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Christlife Posture: Submitting to God's Love and Leading

Topic: Humbled, Humiliated or Heartened

 

Suggested Approach: Choose 1 thing from each of the three boxes

OR Choose 1 from Media or Reflection + 1 from Scripture 

Media Excursions (Choose 1 or more & watch/read/listen and be ready to discuss Q's)

Art

  • Sketch: Humble, Humility, Humiliated…This is someone’s sketch of the difference in those words.  How would you draw it?  What are the key differences between these words?  How would you draw “Heartened through Humility”?

  • Sculpture: Close V  (Anthony Gormley, Gloucester Cathedral, 2010) Is this a posture of strength or weakness? Explain why you answered as you did.

Video Clip

  • Testimony: Nate Larkin How did Nate’s willingness to surrender to God and live in humility (“just another broken man”) change his life and his relationships?  What stands out to you from this testimony?

Song

  • Sweetly Broken (Jeremy Riddle) The songwriter brings together being “lost in love, sweetly broken, and wholly surrendered”.  How do those three concepts come together for you? Or how do you see them at odds with one another? (Lyrics are listed below the video)

  • Humble (Audrey Assad) How does the humility of Jesus inspire you in your own willingness to submit to the Lord for the sake of His Kingdom?

Article/Blog

  • Humility vs. Humiliation (Boleo) Though this article is from a recovery forum, there are some clear thoughts about the differences between humility and humiliation.  What do you agree with? Is there anything in the blog you question? What? According to this author, how does humility lead to being heartened (or strengthened) for a challenge?

Reflection Options  

Journal  (reflect on one or more of these questions)

  • Where are you most likely to experience humiliation (shame)? What most often leads you to a true experience of humility?

  • Look up these four words: Humiliated, Humility, Heartened, Submission (check a Bible dictionary too if you can). Write about what you learned about the words or their connections.

  • When you come before God with your brokenness, do you experience humility or humiliation? Why do you think that is?

  • Was Jesus humble, humbled, humiliated or heartened through humility?  Write about how you see any or all of these in Jesus’ story.

Quote Interaction (Interact by agreeing, disagreeing or otherwise engaging with the quote/quotes)

  • When Christ calls a person, he calls them to come and die. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

  • Some persons are always ready to level those above them down to themselves, while they are never willing to level those below them up to their own position. But he that is under the influence of true humility will avoid both these extremes. (Jonathan Edwards)

  • Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself. (Charles H. Spurgeon)

  • He who sacrifices a whole offering shall be rewarded for a whole offering; he who offers a burnt offering shall have the reward of a burnt offering; but he who offers humility to God and man shall be rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the world.  (The Talmud)

  • True brokenness is a lifestyle – a moment-by-moment lifestyle of agreeing with God about the true condition of my heart and life – not as everyone else thinks it is but as He knows it to be. (Nancy Leigh DeMoss)

Reading & Reflection from the book, Shaping The Journey of Emerging Adults: 

  • Read “An Irreducible Core” (pp. 60-62).  How does Jesus model humility for us? How is humility a part of all three of the characteristics or postures of Christ?

  • Read “Enabling Submission” (pp. 95-97).  Why is humility such a key part of being able to live submitted to Christ?  What makes being humble so hard for us?

  • Mentor:  Read “Bold Hope” (pp. 235-236).  How can humbly depending on the Lord’s vision for others hearten you as a mentor as you journey with others?

Explore Scripture

Meditate on one or more of the following passages. Always look them up in context.  Take some time to really explore the verse in relation to this topic.  What benefits are there to practicing humility? How can we become heartened through humble submission to God?  Make a note of what you discover to share later.  See "Learn More About Ways to Study Scripture" below for help in getting the most out of the verse.

  • Psalms 37:11

  • Proverbs 18:12

  • Matthew 23:12

  • Matthew 26:36-50

  • Luke 14:7-11

  • Luke 20:46-21:4

  • John 3:27-30 

  • Romans 12:3-8, 14-21

  • 2 Corinthians 12:9

  • Galatians 6:1-5

  • Ephesians 4:2-7

  • Philippians 2:3-11

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