Alright, let's go ahead and grab our Bibles tonight and let's turn to Philippians chapter 2. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. That's after Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. Philippians chapter 2. We're continuing on our study on humility. We've seen it personified in the person of Jesus Christ. We've seen it taught by Jesus on several occasions where He guarantees as those that exalt themselves will be humbled and those that humble themselves will be exalted. We've seen His disciples grow in humility. That's what we looked at a little bit last time. We've also looked at many benefits of developing humility in our lives, including seeing the power of God increase, as well as our heavenly position increasing, and blessings both here and there increasing. If we just get a hold of this humility, if we can just figure out and plead and beg and ask God to help us to be humble, because there's so many benefits of it, and for some reason it's not taught in this day and age. You'll get to find out how you measure up when it comes to humility. So isn't that great? You get to find out exactly how humble you are today. So that'll be fun. We're gonna be examining a surefire way to gauge your humility. If humility was a score that you can be given, what would it be? In case you're wondering, I already wrote down each one of your humility levels, and I'll be handing them out here in the very, no. Not quite, not quite. I will assign you a number based on how many amens you give me and how nice you are today, and we'll see who the best is at being humble, but no, no. Alright, we've got Philippians chapter 2. Let's start in verse 3. Hopefully this passage is getting familiar to you because it's a very important passage. If you want to do anything on humility you need Philippians chapter 2. Look at verse number 3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. 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. Let's pray, amen. All right, so this passage we just read, Philippians chapter two, this passage shows us that the cross is the greatest symbol of humility. You see that in verse eight? And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, Jesus Christ, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. If you wanna know what humility looks like, you look at the cross and you see humility. That's God, he left heaven, made himself of no reputation, says that in verse seven, became a servant and died for the whole world. That's all sinners everywhere. He didn't die just for the elect, he didn't die for some but not for others, he died for the sins of the whole world, the Bible says. All right, and the Bible says that Jesus humbled himself to do so. Verse eight, we saw that he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. All right, before we get into the list and start grading ourselves on humility, we need to understand the correlation between a couple of things that have a lot to do with one another, and that's humility and love. There's a lot of similarities between humility and love, and we're gonna look at some of them. Keep a marker here in Philippians 2, but if you would, turn over to the right there and turn to 1 John 4. It's one of the small books right there before Revelation, 1 John 4. We're gonna wanna put a marker in here too. But I wanna go over some things here in 1 John 4. We're gonna start in verse 7. 1 John 4, 7. It's gonna help us whenever we use the Bible definition for Bible words instead of what our definition is, our personal definition or the world's definition. Let's get it from the Bible. Let's see what the Bible says about this stuff. 1 John chapter four, verse number seven. Bible says, beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. And this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. He was the total and complete payment for our sins, propitiation for our sins. Verse 11, Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God in any time. If we love one another, if, if we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. There's a whole lot there. We're not gonna totally take it apart, but I wanna show you here some correlations between humility and love. True love is an act of humility. It is doing something for the benefit of others, most often at the cost of one's self. It's giving up something in and of yourself, whether it's time, effort, money, energy, whatever it might be, you're giving up of yourself for the benefit of someone else. Not so you can be seen and brag about it, but because you love them, therefore you do something for them, okay? Love is expressing that desire to benefit them. God showed His love by sending Jesus Christ to die for our sins. That's what we see in verse nine and 10. And this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. God showed His love sending Jesus Christ to die for us so we might live. Verse 10, herein is love. Not that we love God, He wasn't sending Jesus Christ to pay us back for the love that we showed Him. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That's the love God has towards us. The humility of Jesus dying for our sins is Philippians chapter two. Him dying on the cross there is the humility of Christ. Here, the cross is signified as the love of God. So see, Jesus's sacrificial death for us can be considered love and humility, okay? Love and humility, I want you to understand this, are both a choice. They're a decision that you make. All right, Philippians 2.5 said, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. You get to decide to have the mind of Christ. You have to make a conscious effort to be humble. It doesn't happen by accident. You decide to be humble. Verse seven here, 1 John 4.7, beloved, let us love one another. It's a choice. Okay, verse 12, no man has seen God in any time if we love one another. It's a decision, it's a choice. It's not a feeling that takes control and makes you do things. No, it's what you decide to do for others because you want to do something beneficial for them at the cost of yourself. That's what true Bible love is. You decide who you want to show love to and whether or not to be humble. Those are decisions you make. All right, number three, there is no pride or selfishness in love or humility, okay? You can't be full of yourself and be humble. You can't be full of yourself and show love. The Bible says this, and you don't have to turn there, but 1 Corinthians 13, it's the charity chapter. I know people split hairs between charity and love. You can't define one without the other, basically, okay? 1 Corinthians 13.4 says this, charity suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. You can't have love and be proud. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thanketh no evil. Okay, you can't have love or charity and be proud. because you can't give in and of yourself to benefit someone else and be proud at the same time. You're doing it for them. Okay, so there's no pride or selfishness in either love or humility. There's a lot of similarities here. We're looking at some of these. Number four, love and humility both came from God. Okay, love and humility both come from God. We already talked about the heavenly origins of humility, and we talked about there's humbleness in the presence of God. You can see how great he is, so you recognize how small you are. So humility is something heavenly. The Bible says here in 1 John 4 that love is of God, verse seven. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. Lust is not of God. Lust is of your flesh, that's what I desire, I want, I'm going to get. Love, I'm going to do something for them, for their benefit, even though it costs me something. Love is from God. That's what the Bible says. The Bible says God is love. And if we do not love, we don't really know God. That's what verse 8 says. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. It doesn't mean that if you don't have a certain level or attitude towards other people, then you're not saved. It says if you don't know this kind of love, this self-sacrificing for the benefit of others kind of love, then you really don't know much anything about God. Because that is at the core center of God's being is love. Number five. How much love and humility you have, this is the important one, this is the one we're gonna focus on. How much love and humility you have is not measured by how you treat God, but by how you treat others. Okay? You can't measure the humility that you have and you can't measure the love that you have by how you act towards God, that is measured by how you act towards other people. Look at verse 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. See, we know God's love, so now we show that love by loving one another. Verse 12. No man hath seen God in any time. If we love one another, if we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his spirit. That's the spirit of love that he's given us. Your dedication to God is revealed by how you treat others. You can tell how serious a Christian is and how serious they are in their faith by how they treat other people. Not by how many times they go to church, not by how much money they give, not by how much Bible they know. Their true measure of their faith is revealed by how they treat other people. Bible says we ought to love one another, verse 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. The Bible says if we love one another, God dwells in us. Verse 12, no man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. And the Bible says we know that he dwells in us and us in him if we have his loving, humble spirit within us. Verse 13, hereby know we. that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his spirit. How do you know that you're saved? Well, do what the Bible says, that's great. You take God's word on it, okay? You confessed with your mouth, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not trying to work your way to heaven or anything like that. You called on Jesus Christ, he is your way of salvation. Great, what is the evidence of that in your life? A way for you to know that you are saved is that you have love towards other people. You have love that doesn't make sense towards other people, okay? We don't love like the world loves. We love a selfless, biblical God kind of love, okay? That's what verse 13 says. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his spirit. It's the kind of love we only get by God and not by our flesh, okay? For the fruit of the spirit is love, joy. First one mentioned, love. All right. Like I said, that does not mean that if you aren't loving enough that you aren't really saved, it means that you are missing out on a fellowship with God. All right? You're missing part of the fruit of the spirit because you don't let the love of God that he put in you when you got saved, you don't let it bear any fruit. Because remember, love is optional. Love is something you have to agree to. All right? So now let's figure out how, it's not on love, but love and humility, they're very similar in a lot of areas. So how do we measure humility? Your humility, or your love for that matter, but we're focused on humility, your humility cannot be measured by how you are alone with God. Anyone could have moments of humility or moments that appear to be humble. Okay? And especially, anyone can have moments of humility when comparing themselves to Almighty God and while in His presence. But I'll remind you that in Philippians chapter 2, Jesus did not humble himself by simply leaving heaven for earth. He humbled himself by becoming a servant to unworthy sinners who were beneath His holy character and dying for them. That's the measure of humility, that's the measure of love. Not that Jesus Christ just stepped off the throne, but that he got underneath the most unworthy and did something for them. That is how you measure humility. True humility, oh no, talking about Jesus' example. Jesus' humility was exercised in front of others and was directed towards others. Humility is something that's noticed by other people. You can't just go home and say, well, I'm a very humble person, but I'm only humble in private whenever I'm praying. Then you're not a humble person. If you go out and maybe you're very humble in church, and oh yes, well how are you? Oh, let's not talk about me, let's just talk about you, and I just wanna praise the Lord. Those are good things, but if you leave from here and you go hang out with some friends, or you go around town or whatever, and then it's all back on you, and it's all ha ha, me, me, me, then you're not a humble person. Humility is something you have with you all the time. It's a change from the inside out, and it's not a coat that you put on. True humility is measured by how you are at all times, whether you're alone with God or out with others, whether you're at church or whether you're at home, whether you're on a stage or whether you're in a crowd. Humility is something that's consistent. I wanted to show you the strong correlation between love and humility because they often go hand in hand. True love is humble. True humility often expresses love towards other people. Okay, you can't express love without humility. Tonight, we're gonna look at several verses that tell us how God expects us to treat one another. Okay? Noah, can I get your help? I have a list. Instead of writing it all down on the board in sloppy handwriting, this is the humility test that Noah's handing out. Make sure everybody gets one. If they make a funny face, give them two of them. But tonight we're going to look at several verses that tell us how God expects us to treat one another. Okay, because Jesus mentioned a couple of times, well, John 13, 34, He said this, He said, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. That was John 13, 34. In John 15, 12, Jesus said this, This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. It's important to Jesus Christ that we love one another. And this love and humility we'll see, but Jesus expects us to have love and humility towards one another. And as we go through these different verses, you'll see them dripping with humble actions of love. So a couple places you wanna mark here, I hope you, I don't know if I told you to keep a marker there in Philippians, we'll be back there as well, but we wanna keep a marker, actually we're done in 1 John, but if you wanna turn a couple pages over to your left, probably, I don't know, six or seven pages, to 1 Peter 3, you wanna put a marker there, 1 Peter, not 2 Peter, 1 Peter 3, wanna put a marker there. And we're gonna go over this, I'll kinda explain the grading system here on this humility test. The first seven, if you wonder why it's one through seven and then one through three, the first seven, the first section is a list of the good things that we are told in God's word that we are supposed to be doing towards other believers. This is you proactively doing something for others. Anybody else need a pen? Do y'all need some pens? Here we go. I have two up here, you can have this one. Anybody else need a pen? Everybody else good? OK. So on this one, we're going to be using a scale. We've got 10 questions here. There's a possibility of 10 per line. So you know, it's like school grading here. You can get up to 100. By the way, if you make 100 on the humility test, you automatically get a zero on it. So just in case you're wondering, if you think, hey, I got it perfect, you know nothing about humility, you get a zero. So just a nice fair warning there. But we're gonna be using a scale from zero to 10 in these first seven questions here to determine how good you are at performing the actions and the traits to other Christians, whether they go to your church or not, okay, just other believers, other parts of the body of Christ. Zero is I never treat other Christians this way. And 10 is I always treat other Christians this way. So we're gonna go through some scripture and we're gonna find out, we're gonna read the verses, and you can determine, and I understand, listen, you don't have to grade this thing tonight, you don't have to fill out all of them tonight. I put the Bible verses that relate to each one of them right there in red, so you can look this up later if you wanna pray about it or if you wanna think about it a little bit and say, What grade should I give myself on this? Okay, so don't think you have to have it all done tonight. You keep your own scores to yourself. What I'm saying is you don't have to tell me. You want to tell one another, brag about how humble you are, have at it. But let's turn to Philippians Chapter 2. We should have a marker there. And let's start off with the first one here. He's talking about esteeming others better than yourself. Philippians chapter two, verse number three. The Bible says, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, there's the humility, lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Romans 12.10, I'll read that one to you, the reference is there. Romans 12.10 says, be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love and honor, preferring one another. Okay? This is your self-estimation when comparing yourself to others. I put there the definition of esteem. That's a value that you place on something. So whenever trying to determine if you esteem others better than yourself, how do you rank yourself among other people? Well, you know, I'm smarter than just about everybody I know. And, you know, I look better than them. And I'm definitely more spiritual than they are. I know I'm going to get a higher score on this humility test than they are. Or do you just say, you know what? I'm pretty even with everybody else, or they sure got me beat here, boy they got me beat there, and you know, I wish I could be as spiritual as this person, or I wish I could do for the Lord what this person would do, and I'm praying for these spiritual gifts. How do you rate yourself when compared to other people? Esteeming others better than yourself. A 10 would be like, not that you hate yourself, but you say, man, I've been saved for this long, and I'm still such a babe in Christ. I still really don't know a whole lot. I've got so far to go, and I see everybody else. That's a 10. A zero is, no, I've got this all figured out. I'm the greatest. Everybody else is beneath me. I would thank more of them, but they're not more like me. So that's a zero. So that's, you can rate yourself on that, zero being I'm the greatest, 10 is everybody else is better than me. However, you esteem others better than yourself if you do that. We're told to. We're told to think more highly of other people than we think of ourselves. So that's the first one. Philippians chapter two and verse number four, we look at the second one. Philippians 2.4. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Number two is looking on the things of others. This is the amount of time and effort you spend checking in on other Christians. Okay? It's really easy to be self-centered. I'm worried about my day, how things are going my way, all the plans I have, the goals I have for this week or this weekend or this month or this year. I've got a busy schedule. I sure want to make sure I get all the things I want done and everything. Or do you sit there and stop and think about somebody else? How good are you about thinking of other people? Do they have needs? Is there something that I can do for them? Are they going through a hard time? Here's a big one, are you praying for them? If you wanna see if you're good at looking on the things of others, who do you pray more for, yourself or other people? If you spend most all your time praying for yourself, you're gonna have a pretty low number on this one. Okay? But if you're really good about praying for other people, keeping up with them. Hey, I heard you were sick. I heard you're not doing good. Can I bring you by a meal? Is there anything I can do for you? That's going to get you higher on this one. Okay? That's a greater sign of humility if we're looking on the things of others. All right? Number three. By the way, if they have like three references, you really need to pay attention to them. Some of them just have one. This one's got three references to it. Your kindness towards others. I'll give you Romans 12.10. I just read it earlier. I'll read it again. Romans 12.10. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, okay, in honor preferring one another. We're supposed to be kindly affectioned one to another. We're in Philippians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, so one book to your left. You want to turn over there to Ephesians 4. That's another portion that's going to have several marks on our list here. Ephesians 4. You can either turn over the three or four pages, whatever it is, every time, or put a marker here if you want. Ephesians 4, verse number 32. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. I know some people want to say, well, you know, nice isn't a part of the fruit of the Spirit. No, but we're told three times to be kind to other people. That's pretty close to the same. 1st Peter chapter 3, if you happen to put that marker there, 1st Peter chapter 3, verse number 8. 1st Peter 3.8. Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. What's that? We're being kind. How is your kindness towards other people? How nice and kind are you towards other believers, especially those who are saved but have different beliefs, convictions, standards, and preferences than you? How nice can you be towards somebody else that goes to another church or part of another denomination, or do you just want to bad mouth them for everywhere they're wrong? How nice are you towards other people? This could really apply towards anybody. It doesn't just have to be believers on this. How nice are you in general towards the lost in order to lead them to Jesus Christ? How nice are you towards people in the church, people outside of the church? How kind are you? Do you treat people with respect? Do you speak to them harshly? Or do you speak to them softly? Ten is, oh, I butter up everybody I meet. I'm super soft with them. And zero is I hate everybody. I'm not a people person. So long as there's no people around, I'm a pretty nice person. How's your kindness? Number four, your service towards others. Galatians chapter 5. Galatians is right before Ephesians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, so Galatians chapter number five, verse number 13. Galatians 5.13. For brethren, you have been called under liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. We're supposed to serve one another. Okay, you're service towards one another. Philippians 2, 5-7, I'll read it to you if you don't want to get over there. Philippians 2.5, 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. Okay? Jesus said, the greatest among you, let him be your servant. Alright? We're expected to serve other people. And I put it down on here, I think it's important. This service is not out of duty or obligation or profession. Don't say, oh, I'm a really good servant because I was a waitress for so many years. That means you got paid to serve people. Okay, I was in customer service. You got paid to do that. I'm not talking about doing service, doing what your duty is to do. I can't say me going to work is service for my family. No, I gotta do that anyway. I'm commanded by God to work, and I'm supposed to provide for my family. That does not count as service towards my family. Service is what you do, not because you have to, but because you want it by love, Serve one another. You want to show them that you care about them. You want to do something for the benefit of someone else. So you do it not of necessity or obligation. I want to be a blessing. So I made him a cake. You know, I want to be a blessing. So I knew they were struggling. I gave them some money. You know, what is that? I just want to serve. I noticed your grass was getting long. So come by and cut your grass. What's that? Just serving. How's your service towards others? Ten is I'm constantly overwhelmed because I'm serving other people just out of the goodness of my heart. And zero is I do nothing for anybody else. It's all about me. Where do you rank in there? This kind of service is done out of love with no hopes of getting anything in return. That includes recognition. You don't do it to be seen of men. If so, you got your reward. Number five. Here's a good one. Another three reference one. Your long suffering or forbearance towards others. Let's see, we're in Philippians, Colossians, the next book to your right, Colossians chapter three. Colossians 3.12. This is a good way to measure your humility is how good you are at putting up with other people. Colossians 3.12. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. I want to point this out. Notice this in verse 12. It says, put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering. You know where your bowels are? On the inside. You're putting on something on the inside. It's an internal change. This humility, the way you treat other people, it starts on the inside, okay? A permanent change happens on the inside. The Bible does say, commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. So you start by exercising bodily what you know you're supposed to be doing, and then your heart will catch up. But we're talking about an internal change here. I'll go ahead and give you Ephesians 4.2. Is that the computer doing that? Okay. Okay, I was just curious. I was like, we can push a button over there and get that to quit. Ephesians 4.2. Bible says, "...with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love." Supposed to be loving one another? Well, that comes with long-suffering and forbearance. That's putting up with people. This is the amount of patience that you have when dealing with other believers. Your ability to let God work on them instead of you or your ability to put up with their immaturity or failures and encouraging them in the Lord, not rebuking them, okay? What's that mean? Well, if I just tell them everything that they're doing wrong and I'll give them scripture to back it up, then they should be right. No, how about you pray and ask the Lord to help them in his timing, and let the Lord give you the patience to be able to wait for them to grow? Because you didn't grow into the spiritual giant you think you are overnight, so why don't you let the Lord give them some time to work on them? Okay, you're long suffering, how good are you with putting up with other people, their mistakes, and their immaturity? Can you handle them for a while? If you say, I've got no patience, you know, then put yourself a zero or a one or a two or something like that. If you can withstand them and you never say anything bad or anything like that, give eight, nine, 10, put yourself up there. Long suffering and forbearance, number five. Number six, your forgiveness of others. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Find it interesting that it's, Paul talks a lot about the same things to a bunch of different churches. It's almost like all the churches need to know these things on how to treat and deal with one another. Colossians 3.12, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." So, well, they trespassed against me, they offended me, they've done some hurt to me or to my family, and yeah, I've forgiven them. But, you know, I remember it, I'm going to hold that against them to the day they die. You didn't forgive them like Christ did. The Bible says, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Forgiveness, I put a good definition here, the pardon of an offender by which he is considered and treated as not guilty. This is your ability to go over and move past an offense that someone else has done against you or your family without holding a grudge against that person. That doesn't mean you open up the doors and let them just trample all over you again. It doesn't mean that you are unintelligent in your response or dealing with that person. But it means that, okay, listen, whether they ask for it or not, I forgive them. I'm not gonna hold it against them. I'm not gonna bring it up to other people what that wicked person did to me. Okay, I'm just gonna drop it. I'm gonna let it go. Jesus Christ, he never once brought up a sin that he's forgiven for me. He's never once held it over my head. Oh yeah, you remember whenever you did this and you pleaded the blood? Well, I went ahead and got it out from behind my back. I reached down in the sea of forgetfulness and I brought it back up to you, because I want to show you this again. Jesus has never done that to me. He won't ever do that to you. Forgiveness is, put it back there, you treat them as innocent, okay. Learned your lesson, sure. Expect, put up some safeguards, especially if they're not repentant. Pay attention, be vigilant, okay. But don't sit there and bad mouth them and tell everybody else. If you're holding a grudge, you didn't forgive. If you've forgiven, there's no grudge. There can be caution, but there's no grudge. How is your ability to forgive other people? You say, oh, it's no problem for me. Well, get yourself up there, high score. If it's a, I just can't let things go, put down that low score. All right, number seven, we still doing all right? All right. Something else we're supposed to be doing towards others that can measure our humility. Your compassion and pity towards others. 1 Peter 3, verse eight. 1 Peter 3, eight. Finally be all of one mind, having compassion One of another, love is brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing, but contrary wise blessing, knowing that you are there unto called that you should inherit a blessing. Okay, having compassion and pity. That means there's a person that is hurt or they're in pain and you feel on the behalf of them, on behalf of others, You feel pain and hurt because of what they're going through. This is sympathy or empathy towards other people. They're hurting. I feel so bad for them. I not only hurt for them, I want to help them. What can I do? Oh, I can't believe it. I saw on the news, you know, hurricane over there in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina. And I said, I just, I felt so bad for them people. I would hate to lose my house in a flood. I would hate to lose everything without having any flood insurance because it's never flooded here before. I feel so bad for them people. So, I found a church or a ministry or whatever over there that I can send money to or funds to or goods to or whatever to help those people out. What's that? Compassion. Pity. Oh, this poor guy out here, he says, we'll work for food. Let's see if he wants to work for food. Hey, I want to go by and get him a burger. I don't believe in giving those people money. Get him a burger. Everybody likes burgers. What's that? Compassion, pity. They're hurting. They need something. Your compassion, your pity gives you a sense of urgency to do something for them. Are you empathetic or sympathetic? That's a sign of humility. All right, if you're selfish and like, ah, they deserve that, or well, stinks to be them, or whatever, you need a low score on that one. All right, I'll give a little disclaimer here. I'll expound on it a little bit. We've got three more, because we got through seven. And like I say, if you got a 70, well, we'll mess up your score already. But the final three scores calculated by negative things that you do towards others. So the grading system's reversed, OK? These are bad things that you're not supposed to be doing. So if you do these things all the time, you get a lower score. If you never do them, you get a higher score. So just the opposite as last time. So we've got to switch them. That's why I made for sure to separate them out. We didn't go back and forth, back and forth. All right? So I do this all the time. I mean towards these people, or I do whatever it is we're going to go over. And I do that all the time. Give yourself a low score. I never do this. Give yourself a high score. Ephesians chapter 4. Yeah, Ephesians 4. First one, strife. Strife. Ephesians 4.3. I said 4.3. I don't see it right there. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, verse 1, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. What are we trying to do? Keep the unity of the spirit. We're not bickering and fighting with the brethren and the bond of peace. We're not, strife, what is strife? Talking about arguing, fighting, division. getting at them, you know, strife, conflict. All right, Philippians 2.3 is a better reference on that, but I just wanted to show you there in Ephesians 4.3 that we're supposed to be unified, we're supposed to strive for unity of the faith, all right, and the bonds of peace. Ephesians 4.3, I'm sorry, Philippians 2.3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. All right, we didn't, I don't think we read Galatians first. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. I'm gonna get these four books down pretty good. Galatians 5, 26. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another. envying one another, provoking, what? Let's fight about it. Let's argue about it. Strife, contention. I'm right, you're wrong. Let me show you. What's that? That's a mark of pride. I want you to know how right I am. Humility is, well, I don't want to be wrong if they want to be wrong, and I don't have to tell anybody they're wrong and I'm right. All right? Strife, this is how much you argue or fight with other believers, whether justified or not. I'm gonna ask you some questions. How confrontational are you? How many things do you find are worth fighting about? Okay, make a mountain out of every molehill? Is it always, they're wrong, I gotta tell them. It's my job, I am the truth distributor, and I need to make sure to let you know that you're wrong. All right, if you're always bickering and fighting with one another, You got a problem with a bunch of different people, Bible says only by pride cometh contention, get yourself a low score on that one. I don't fight with anybody, I always get along with everybody, get yourself a higher score on that one. All right? Vain glory, we see it here in Galatians 5, 26. Let us not be desirous of vain glory. provoking one another, envying one another. Philippians 2.3 is the other one I'll read it to you. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. Strife and vainglory go close to each other, but they're not the same. Strife is picking the fight. Vainglory is, see how great I am? I argued to prove my superiority. You see? Because I was right. I was right. I put it on the calendar. I think I remember one time I was actually right. We got an argument or something. I was actually right. It's like, ooh, put it on the calendar. You know, what's that, vainglory? I was right, and I wanted everybody to know. Look how great I am. Look how smart I am. This is your desire to be thought of well by others, being highly esteemed. All right? I had to throw this one in there. Jesus humbled himself by making himself of no reputation, Philippians 2.7. But he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant. When they were lying about Jesus, he said nothing. Whenever they were blaspheming against Jesus Christ, he said nothing. He opened not his mouth. Why is that? He didn't care about making a name for himself. He was humble. He made himself of no reputation. He was always bragging on God. So if you've always got to get the credit, you've always got to be in the limelight, you can give yourself a low score on that one. If you don't care what others think about you, Trying to make sure you set yourself up on a pedestal, you can get yourself a higher number on that one if you don't care about those things. Looking on your own things, Philippians 2.4. Philippians 2.4, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. See, those are two different things. Look not every man on his own things. This is focusing on you, your business, your money, your finances, your health. It's all about you, right? Looking on your own things. We're told not to do that. This is how self-centered you are. How much time you spend thinking about and looking out for yourself. Making sure you have your way. Why? I'm number one. It's all about me. If I don't look out for me, who else is gonna look out for me? Nobody will. I gotta look out for me. Well, the Bible says, you worry about God, he'll worry about you. Okay, let God worry about yourself. You worry about God's self, and he can worry about yourself. All right, so if you're real big on, hey, it's all about me, I gotta look out for myself, it's all about my plans and goals and desires, you need to give yourself a low number on that one. If you're like, I'm just gonna live by faith, let God do all of it, you know, I'm gonna worry about everybody else. You can give yourself a higher number on that one. All right? So you can go ahead and say whenever you get this done, It doesn't matter, you can tally them all up, it'd be like a grade, a school grade, like I say, 100 being the most humblest person ever, just enjoy that. But I want to let you know, I threw these numbers out of nowhere, but if you tally it up and you scored over 80, go ahead and take away like 10 points, okay? If you total it up and you get over 90, I want you to subtract 20 points. And if you make it yourself 100, you need to subtract at least 50 points. If you scored under a 50, I'd give yourself another 10 points. If you scored yourself pretty low, good chance you're doing pretty good. But we need to know what areas we're lacking in here. because we need to get a hold of this humility. And these references, if you're struggling in one of them and you say, wow, I scored so low on this and I deserve that really low score I gave myself, why don't you memorize those references right there? Why don't you start making it a point of prayer and saying, Lord, I've got some pride in this area right here, or Lord, I'm really lacking humility in this area right here. Could you please help me in this area? I think too highly of myself, and I know that that comes with getting abased, and I'm gonna get knocked down, and Lord, I don't want that, and I don't wanna misrepresent you, because other people see Jesus in you. That's what we were seeing there in 1 John 4, is he was saying, let me see if I can find it real quick. I think, oh, I already said to lose that spot, didn't I? Let's see. No. Must have been another reference. But basically, people are going to know us and know that God's in us if we're showing this love, if we're having this humility. And if we lack in these areas, we're not showing these people God. And if we claim to know Jesus Christ and follow Jesus Christ, and we have none of this humility or this love, we're very poor ambassadors of Jesus Christ. So it's important that we get a hold of this.