.” ’

THE DEATH OF CHRIST
‘Even the death of the Cross.’
Php_2:8
I. The Cross of Christ affords the only justification for an optimist outlook on life.—For the Spirit of God by which Christ was inspired and sustained is the same Spirit which is striving to influence the lives of all men. Whilst then the contemplation of the sufferings of Christ begets within us an increasing horror of sin, it should also beget an unlimited exercise of charity in judging others to whom His sufferings make little appeal. For even in their case the Spirit of God is striving, and not altogether in vain, to reproduce His life. The death of Christ was a crowning proof of the omnipotent power of that Spirit which was given to Him without measure, but which is still an active force in the world and is striving to inspire the lives of all men.
II. The fortitude of Christ is one the most inspiring features of His character. As we gaze with reverent awe upon the scene enacted in Gethsemane we feel that His victory is in a real sense the victory of mankind. When we are brought face to face with a dreaded and threatening future; when the will of God seems so hard to accept that the flesh shrinks in horror from the sacrifice involved; when we are tempted to lose all trust in human friendship, as the sympathy which might with right have been expected fails us at the last; when it seems, in very deed, that this is the ‘hour’ and ‘the power of darkness’; then the knowledge that Christ strove and conquered as a man, under real human limitations, will prevent despair, and will help to explain to us the assurance given to His earliest followers, ‘Be of good cheer; I have overcome.’
III. Christ’s death is not an isolated event to be gazed at from afar.—Even in His death He was very near to us. Although in one sense His death represents a sacrifice which can never be repeated, it is nevertheless true that that unique sacrifice must be reproduced in the sacrifice and offering up to God of every human being for whom it is to be made effective.
IV. His character does not represent for us an unapproachable ideal.—The Spirit which inspired the life of our Saviour is striving to inspire our lives. His fortitude, his confidence in the presence of overmastering evil. His self-surrender and self-sacrifice even unto death, may be reproduced in our own experience.
Rev. Canon C. H. Robinson.
Illustration
‘If we may believe Christ to have possessed any clear foresight of the actions and conduct of those who should become His nominal followers, it becomes hard to place any limit upon the suffering which this foresight must have caused Him.
‘ “Face, loved of little children long ago!
Head, hated by the priests and rulers then!
Say, was not this Thy passion to foreknow
In Thy last hour the deeds of Christian men?” ’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE WONDROUS CROSS
We are to meditate on the Cross—
‘… the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died.’
I. The Cross is an altar.—‘We have an altar,’ says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews ( Hebrews 13:10). The perfect sacrifice was offered there.
II. The Cross is a lever.—It uplifts souls that lay in the shadow of death.
III. The Cross is a key.—It reveals the very heart of God.
IV. The Cross is a pulpit.—From it Christ preaches to-day as He did on the first Good Friday.
V. The Cross is a throne.—From it He promises Paradise.
VI. The Cross is a bridge.—It brings heaven and earth together. It is the anti-type of Jacob’s ladder.
VII. The Cross is a gathering-place.—For Christ died on the Cross to ‘gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.’
—Rev. F. Harper.
Illustrations
(1) ‘A little child was brought into a London hospital suffering from a most virulent form of diphtheria. It was seen that all hope of saving his life lay in one operation. That was the sucking up, by means of a tube, of the obstruction in the throat. Although he knew that death was a great probability, the physician, Samuel Rabbeth—young, with a brilliant future opening up before him, willingly stooped over the boy, put the tube in his lips, and sucked out the poisoned pus. He paid the penalty. In a day the fell disease appeared in him; in a week he was dead.’
(2) ‘To Christ’s Cross his soldiers are gathered, and from the Cross they go forth to battle against the powers of wrong. There is a beautiful illustration of the latter in Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. I refer to the passage of the fiery cross. You remember how, when the clan was to be rallied to a certain place in battle for their chieftain’s honour, it was customary that a cross, a rough wooden one, should be first set on fire, and then the blazing cross had the flames extinguished in the blood of a slain kid, and with that blood-stained, charred cross a herald, swift-footed, was sent forth to summon all the clan to battle for their chieftain and for victory.’

THE NAME OF JESUS
‘At the name of Jesus every knee should bow.’
Php_2:10
We cannot take the old Gospel story as a poetic symbol, as a mystical embodiment of an inner verity, free from the perils of historical inquiry. For what we hold in it is a deed done once for all, by which God forced for Himself an entry upon the drama of our affairs.
I. A deed wrought in power by God!—Is not that the Gospel that we need to-day? Would anything short of that be a Gospel at all?
( a) In the world of morals we have found to our cost that mere knowledge is not power.
( b) We are beset by many social problems for we see no solution. We grope in great darkness, and see no light. But is this blindness not judicial?
( c) In the personal life is not the cry that goes up so plaintively, so deplorably, a cry for power?
II. The great consolation.—It is to those stricken with this terror, for society, and for themselves, that the great consolation is given. The Gospel is proclaimed yet once again of a deed of power wrought in our very midst; wrought once for all. Lift up your head, oh! ye that tremble Lift up your hearts, oh! ye that faint. The Breath of God is come from the four winds. It blows over you; it enters in you. Stand up, stand up upon your feet, an exceeding great army. Stand up! Rise! Walk! Move out on your vocation!
III. The name given to Jesus is no record of a frail visionary dream, haunting the stormy story of man, even as the tremulous lustre of a rainbow hovers, suspended and unsubstantial, over the thunder of a cataract. No; the name Jesus, the Deliverer, witnesses to a fact done in grim earnest; to an act of force achieved through sweat of blood, by which God’s will enters to strive with yours, and to prevail. The name of Jesus is a power which energises in you, to shatter bonds, to revive flagging power, to kindle a fire that will purify, and deliver, and redeem. Rise, then, walk; go forward; do not shrink or fear what the dark days may bring for you. Within you you may possess the royalty, the supremacy, the victory of Him Whose Name is above every name, the Name at which ‘every knee shall bow.’ Trust yourself wholly to the power of that living Name done into you, at work within your being; and you will find yourself swept along in the movement of a mighty force that makes, surely and fearlessly, towards that great hour where every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
—Rev. Canon H. Scott Holland.