“Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
‘God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.’”
and be clothed
“Be clothed” is not the ordinary expression for clothing oneself. This is the only occurrance of this word in the New Testament. It comes from two words: in and tie with a knot, roll band or towel. It means to “engird yourselves.”
“Clothed” means to tie clothing to oneself with a broad belt. The clothing here is humility. Dress yourself with humility. Gird yourself with humility.
One purpose of a girdle is to control fat from bouncing around and to bring fat under control. Here, we are to bring our minds under control. Humility needs to be bound to oneself because humility does not come to us naturally.
Eventually “clothed” means to coordinate your clothing. “Dress in a coordinated manner.” If a person does this, they turn out to be a human being! This is not talking simply about coordinating our clothes but coordinating our lives with humility. If we dress with our shirt-tails out, we do not coordinate our clothing. God is not talking about tucking in our shirts but gathering humility into our thinking.
Metaphorically, “clothed” may mean to make humility our essential characteristic. Humility, therefore, is to be a decisive mark of Christian conduct.
with humility
Humility means to have lowliness of mind. God wants us to obey God-ordained leadership in the local church. Peace in the church comes from low-mindedness toward God first, then toward each other. This is especially true for the suffering church. God wants the church to regard the coming sufferings as from His sovereign will. We should follow in the footsteps of Him who endured suffering (Hebrews 12:1-12). Leadership can orient the church toward this thinking.”Humility” is primarily that which is low, and does not rise far from the ground, lowly, humble. A humble person is unpretentious.
“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:29).
“Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ–who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you” (2 Corinthians 10:1).
This is contrary to our fleshly thinking. We want to be number one but the humble mind recognizes others above ourselves (Philippians 2:3, 8; Colossians 3:12) and God first.
Principle:
A humble person is a person oriented to grace.
Application:
Most people think that humility is some form of self-effacement. “Don’t use the word ‘I’ because that isn’t humble!” Thousands of sentences call for “I” like, “I must go to the game.” Of course, we can neutralize that by adding “God willing!” Some of us think that if a person has poise and good posture that they are proud. Some people believe that if they neglect their appearance they are more humble. Some women do not put on makeup out of concern for humility. Humility has nothing to do with personality characteristics and traits. Overt appearance or mannerisms have nothing to do with humility.
A humble person thinks about God and God’s provisions and focuses on God’s grace. Once a person develops an attitude where he recognizes that all he has, is from God, he can work on any team. He no longer tries to outdo everyone. He stops playing ‘king of the mountain’. He stops catering to his lust for approbation and power.
A person at peace is a powerful person. A coordinated person is a person who knows how to have symmetry between relaxation and tension. Babe Ruth knew how to hold this balance in hitting the baseball. He was not so uptight that he struck out. Some people keep their eyes on other members of the congregation. They wear their feelings on their sleeves. They operate with hypersensitivity. They are uptight all the time.
Humble thinkers operate on grace. A truly humble person recognizes that everything he has, came from God. He acknowledges to grace in everything. He does not operate on antagonism or resentment because he realizes that but for the grace of God go I. No matter what anyone does to us, no matter how unkind, we put it into God’s hands.
Grace recognizes that we can never earn or deserve anything from God. This knocks us off our pseudo high horse. There can be no Christian ’star’. It is painful to watch those who have illusions about themselves. They think they are hot stuff spiritually–that God cannot get along without them and that there is no one else like them in the Christian life. They believe that although people have not recognized them like they have Billy Graham, they are no less great. It may be that someone told them that they were doing a great job in the local church and they have never gotten over it. Rather, they stand around waiting for the bouquets to be handed out. There is no place for that attitude in the Christian life.
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