From The Pulpit                                 By   John Trabucchi

John T. @ Tumbledown Mountain Weld, Maine

John T. @ Tumbledown Mountain Weld, Maine


New Hope Baptist Church
7-11-2010
　
   Jesus, noticing how the guests at a dinner table were jockeying for the places of honor, warned them of the shame which will follow pride, and commended to them the precepts of true lasting glory which follows true humility. This Lord’s Day Pastor Brian Rebert preached upon the Christian grace of humility, and the satanic principal of pride from the Gospel of Luke chapter 14:7-11.
   Christ pictured for His listeners, and for all of us, the sad spectacle of an invited guest at a wedding feast taking a place of honor, presuming an importance in the host’s estimation and above the honor of the other guests. The parable concludes with the needy “social climber” being shamed in front of those he sought to impress by being demoted to the lowest place in favor of another guest of the host’s choosing. 
   Pastor drew general and specific applications from Christ’s conclusion, “For whosoever exalts himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Luke 14:11. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Genesis 18:25b. Ultimately and eternally God promises that all will be properly and specifically reconciled in God‘s justice, better to be content with our actual state as adopted children of the eternal God in Christ by grace through faith, than to grasp at fleeting status of place here among finite men by pride through schemes.
   Delight in God’s will for you as Christ delighted in His Father’s will for Him, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Philippians 2:5-8. Neither feign humility by refusing His gracious advance or steal His glory by pride’s self seeking. In Christ’s kingdom the high will be made low, and the low lifted up. Luke 1:51-53. In faith pray His kingdom come soon, in deed abide in Him in your place. 
  

Pride & Humility
by J. C. Ryle 

Humility may well be called the queen of the
Christian graces. To know our own sinfulness
and weakness and to feel our need of Christ is
the start of saving religion. 

Humility is a grace which has always been a
distinguishing feature in the character of the
holiest saints in every age. Abraham and Moses
and Job and David and Daniel and Paul were all
eminently humble men. 

Above all, humility is a grace within the reach of
every true Christian. All converted people should
work to adorn with humility the doctrine they profess.
If they can do nothing else, they can strive to be humble. 

Do you want to know the root and spring of humility?
One word describes it. The root of humility is right knowledge. 

The person who really knows himself and his own heart,
who knows God and his infinite majesty and holiness,
who knows Christ and the price at which he was redeemed,
that person will never be a proud person. 

He will count himself, like Jacob, unworthy of the least
of all God's mercies. He will say of himself, like Job,
"I am unworthy." He will cry, like Paul, "I am the worst
of sinners" He will consider others better than himself
(Philippians 2:3). 

Ignorance--nothing but sheer ignorance, ignorance of
self, of God, and of Christ--is the real secret of pride. 

From that miserable self-ignorance may we daily pray
to be delivered. The wise person knows himself and
will find nothing within to make him proud.