In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of humility in the kingdom of God. He shares a personal story of giving money to a beggar and witnessing the man's gratitude and brokenness before God. The speaker encourages listeners to humble themselves by getting on their knees and acknowledging their need for God's grace. He also urges them to identify and lay aside their besetting sins. The sermon concludes with a reminder of Jesus' example of humility and His teachings on the subject.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, EFRA PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. A beautiful song. Thank you for your singing. You will never know what a sanctifying effect your singing has on the one that is supposed to get up here. Thank you for your singing. Thank you for singing with all of your heart. Thank you for coming before the Lord in worship with a pure heart. Clean hands and a pure heart. Thank you for that this morning. It's a very precious song. Maybe your sisters wondered about you. Did the songwriter leave you out? No. But I firmly believe that if this side of the room over here will do what that song says, it will take care of this side of the room. I believe that. So, we didn't leave you out. You have your part in all of that. But let's face it, young men, the burden is on us. Let's take it. Have done with all this tomfoolery that young men waste their time on. Let's get a higher purpose. Amen? Let's get a higher purpose. One young lady met another young lady this morning and she said, How are you? And the young lady said, I'm tired. How many of you are a bit tired this morning? Do you know there's no service tonight? You're supposed to go home and go to bed. As they say in African English, it's time for you to go home and go to bed. We didn't plan a service because we've learned through the years that you just come and you sit and you listen and you pray and there's a service at night and all the things that are going on and pretty soon you get so tired that you're not receiving. And you go through the rest of the week because you're here, but you won't be here like you should if you're not rested. So I want to encourage you, don't say, oh boy, it's Wednesday night, we're going to sit up tonight, we're going to have a sing, we're going to this, we're going to do that. Don't do that. You need to rest. You need a good night's rest. Will you do that tonight? How many of you will do that tonight? I'm going to ask you tomorrow now. God bless you all. You're so much fun. I mean that sincerely. It's so much fun to minister to you. I want to read you a verse this morning that I found. It goes along with what we've been saying. Psalm 138 and verse 6. God says, Though the Lord be high, Though the Lord be high, Yet hath He respect unto the lowly. And I looked up that word, respect, and it's the same word as look. Remember yesterday we were speaking a bit out of Isaiah 66? Unto this man will I look, God says. The word respect is that same word. And it's like God is saying, I put my attention on the lowly, even though I am high. But the rest of the verse is also worthy of some meditation. It says, But the proud he knoweth afar off. The proud he knoweth afar off. I'm not sure which one you want, but I know which one I want for my life. I want to give you a couple of names of books. A couple of people were asking. I want to give you the names of these books and give you an assignment for your devotional life for the next month after you go home. Brother John gives homework while you're here. I give homework after you go home. Humility by Andrew Murray. Just a little book. Packed. Whittaker House Publishers. Humility by Andrew Murray. You should have this book. And then this one also, it's called Royal Insignia. It's 98 meditations on humility. That's for the next month. That's one for the morning, one for noon, and one for the evening for the next month. 98 meditations. The book was compiled by a dear lady, Lillian Harvey. Mrs. Harvey. That's what I call her. She does her publishing and she lives in Yanceyville, North Carolina. Harvey and Tate Publishers. You can order the book and a book list. This telephone number or fax, 910-694-1016. Very good book. I've read it many times. Over and over and over again. And it's a rich study. She's compiled the writings of saints for the last 300 years into a little book on humility. And it is powerful. You read a page and you're just done. You're done. It will put you on your face over and over and over again. And that's what these studies are all about. Getting on our face. So I would recommend those two books to you. Let's open our Bibles to Philippians 2. And let's pray. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, You are holy today. We bow before You in the name and through the blood of Jesus Christ, O Thou holy God. Thank You. Thank You for making a way that we can come and talk to You. Thank You, Father. Lord, we have some very important things that we need to learn today. Would You please help us to learn them? God, we don't want to just sit through this meeting, hear some words, and go on to the next. O God, please help us to learn the things we need to learn today. Wash us in the blood. Cleanse us from our iniquities, Lord. You know, even those good things we do, they're perverted. By ourselves, by our motives, by our ignorance. O cleanse us from our iniquities, O Lord, today in the blood. And fill us with the Holy Ghost, with the Spirit of Jesus, with the Spirit of humility. Fill us, every one of us, so that we can receive with meekness the engrafted Word which is able to save your souls. In Jesus Christ's name, Amen. We were talking yesterday about the life of the Lord Jesus. We were looking at His life a bit. Myself, I was all caught up in the beautiful humility of the life of the Lord Jesus, and the clock struck 1130. And we cannot just skip over that and go on, though we need to go on. But I think we need to just ponder a bit more on the life of the Lord Jesus before we go on in our subject. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 3, and don't turn there. You just stay at Philippians 2. But in Philippians 3, and verse 16, we have some very awesome words that I believe we could spend eternity looking into the depths of these words. But God says this. Paul said this to Timothy without controversy. Great is the mystery of godliness. Great is the mystery of godliness. Deep is the mystery of godliness. Broad is the mystery of godliness. God. God was manifest in the flesh. Do you get that? God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up into glory. The incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ is the mystery of godliness. I don't know how to touch that one. I don't understand it. I think I see it a little bit. But I don't understand it in its depths. But yet it's so. How God can take a sinful man or a sinful woman and then turn them into a saint and cause them to walk in His ways in the beauty of holiness. I don't understand how that can be done. But it's the mystery of godliness. And it's the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the incarnation of Christ is humility. It is the most profound. It is the most beautiful. It is the most deep picture of humility that we have. If you want to understand humility, you can park there in Philippians 2 and stay there for a long, long time before you will begin to grasp the depths of the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ when He, God, became flesh and dwelled among us. I have it written in my Bible. I'm not sure, Brother John, if these are your words, because I write all kinds of gems in the margin of my Bible. But Brother John D. Martin may have said these words when he was teaching through Philippians. And up at the top there, Philippians 2, I have it written. The humility of God. Did you give us that, Brother John? The humility of God. Philippians 2, verse 3, Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind. Let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, young people. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Now, the theologians call this the kenosis. That's a Greek word that means the self-emptying of Christ. This is the kenosis. This is the portion of Scripture which describes to us the self-emptying of Christ. And it's worth a week for sure. But we won't give it a week. But just simply let us ponder it for a few moments here today. The self-emptying of Christ. The seven steps downward of the Lord Jesus Christ. The seven steps of humility in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here He is. God. God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Here's God in glory. God the Father. God the Son. God the Holy Ghost. He is there. They are there. He is there. They are there. They are one. And the Father says to the Son, I'm sending You. I send You to redeem man. I'm sending You to redeem man. And Christ, being very God, in all of His power, all of His glory, all of the adoration that He received in glory, all of the angels flapping around honoring Him, Christ being very God, said to His Father, Yes. He said, Yes. Yes, Father. I will leave here, and I will go there. I will leave all of this, and I will go to that. I will leave all this splendor and go to all that muck. I will leave all this purity and all of this holiness and go down into all of that unholiness. Yes. Yes. And it says, He made Himself of no reputation. He made Himself nothing. He emptied Himself of all that He was, laid aside all that He was, and became nothing. Became nothing. And He chose to be a total slave to His Father. Imagine. Imagine that. A king submitting himself to the life of a slave. But he chose to be a slave to his Father. Not only that, but he submitted himself to a human body. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself. Now, I don't understand all of that, but it seems to me as I meditate on the life of Christ, and we all know that He was born of a virgin, that He was conceived of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and was born a woman. He was a babe lying in a manger. He was a little boy. He grew up. And somewhere in that growing up process, He came to the understanding, to the accountability, to the awareness of who He was. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself. Oh, Son of God, I'm the Savior of the world. I'm Isaiah chapter 53. I'm 22. I'm the Lamb of God. And He humbled Himself. So, He submitted Himself to a human body in all of His self-emptying. And He humbled Himself. Then He submitted Himself to death. And not only death, but even the death of the cross. What a beautiful picture of humility. And the most powerful definition of meekness that you will ever find. We won't get to meekness until tomorrow. But that's meekness. Is meekness weakness? No. That's meekness. You say, Brother Denny, this is too high for me. I'm not understanding the things that you're saying. It's too much for me to grasp. I don't think that I'm getting what you're saying. It's going over my head. Maybe you feel that way. And if you're feeling that way, as we are looking through these studies, all the more reason that you should sit up on the edge of your seat. Because, if I can use the words of Paul, it could be that you're dull of hearing. You're dull of hearing. And when we realize that we're dull of hearing, it's not time to go home and quit. It's time to sit up and say, Oh, wait a minute. These life-changing principles I need for my life, but they're kind of going right over me. I'd better really pay attention here. Because I don't want to miss this. And you don't want to miss this. You could flounder around in your Christian life for another ten years. You don't want to do that. I know you don't. But, consider with me, how can this be that we know so little of this foundational grace? How can this be? May God make us students. You know, the Lord Jesus said these words to His disciples. Not only was He the incarnation of humility, the perfect example of humility, and He lived it out before His disciples, but He didn't stop there just living it out before them, but He began to give it to them. He began teaching them these principles. And He said these words to them, I am among you as one that serveth. And that's an awesome thing to me when we realize who He is and who He was. That He was a King. And you know, it would have been difficult enough to leave glory and come down to the earth and become a man and be a King. But He came down to earth and became a man and became a servant, a slave, to a humanity that was so deluded and so demented that they took the very Son of God and hung Him on a cross and crucified Him. And Jesus submitted Himself to be a servant to that humanity. I am among you as one that serveth. He lived humility and He taught His disciples humility. And that's why His life was so powerful because there wasn't any gap there, you know? No gap between His theology and His reality. But He said this to His disciples. He said, encouraging them and all the others that were walking around listening to His words, He said, Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me for I am meek and lowly in heart. Beautiful words. Only the Son of God could say such things. But that's what He said. He said, I am meek and lowly in heart. In Matthew chapter 20, He said to His disciples, Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Oh, if we could grasp that, if you could grasp that, it would change your life. Matthew 18, He said these words to them, Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And in Luke 9, verse 48, He said, He that is least among you, the same shall be the greatest. And consider this with me, that the whole mystery of salvation, and it was a mystery, it was a mystery, men stood right in front of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. They stood right in front of the Messiah. They looked Him right in the eye and didn't know who He was. Do you know why they didn't know who He was? Because of this very principle, humility. Christ was hidden in humility. In fact, He said these words once, overflowing to His Father, after He wrestled with the proud Pharisees, which they did that a lot with Him, trying to get Him in the corner, trying to figure Him out, all this up here. And His heart just overflowed in a prayer to His Father. And He said, O Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and has revealed them unto babes. Do you know what the difference was? Pride and humility. The Pharisees did not know who He was because of their proud hearts. But the mystery of salvation was hidden in humility. It was hidden in the humiliation of false impressions about immorality, about His mother Mary. Hidden in there. It was hidden in the humility of being born to a poor family, not a royal family. Can anything good come out of Nazareth, they said? It was hidden in the humility of being exiled or hidden away in Egypt for so many years. Hidden away there. It was hidden in the humility of a carpenter's shop. Oh, who would ever think to look in a poor carpenter's shop for the King? Who would ever look for the King in the carpenter's shop? He was hidden there. Our beautiful Lord Jesus was hidden there in the carpenter's shop with a mallet in His hand and a little saw. He was hidden there. God hid Him there. I want to read you this one verse. It's so precious. It says in Zechariah, not completely hidden to the broken, to the humble, to those that tremble at the word, but only hidden from the proud. Learn that, young people. It's still the same today. Christ is hidden from the eyes of the proud. You know, you can read this book with a proud, arrogant heart, and you will never see the glories that are hidden in it. You can do that. In Zechariah 9.9, listen to what God said. Oh, He said it. He said it. He told them. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold thy King! King! Thy King cometh unto thee! He is just and having salvation! Lowly, riding upon an ass, upon a colt, the fowl of an ass. There it is. There it is. Rejoice greatly, O daughters of Zion! Thy King is coming. He is coming just, holy, a pure, a holy, a righteous King. He is coming. But, ah, He is coming different than all the kings you have ever known. He is coming lowly, riding on a colt. Riding on a colt in Jerusalem. Oh, He will be there. You won't know it. He'll have no crown on His head. No show of ostentation. You won't be able to figure it out that way. You will not see any royal robes upon Him. You will not see any gold studs in His garments. You will not see the finest of clothes upon Him. You will not see the finest of shoes upon His feet. You will not see Him riding a stately white stallion down through the streets of Jerusalem. You will not see Him that way. But, oh, you broken, you humble, you contrite, you lowly ones, you go look for your King. He is coming, just, holy, and lowly, riding on an ass. Do you want to see Him? Oh, Jesus, bright and morning star, altogether lovely one, so precious, so beautiful, that the eyes of man cannot behold Him except through spiritual eyes. You will never see Him. You will never see Him. You can read this book, but you will not see Him here until you see Him through eyes that are lowly. And the grand finale of His humility was the humiliation of the cross. That's the grand finale. And the result, the most powerful, the most influential result in all of history, and the highest exaltation that any ever received came out of the lowest humiliation. And these are the laws of the kingdom, my dear young people. These are the laws of the kingdom. Ah, humility, what a jewel, what a jewel you are. I want to learn more about this grace. This grace of humility. I want to know how to humble myself. How do you humble yourself? Brother Denny, how do you humble yourself? Someone even came yesterday and said, I could relate to what you said. I felt that way many times. And then he said, But you didn't tell us yesterday. You didn't tell us how to do it. Well, that's what we're going to be doing for the next couple of days. How do I humble myself? God has some very practical ways that we can develop this humility in our lives. That we can walk in the grace of humility. And these very practical ways, they are found in these beautiful attitudes that we see here in Matthew 5, the first few verses. Within these words, the word poor, the word mourn, the word meek, the word hunger, the word merciful, the word peacemaker, the pure, the persecuted, in these words are broken down and defined in very practical form different beautiful shades of the meaning of humility. And I tell you, when we get done looking at it, you will not ask that question again. What can I do to humble myself? Sounds good. Oh my, floating around up here, but what can I do down here? Alright, let's look. Blessed are the poor in spirit. This is the first one we want to look at. The poor in spirit. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Oh, I want to be blessed. I want that blessing upon my life. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? To be poor in spirit is to have the lowly attitude of a beggar. To have the lowly attitude of a beggar. To realize my nothingness. My nothingness. The lowly attitude of a beggar. To be bankrupt in spirit. To be bankrupt in spirit. I was tempted to do it again, but I know I've done it before in Bible school, but I was tempted to get me a little metal can, you know, and put a quarter in it, and just shake it around up here a while for you, because, you know, we don't get to see beggars very much in the United States, so we don't grasp just what that means to be a beggar. But a beggar is one who lives by alms, and a beggar in the Christian life is one who lives by alms. Alms given to him as he needs them by the loving hand of his Father, who will never let you go without what you need. He will never let you go without what you need. Poor in spirit is to be one who lives by alms. I don't know if you've ever seen a beggar, but I've seen some. I don't know if I've seen any in America. There might be some, but I don't think I've seen any. Now, I've seen people on the side of the road trying to get some money. But I've never seen a beggar. I've seen men standing out, you know, with a sign, give to the poor, or I need work. You know, and they just kind of hold the sign out and they look at you, you know, try to make you feel guilty, so you give them something. But that's not a beggar. You haven't seen a beggar yet. I've seen beggars. A beggar, he doesn't have any legs. I've seen beggars in Africa. I've seen beggars in India. They don't have any legs. They drag themselves around on the stumps of their knees. There's scabs right here from dragging themselves. They have calluses all along here because they've been dragging themselves around the city on concrete. And they're there. And when you drive down through the city, you'll see them. They'll be looking up at you. That's a good posture for a beggar, isn't it? They'll be looking up at you. And you'll look down at them out of your car. You'll look down at them as you walk by. And there's something different in a real beggar's eyes. Because a real beggar, he doesn't know how he's going to make it. If somebody doesn't give him some alms. And a beggar's eyes are different than the eyes here in America. A beggar's eyes say, please, please, could you please give me some... That's the way the beggars are. When I was in India last January, Brother Melvin Kaufman and I, we saw beggars. But there was one beggar that I'll never forget. I'll never forget. We came up these railroad tracks and the beggars stay at the railroad tracks because lots of trains go by and all the cars have to stop. And then they have the opportunity to catch your eye. And a train went by and we were there, you know, about the third one back. And the beggar was there going from car to car trying to get something. And we saw him there and we gathered some money together and got out of the car and we put into the beggar's hand enough money to live on for a month. Which wasn't a lot, but for him, it was enough money to live on for a month. I wish you could have seen the look on that beggar's face. You know, he was just there and he's used to taking alms and so he was just there and Brother Melvin got out of the car and went over there and put this in his hand and he took it in his hand and said, thank you. And then Melvin walked away, but I was watching from the vehicle and then he went like this and he looked at what was in his hand and realized, it'll take me a month to get this much. It'll take me a month of begging to get what I got right here. Oh, he looked back at us. My, if he could have kissed us, he would have kissed us. That's a beggar. That's a beggar. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Somehow, somehow, God has to help us to see that we're just like that beggar every day. We need. Every day. Oh, you know, we blessed him. We gave him what he needed for a month. But you know, God doesn't do that with us. He doesn't give us what we need for a month. You know what we do? If He gave us what we needed for a month, we wouldn't stop in and see Him for a month. We'd grab what He gave us for a month and go off in all our self-sufficiency, in all of our arrogance, in all of our spirit, in all of our zeal. We'd take off for a whole month and live with what God gave us and then when we ran out again, then we'd come back again and say, but God doesn't do that. You know why? Because God loves us. And He wants to have fellowship with us more than anything else. And He knows that we will be so fulfilled if we will learn to live off of Him. And so, He only gives you what you need for now. That's what He does. He gives you what you need for now. And if you'll let Him, He'll put you in all kinds of situations where you'll be saying again and again and again. That's the way God is. Blessed are the beggars. You know, I once knew an alcoholic. He ran a rescue mission. He was an alcoholic that God saved and delivered from alcoholism through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. His life was changed. And he became a rescue mission director. But in being a rescue mission director, he lived his old life time and time again in his mind through the lives of these poor, rejected alcoholics that were out on the streets. And many times they came into his rescue mission to hear him preach. And he smelled that whiskey that he did so love in his past life. But you know what he did? Every morning, he gathered his family together before he went off to the rescue mission. His children, his wife, they all got together in the middle of the living room and got on their knees. And that man cried out in brokenness to God again today, Lord, keep me from alcoholism, Father. Keep me, oh God, again today. Isn't that beautiful? Poverty of spirit is I am in need. I am in need. I need so much strength. I need so much strength. Say, well, Brother Denny, what do I do with that? All right, I'm going to tell you. Here's the first thing you can do. You can start by saying the words on your knees to God. You can start by that. Say, how do I humble myself? Just get on your knees and say those words to God. Oh God, I need you so much. I'm not going to make it if you don't give me your grace today. You can start by doing that. Number two, what is your besetting sin? What comes to your mind? Hebrews chapter 12, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. This morning, you just take your besetting sin, that thing that gets you those times when you're a bit tired or when you're weak, when you've been too busy and you didn't have time to seek God, what is your besetting sin? All right, you take that and you bring it to God like that alcoholic brought his alcoholism. You bring it to God. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You know what? I believe if you take that thing to God in sincerity, with a longing that it be moved out of the category of your besetting sin, if you take it to God with that kind of a desire, you will find yourself with poverty of spirit crying out to God to help you. And by the way, then you'll find the victory. And you know what victory is? It's blessings flowing down upon your life. Number two, approach your devotional life in poverty. Approach your devotional life in poverty. Now, I don't know how you approach your devotional life. I don't know if you have a devotional life. But all of these things, they're a commentary of how you see yourself. But you should approach your devotional life in poverty. You know, lots of times people think, you know, they approach their devotional life like a law. You know, the law of reading my Bible. I must read my Bible. Christians read their Bible. And so I'm under the law of reading my Bible. And so I get up in the morning and I go and I open up my Bible and I read it. And I put my time in and I read my two chapters. And when I'm done, I put my Bible down and I go on to work. I read my Bible today. Good Christians read their Bibles. And so I read my Bible. But that's not how to approach your devotional life. God is not after trying to make people read their Bible just to read their Bible. But it's beyond the sacred page I seek, the Lord. That's what God is after in your devotional life. And so, if you approach your devotional life in poverty, I tell you, it will change your devotional life. If you'll come to this book and you'll open it up and you'll say, I need, I need, I need. And you read with that I need in your heart. It will change your devotional life. I guarantee you. Change your whole life. And the same is the matter of prayer. Sometimes people just, you know, okay, I read my Bible. Now it's time to pray. You know, we pray from our head and not from our heart. And God is after heart prayer not head prayer. We all know how to pray from our head. We learn that from listening to others. So we know what to say. We know how to say it. We can even say it in sanctified ways. But God is not after prayers from a head. He's after prayers from a heart. And if we approach our prayer life from this posture of poverty, it'll change your prayer life. It will change it. And let me say this too. You can take your prayer life and the Word of God and you can put the two of those together. You take a chapter in the Bible and get down on your knees and make that your prayer for the day in poverty. I tell you what, it'll change your prayer life and your Bible if you'll do that. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Prayer is the language of the poor. Just like begging is the language of the beggar. Begging is the language of the beggar. You know, those beggars in India, they don't need to know my language. They don't need to know English to get money out of me. Those beggars in Africa, they don't need to know English to get money out of me. That's not their language. Their language of a poor man is not English. It's not Dalbani. It's not Fonti. It's not Swahili. It's the language of the heart. Isn't it? And everybody understands that language. Every man looks at a beggar and knows what he's saying. He knows what he's saying. And that's what God is after with us. Dear young people, prayer is the language of the poor. It's the language of the poor. Do you pray? Say, no, I don't. Then you're not poor. Or may I say it this way, you don't know you're poor. You don't know you're poor. And there's a difference between being poor and being poor in spirit. There's a difference. There are many people that are poor, but they're not poor in spirit. They're poor and wretched and naked and blind, Revelation chapter 3 says. But they don't know it. And maybe that's where you are today. Maybe you're poor and wretched and naked and blind, but you don't know it. And so you live your life. Even though you say that you're a Christian, you live your life as if you didn't need God. And the way that you can tell is what you do in the morning. Or what you do when you have some free time. A beggar will go begging for what he needs when he has time. But a man who has everything, he won't do that with his time. He'll go do something else. What do you do with your time? Brother Denny, how do I humble myself? This is it. How do you do it? Oh, you read your Bible. No, you didn't get it. If that's what you're thinking, I'm saying. No. No. Reading your Bible is not being poor in spirit, but coming to God with a broken heart and an open Bible. That's being poor in spirit. That's the way you can humble yourself. And you know what? You can do that tomorrow morning. You can do it this afternoon during the lunch hour. Every one of us. You can do that. A beggar is active about his poverty. Are you? Number three. Or four. By the way, going back to the second one. If you do that, you know what will happen? A vibrant flow of God's grace will come into your life and you will be blessed. You will be blessed. God said you'll be blessed. Number three. How can I humble myself? Don't set your heart to become rich. Don't set your heart to become rich. A rich man, a rich woman rarely sees his need. How rarely they enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, God says. How rarely. You say, Brother Denny, now what are you saying? Are you telling me that I shall take a vow of poverty? No. I said, don't set your heart to become rich. And go to the Bible to find out what that means. Don't interpret it by looking around you. Hath not God made the poor of this world rich in faith? Rich in faith? Don't set your heart to become rich. Here's another one. Brother Denny, how can I humble myself? You can receive correction when it comes your way. Because I'm poor. Because I'm poor. If I'm poor, oh listen, if I'm rich, if I'm self-sufficient, if I've got it all together, if I know what I'm doing. Those admonitions and corrections, they don't go down too well, do they? And they don't go down too well if you're not poor. Oh, they can make a war inside of you. In short order, they can ruin your whole day. Just a little admonition, a word of correction from your mom or your dad. Oh, you wouldn't do that in their face. No, you wouldn't. No, of course not. But inside it's... Brother Denny, how can I humble myself? You can receive correction from your friend, from your pastor, from your parents. I'm touchable because I'm poor. I'm touchable. You can touch me because I'm poor. To be poor in spirit is a disposition. It's not just an act. It's not just reading your Bible or the things that I've told you about. It's a disposition. You know what a disposition is? You know, God could have said, be poor. But God said, blessed are the poor in spirit. And that word spirit means in disposition. And you know, God uses the word spirit because there's something that emanates out from that. That poverty of spirit, it emanates out from us. Just like the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is an ornament. What kind of ornament is it? It's the spirit that emanates out from a meek and quiet person that makes the ornament. There's a difference between being poor in spirit and having an arrogant spirit. Agree? You can sense poverty of spirit. It's something that you can sense one person to another. And you can sense a spirit of arrogance one person to another. I wonder how many problems among God's people would be solved, you know, relationship problems, if we were just poor in spirit. You know? You know the terms that people use? He rubs me the wrong way. That guy, he gets under my skin. Do you know, when we're poor in spirit, we don't rub people the wrong way. Now, we may make mistakes when you're poor in spirit. You may do things that you shouldn't do and you may say things that you shouldn't say. But the poverty of your spirit, that which emanates out of you because it's your very heart, it just, I mean, it just causes all those stumblings and bumblings of our ignorance to just be overlooked. So, when we speak about being a poverty of spirit, it's this way, but it's also this way. It's both. What flows out of poverty of spirit? Well, there are many things that we could say, but, here are a few that just flow out of somebody who has poverty of spirit. Number one, gratitude. Gratitude for every little thing I get. You know, like that beggar there by the railroad? Because I'm poor! For every little thing I get. For every little word of encouragement. For everything that I get out of this book. For everything that is given to me. Gratitude. How about this one? A sense of unworthiness. A sense of unworthiness. Contentment! Contentment. And lastly, a poor man. A poor man doesn't judge. A poor man doesn't judge. Does he? No. Because he's poor. He doesn't judge. He doesn't look over there and say, look at what he's doing. Look how bad. Isn't that terrible? And did you see what so-and-so? A poor man doesn't judge. All right. Let's bow for prayer. Our Father and our God, how can we humble ourselves, Lord? How can we learn this beautiful grace of humility? Teach us the ways, Lord. Deepen our souls. Teach us the ways. The practical ways. That we can learn humility. And God bless these dear young people. All these things that have been given to them, Lord. Oh, Father, may they somehow be able to digest them enough this week that decisions can be made deep in their souls. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.