2024 Sermon Series: Humility

Dear Renewal Church:

We are starting the new year looking to Jesus and listening to how he is shaping us as a community. We are starting a new sermon series on humility to frame the way we think about ourselves and how we relate to one another as Renewal Church.

The great “Christ hymn” in Philippians, the pinnacle of the letter anchors this wonderful revelation: What is God like? And what does it look like to be God’s people? He is humble and He works in us to be like Him.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:1-8)

As author Jerry Bridges observes: “the character trait of humility is the second-most frequently taught trait in the New Testament, second only to love…All other character traits, in one way or another, are built upon love and humility”.

We enter in this new season exploring what this heartbeat of God looks like: what if we embraced our life in God together as community, practicing a humble, self-emptying love in a culture of self-exaltation?

Grace and peace,

The Elders, Pastor Josh