Gospel Fueled Humility
SUMMARY
In this sermon, Jordan Tatum reflects on how pride — what C.S. Lewis called a "spiritual cancer" — can quietly pull us away from God, convincing us we're good enough on our own. Drawing from Romans 5:8, Jordan unpacks three humbling truths: we have sinned against God, we can't fix what we've broken, and it takes an act of God to overcome sin. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus, the Lamb of God, did what we never could — and that truth calls us to follow our Good Shepherd in humility.
TRANSCRIPTION:
I'm excited to preach again for you this morning. I really appreciate the opportunity Karl gave me to preach two weeks in a row. It gave me a chance to do a small series. And last week we talked about this. We talked about being sheep and not lions.
Our culture wants us to be lions. They condition us to be lions. But I believe that our culture is driven by Pride, what C.S. lewis called spiritual cancer. Our culture wants us to assert ourselves, to dominate, to pursue personal glory at others expenses.
But Jesus shows us the way of the lamb, the way of humility, and we are called to be his sheep. I want that to be in your minds as we just go a little bit deeper with this idea today. Do you ever feel like your faith is in a rut? I have several times, and we're going to talk about one of those. I think sometimes it's just easy to go day after day doing the same things without really engaging in our faith.
Our faith can kind of become an afterthought. I do spiritual work for Job, and this happens to me sometimes where my faith just becomes an afterthought. And when I find myself in a rut, it gets hard to figure out what's causing this rut and how do I then get out of it. A few years ago, it was late December. I was a minister in a church at a time, and I was in a rut, and I did not know why.
Over the years, I've made it a habit to go to a lot of different Christmas Eve services because I really appreciate that's a time of the year when all the churches kind of throw out all the stops and you just get to go experience something that brings us together. And so I thought, you know what? I'm in this rut. Going to these services might help. And so as a family, we went to a megachurch down the road from us that year, and we sang the songs.
They had their silly moments sprinkled in. They hyped up what's coming next, the series, the events, and wanted you to come back. And then the pastor got up to preach, and it was the same sermon you hear every Christmas Eve, which is great, like you know what to expect. But I was still in a rut, and my engagement with him was low. They did another song at the end, and the pastor got up to do a gospel, like to share the gospel one time, to invite people to receive Jesus.
Now, I have heard the gospel being presented hundreds, if not thousands of times. And often those moments can be very shallow. And I just don't Feel it. Right. But as the pastor was making his impassioned plea that day, the last thing he said grabbed my heart.
Do you know what he said to me? And to everybody, but to me? Jesus died for you. Now, I've been a Christian for a long time. I grew up in church.
I went to Sunday school. I studied to be a pastor. This idea is not new. None of us should be surprised by this. If you've been in church for more than 10 minutes, we say this kind of thing a lot.
But on that particular day, when the preacher said those particular words, that Jesus died for you, it made me ask a question. Why? Why did Jesus die for me?
So there are a lot of good answers to that question. We can give all the church answers, the theological answers. Love. He died for love. Yeah, absolutely.
Salvation. He died to save us from our sins. Absolutely. Grace. It is how we encounter the grace of God, for sure.
Reconciliation. Lovely. Love those ideas. But there's a reason that that particular question was resonating in my mind, and it had nothing to do with those categories. At that point in time.
I had been watching this show called the Good Place. Have any of you seen the sitcom the Good Place? I don't know if this is a recommendation or not, but I liked it. The show is funny. It poses a lot of questions about the afterlife.
And I was on the last season of that show at the time. And on the last season, they introduced this character named Brent. And Brent is who you would think of if we simply described somebody as selfish and rich. Middle aged white guy. That's Brent.
That's who he is. Nobody in his group likes him. He's obnoxious. He's only out for himself. And eventually Brent is faced with the reality of who he is and he refuses to accept it.
Over and over again, he simply says, I'm a good person.
Everybody disagrees with him. He believes it about himself. In church, our world is full of people who look at themselves and say, I'm a good person. And on that particular day, when I was at that particular church with that particular preacher, I realized that that's how I was feeling about myself. I'm a good person.
And church. Do you know what that is? It's very simple. It's pride. Pride.
Pride was the cause of the spiritual rut that I found myself in. I believed that I was a good person. I worked for a church. I volunteered in the community, I recycled.
I am one of the few people that year. Thank you. One of the few people that year that donated to Wikipedia I know. Faithful to my wife. I paid my taxes early.
I drive pretty slow. Pride had convinced me that I was a good person.
I was thinking about Romans, chapter 5, verse 7, where Paul says this, for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die.
I thought of myself as that kind of person. But church, I was simply a sheep that had gone astray.
In fact, I'm often a sheep that goes astray. Because while pride might convince me that I'm a good person, lurking in the dark parts of my soul are some tendencies and some traits that are not anything to be proud of. There are times that I get lazy at my home because I care more about myself than about my family. There are times where I get angry with people, most recently 12 and 13 year old people, and lose my temper.
My mind can be full of vile and evil thoughts. Those are not good traits. They're not good tendencies. But sometimes pride convinces me it's no big deal. We all do this.
Pride is lying to me. It's telling me to blame circumstances or situations or other people. But in the words of Taylor Swift, it's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It's me.
The reality is I am not good in church. Neither are you.
We are sheep and we wander off. It's what we do. It's who we are. But upon recognizing this, that I am a sheep that wanders away, do you know what my pride then does? It's tricky here, but what my pride does is says, well, I can fix my problems, right?
I can find my way back. I have a lot of self confidence from pride. Like so many people I encounter, I too have this overwhelming belief in my own willpower. I can pull myself up by my own bootstraps, right? I can do great things if I just put my mind to it, right?
I think this is pride. The reality of this is that we decide to do things and then fail at doing those things. So let me just ask you a few questions, see what fits, okay? How many of you have ever started a new diet and how's that going?
Have you ever been given 10 days worth of a prescription and finished it?
Have you ever started reading a book?
Have you ever started with a plan to use your phone less?
Have you ever tried to stop smoking, drinking or gambling on your own?
I would ask what is our track record with those things? Our willpower isn't nearly as strong as we think it is.
When we sin, we are sheep that wander off. And instead of being still and waiting for the shepherd to come and find us, we just Keep wandering, believing that we will find our way back. But when we finally do stop and look around, we are further away than where we began. The sheep can't fix the problem that they created for themselves.
This data of our lives doesn't support our belief in ourselves. If we really take a look, we don't do things well on our own. If I created the problem, then am I really the solution? And this whole conversation stemmed from the preacher simply saying, jesus died for you. And me asking the question, why did Jesus die for me?
And over the past couple years, as I've processed that, I've learned that there are some truths that speak directly to this pride that had me interrupt. So I want to share those truths with you this morning. There are three truths that I think we need to know to help with this pride that we have to fight against. And the first one is simply, I, I have sinned against God. In Psalm chapter 51, verse 4, David says this against you and you only.
Have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight? Church. While my sin affects others, it is directly against God. When I lash out in anger, I sin against God. When you say those words, you know you shouldn't say you sin against God.
Romans 3:23 says it very succinctly. Paul says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and church. I am part of all, and so are you. Our sins are against God. So we need to embrace the simple truth about ourselves that we are sinners.
Pride tells you it's no big deal, but we know that we are sinners. Isaiah tells us that our sin separates us from God. So we are sheep that have gone astray. The second truth is, I can't fix the problems that I created. When I give in to that sin, I want to fix it.
I want to make it better. But the reality is, I can't. Sin is not something I can undo. It's not something that we can just stuff back in the box. And I think we know this on a personal level.
When you get in a fight with someone and you say those hurtful words, you can't just take them back. You can apologize, you can ask for forgiveness, you can try to disprove the words you said, but they were spoken, and I know it, and you know it. And there are consequences to speaking those words. When a husband is unfaithful to his wife or vice versa, he can't just apologize and move on. Damage has been done.
The trust has been broken. When a friend shares a secret that was shared in confidence. You can't just undo it. You have wronged your friend. And if that's true in our relationships with each other, how much more is it true in our relationship with God?
We are sinners and we can't fix it. And Pride wants us to minimize the reality of that like it's no big deal. This is where the third truth comes in. And this one's massive sin is such a big problem that it takes an act of God to fix it.
Sin is so massive that it takes an act of God to overcome it. When John saw Jesus coming down to the river to be baptized the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him. And he said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
None of the things that we have done have taken away that sin. But Jesus Christ, he did it. My blood won't do because my blood is tainted by sin. But his. His works.
In Romans, chapter five, Paul says this. He said, you see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
So going back to the question that began this for me, why did Jesus die for me? I think the answer is this. I'm a sinner who couldn't fix it. So he fixed it for me. Me church isn't that good news?
Pride tells us that we can do it, but the gospel tells us something else. So these gospel truths teach us to be humble. And I want to conclude with just kind of two thoughts that I have around this humility. This gospel fueled humility. And the first one is this.
The gospel teaches us by revealing that we are straying sheep in need of a good shepherd. Sin will lead us astray. We can find ourselves alone and deceived and confused, and we just keep wandering. But Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep in Luke chapter 15, where one sheep out of a hundred goes astray. And what does that shepherd do?
He goes and finds it searches high and low until that sheep is found in church. I am that sheep, and you are that sheep. Our shepherd will come and find us when we go astray. The gospel humbles us to see how helpless we are, how good he is. But secondly, the gospel fuels our humility towards each other.
I have this friend in Georgia who was part of the Baptist association there. And at our first meeting, he said these words, and they just resonated with me forever. He told me the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
What he means by that is that we look at each other and we are on equal footing. We are sinners in need of a Savior. I am no better than you, and you are no better than me. We are all just sheep. And we come together and we gather together.
We celebrate what Christ has done, not because of anything that I bring, not because of anything that you bring, but simply because of how good he is. We have a good shepherd that finds us, that searches for us, that loves us, that guides us. So here's my challenge to us all. Don't let pride deceive you anymore. Instead, humble yourself.
Embrace the way of the Lamb, and let's all follow our good shepherd. Let's pray.
Lord God, we are so grateful for Jesus Christ, God, that he shows us the way of the Lamb, that he teaches us how to be humble. But, God, we live in this world where pride still deceives us, pride still grabs hold of us and wants to convince us of our own ability. God, we depend on you. God, help us to abide in your flock. Help us to be people who know what it is to follow.
And God, help us to embrace the way that Jesus has taught us. We pray this in his name. Amen.
