— Brother Phil Enlow: Have you ever been in a place where you just felt so dirty, and so bad, and so…why would a God like that have anything to do with me? But the reality is, that’s what His heart is all about.
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That’s what His heart is about. I don’t care who you are this morning. Oh, God wants us to get off our little thrones and worship Him and give Him the praise that’s due to His name!
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But when He calls upon us to praise Him and worship Him, this is not an ego contest! This is not somebody who’s high and lifted up and they’re looking for praise for selfish reasons! I’ll tell you, when we pour out our hearts toward Him, what it does is get us refocused away from self.
Self is a small package. It leads to nothing but trouble, and evil, and judgment, you name it, it’s all bad. But when God can get us out of ourselves to where we can praise Him in spite of circumstances, in spite of everything, we can lift, we can pour out our hearts to Him. Guess what? He pours His heart out to us! That’s what He’s looking for.
You know, we have this image, this sense, I guess, of something that is valued among human society, and that is for someone to truly, deeply love someone, and for that someone to deeply love them in return. Is there not something magical and deep and wonderful about that?
Do you not see that there is a kind of a picture in a sense? There’s a little bit of an image of our creation, and how the creation works. The very nature of God is what He’s seeking to reproduce in this new creation.
All of this other is corruption. When you have a bunch of individual people, each trying to be their own god, what have you got? War!
You know, James says, where do wars and fightings come from? They come from your own lust and desires. You’re seeking for yourself. You’re seeking what you think is good for you, and if it brings you into conflict with somebody, well, that’s tough! I’m god after all!
Oh God, teach us His ways and His…and to become more like Him. I’ll tell you, there is a God who is gonna absolutely obliterate everything that does not come down to this kind of relationship.
But oh, when we open up our hearts to Him and invite Him to come in, He comes in, not with His dominion, trying to crush our dreams and take away our joy. He comes in with all of Himself! The fruit of the spirit is love and joy and peace, and all of those wonderful things. I need more of that, don’t you? I need so much more than I know anything about.
And as I say, you can go on through the scriptures and you’ll see how this plays out. But…I guess, this comes back to the central thought. You can talk about the fact that we’re called to live and to serve one another, and to draw from God and give out what He gives us to another. Praise God, that’s exactly right.
But somehow, if we don’t understand the heart of God, and how it works, how it all is meant to come together…it’s so easy for the Devil to kind of plant that little idea. He’s remote, He’s great, I’m supposed to praise Him. God, if we see who He is, we will want to praise Him!
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We won’t have to put forth this, oh my God, I’ve got to do it. And it won’t be about working up an emotion. It’ll be just saying, oh God, thank you!
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Thank you for the kind of God you are!
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That You would come down and You are so great…You would pay attention to me, and even when I mess up, there you are, ready to pick me up, ready to help me!
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That’s humiliation, that’s true humility, that is so focused on the welfare of the object of one’s love and affection, that it reaches the point of self-sacrifice, that no effort is too great to reach out. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (KJV).
You know, part of what me started down this line was the familiar scripture though, in Matthew 11. And that’s where Jesus invites us to come to Him. Everybody who labors and is heavy laden, the King James says, I think. Let me look it up in here…weary and burdened, is it? “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened…” (NIV).
How do you get weary and burdened in the world? If you serve yourself, that’s all you’re gonna get. You will constantly be frustrated, even if you achieve great feelings of exhilaration, and joy, and something that just feels really good, it’s not gonna last.
Why do you think people get hooked on alcohol and drugs and things of that nature, just for one example? They’re trying so hard to achieve a feeling that somehow meets some aspect of need in their life. And then it goes away, it wears down and then you feel worse and you need more, and you need more, and there’s no end to it. Or you’re trying to make your way and get what you want and there’s something in your way and it’s constantly a war and a fight, there’s no rest in it. It’s weary. It’s a burden!
And the Lord calls people to come out of that, to surrender their lives to Him so that He can come in and express His heart and His nature! But, where does that come from? That comes from the heart of our Heavenly Father…
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…Who sees the depth of your need and of mine, and comes down all the way to our level and reaches down with tenderness. He doesn’t come and say, what’s the matter with you, straighten up and fly right! He comes down and says, I know what’s the matter with you and I’ve made provision. Surrender to me and let me come in and give you a new heart and a new life.
You know, and Paul says, “Be completely humble.” Good luck with that if you don’t have Him in you. You might act it. But that’s just an act. God doesn’t say, act humble, He says, be humble. I need Jesus.
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I need somebody in me that’s not like me. And I need to learn from Him, don’t I? But that’s what Jesus says here, isn’t it? “Come to me….”
I’ll tell you, if you feel the weariness and burden of life, and you feel the frustration that it brings and the questions…what’s it all about? Here’s Somebody you can go to. And He won’t look down His nose at you, He will see you, just like He saw the woman taken in adultery, just like He crossed the sea to go to that man who was so full of devils…nobody could do anything with him. And Jesus spoke and he was set free.
Don’t you see the heart of the Father? Sending His Son on that kind of a mission, that was the Father going to do that. Did not Jesus say, the words that I speak, I speak not of Myself. It’s the Father who lives in me who is doing His work!
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I’ll tell you, if He’s present today, this is the Father reaching out to us, to change us, to make us more like Him. But it’s also a call to somebody who’s never let Him take over, you’re still god! You’re still your own god! Get off your throne while there’s a chance! There is a God who calls you to Himself. He calls you, not to use and abuse you, but to set you free.
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That’s His heart. And I’ll tell you, when we can come and express love and praise and worship to Him, He pours it out on us more than we could possibly ever give Him!
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And He is worthy! He is worthy! So, Jesus says, come, and I’ll give you rest.
But here’s the part that I think we need in a practical level, because there’s no experience where you can suddenly come down and get a humble experience, humility experience. You know, we’ll lay our hands on you and okay, boom, now I’m humble. That’s something we’re still learning. Okay?
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” You know, I don’t believe the Lord put this yoke in there with a sense that He’s gonna constrain us and force us. Does He not say, ‘take’ my yoke? This is me, having to say, God, I need You. If I continue to act and react the way I do to life based on my own worldview of things, and who I think I am, I’m gonna make a mess. But there needs to be a connection with You.
And to symbolize with that yoke. I mean, a yoke, you have two oxen for example, that are plowing together and they’re going in the same direction. And they stay together. God, we need the Lord! We need to walk with Him, not just in church gatherings. We need to walk…with Him through life. Like when we’re in traffic, just for a practical example we can all relate to. But isn’t that a place where we need to learn from Him?
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And in our relationships when somebody does something that offends us or gets us upset about something, don’t we need the Lord?
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When we’re watching the news and we’re going to get angry, don’t we need the Lord to give us a difference perceptive on it?
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I mean, you go through, every aspect of human existence, things you want to do, whatever’s going on in your life, I need Him! I need to learn to see that instance, that experience, through His eyes, because He’s right there.
I’m not saying, it’s not me just wandering, blundering through life, and then getting in a bad place and saying, oh Jesus, come help me. He’s already there, because I want Him there. I recognize my need of having Him walk with me through life.
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In my relationships, in my choices, in the things that I do, how I act and how I react. My God! If I do it according to my old nature, it ain’t gonna be pretty. And I need help, don’t you? I need His help. I need Him to teach me how to do that. “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
But it goes back to a scripture that we use an awful lot, and I’ll just refer to it. I don’t think we even need to turn there. But, you know, in Philippians 2, Paul unpacks a lot of this, because he’s concerned that people learn how to, you know, what the unity of the spirit means. Because, if you just bring a bunch of people together, religiously, you’ve got a bunch of individual gods, each trying to pursue their own ideas, and you’ve got a mess.
And Paul says, that ain’t what it’s supposed to be. You need to consider, every one of you needs to consider every other one better than yourself. Boy, that’s human nature, right? We need a transformed heart to even be able to begin to do that.
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And so he promotes the idea that we need to be caring one for another. We need to have an attitude where we want the welfare of everyone else. The focus gets shifted, instead of inward it’s outward. What is my purpose? I’m here to bless others.
And that’s where he brings in what Jesus Himself was willing to do, to come and to give Himself. And we know that it was the Father’s will. I mean, even He said…Father, if there’s any other way. It was the Father’s heart that was behind all of that. It was Him humbling himself to reach fallen creatures, like you and like me. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! Do we have something to praise Him about?
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Oh, praise God! But it’s in that context, he comes out of that and He talks about working out your salvation. That is, let’s put it into practice. Let’s see what’s in you come out.
And the foundation of that is God working in us to will and to do. So when Jesus says, come to me, learn from me, He also is offering His help to do it!
What about the scriptures that say, God resists the proud? We have more pride than we like to think. And it comes out in so many ways. We just do what comes naturally. And it takes God to open our eyes to say, wait a minute, where did that come from? God resists the proud.
And the thing is, if we make a choice right there and say, no but I’m right, and fight that, we’re gonna get in bondage pretty quick, or stay there. God resists the proud. But what does He do for the humble?
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What is grace? Grace is the help I need! Grace is pouring in the ability to back that up and to put humility into practice—putting humility into practice. But I’ll tell you, I don’t know what to call this. I mean, my mind has gone around and around on this subject and there are so many aspects to it.
But I want to come back to this, maybe this is a crazy enough title to get people to pay attention. “Divine Humility.” Because genuine humility comes from the heart of God. It causes somebody to be focused, not upon self, but upon others. And if you get a whole creation that is filled with that kind of life, you’re gonna have a creation that is gonna be so full of joy and peace, because everybody’s needs, if you want to put it that way, will be fully met.
I’ll bless you, but you’ll bless me. I worship the Father, but when I do, He pours Himself. He doesn’t just pat me on the back and say, yeah, that’s what I want. Thank you for…fulfilling my ego’s desire. It’s nothing like that at all. It’s, I want you to pour out yourself to Me, get your focus off of yourself. But when you do, this is the kind of Person that I am, I’m gonna give myself to You, in a way that will set you free.
And what did Jesus say? What do we find when we go down this road, when we start walking with Him, and learning from Him in the arena of life? What do we get out of it? “You will find rest for your souls.”
I’ll tell you, if any of us this morning are anxious, striving, and there’s a deep unrest on the inside, there’s a reason. And it’s because to some degree or the other, self is on the throne. We haven’t really learned, to let go and let God have His way, and not fight our battles…there’s a lot of stuff that we do where we’re trying to fight for us! Instead of just letting go and letting God have His way.
Did Jesus go around fighting for himself? No, He told the truth many times, but it wasn’t in a, my God, I’m mad at you…how dare you, kind of spirit. It was always reaching out. Even when the people rejected Him, He said, “O Jerusalem…you who kill the prophets…” How often would I have gathered you, “…as a hen gathers her chicks…” but you wouldn’t, you weren’t willing.
When He told the truth, in a very plain way, it wasn’t a railing kind of a thing, it was a heart that was hurting. There was a weeping. There was that kind of a heart coming out of the heart of God. I love you. How can you just be blind and go down this other path? This is not how the universe works. It works when everybody is humbling themselves to love everybody else and there’s being harmony, there’s peace, there’s joy.
But, do you see where God wants us right now? Praise Him, absolutely…but learning from Him, because if we learn from Him and become that kind of a person, I’ll tell you, the world is gonna have something to see.
We don’t have anything to share with the world if it’s not Him. We’re nothing, we’re not really any fundamentally different from anybody else. We need the Lord. We’re sinners saved by grace, at best. But I’ll tell you, we have Somebody who lives within us who is the Light of the World. And He wants us to be like Him.
And so, I just pray that God will help us to walk with Him and learn from Him, as I say, in day-to-day living. If we will have this sense of connection, that’s what the yoke is, it’s something that connects us. That we voluntarily say, Lord, I want to be connected with You.
I don’t want to walk through this day doing my thing, ignoring You. I want a sense of connection so that whatever happens, You can help me to understand it, help me to see it through Your eyes, help me to learn how to react.
And when I choose that, You’re gonna help me to do it. And I’m gonna find rest for my soul. And there’s gonna be a ground laid for me to have that kind of relationship with Him, where I can love Him because of who He is.
I’m not afraid of Him in the wrong sense. I deeply respect who He is, but He doesn’t want to terrify me into some sort of subservience. He wants to enter into a relationship of amazing love, beyond anything we can imagine. Praise God! Isn’t He worthy to be praised, and loved, and served?
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Have you ever thought about God as being humble? But it comes from His heart. And that’s what He’s seeking to reproduce in us. There is a kind of divine humility that is just simply focused on others. And there’s such a harmony that comes out of all of that. To God be the glory.
