Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of the yoke of meekness as a pathway to freedom and joy, drawing from Matthew 11:28-30. He explains that true liberation and a vibrant spirit come from embracing humility and learning from Jesus, who exemplifies meekness. Bickle shares personal experiences and prophetic insights that highlight the importance of humility in the Christian life, urging believers to commit to this lifelong journey of learning and growth. He encourages the congregation to view humility not just as a virtue but as a primary life goal that leads to deeper joy and connection with God.

Matthew chapter 11, Matthew chapter 11. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for the grace of God. We thank you for your word. Lord, I ask you for living understanding. I ask you for inspiration in our spirit even now. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Well, this morning I want to talk about a very important subject, the yoke of meekness, which is a concept that Jesus emphasized, a truth that Jesus emphasized in Matthew chapter 11 verse 28 to 30. What Jesus is really talking about is the way to freedom, but another way to say it is the way to have a vibrant spirit, or the way to have a happy spirit, the way to walk in joy. It gives one of the clearest teachings in the scripture right here in these three simple verses, and really it's the teaching on how to have a happy spirit, a free spirit, or a vibrant spirit. And it's linked to the subject of meekness, which is the same as humility. I'm using meekness and humility interchangeably. Now the Lord's been very gracious to us over the years by the Holy Spirit emphasizing this truth of humility in various ways, in dreams and visions to different ones in our team throughout the years. I remember in a very dramatic way it had a corrective tone to it, but very, very gracious of the Lord in August 1984, a very unique experience in my life. I actually heard the audible voice of the Lord like thunder. It was very powerful. It was a very unique experience in terms of my 30 years of ministry, and the Lord highlighted the importance of humility to me and for this movement. And again, it was a bit corrective, but it was an encouragement. He was making a statement about His care for us, that He was wanting to plumb line us on the subject of humility. Then in May 2005, and I'm just giving you just these two examples, I could give you several others from our leadership team through the years. I woke up one morning at 4 o'clock in the morning, wide awake, just came out of a dead sleep, and I was prophesying. It's happened just a few times over the years. And I woke up and I proclaimed, meekness is the magnet that attracts God's favor. You know, for a moment I was a little like, what? But I said it so clearly and so boldly, and the presence of the Holy Spirit was resting on me, and the Lord was speaking to me for my own benefit, again with a corrective tone to it. But it was also, when I look at it, a very gracious intervention of the Lord. And there's a number of testimonies throughout the years where the Lord has spoken to us as a community about the value of meekness, the value of humility. Well, it's not just an important virtue in its own right, it is the pathway to liberty. It really is the way to freedom at the heart level. Many believers long for freedom, but they approach it, they pursue it, devoid of meekness, apart from seeking meekness. And liberty only comes in context to meekness, a choice from our heart to live in this kind of lifestyle. Let's read this passage in Matthew 11, verse 28. Again, his clearest teaching on how to have a vibrant spirit, a happy spirit. He says, come to me. He says, I'm the source of the instruction, but I'm also the power source. Come to me, connect with me, and I'll teach you about meekness, and I will empower you to walk it out. So the all-important, come to me. He uses that invitation several times through the Gospels. He says, come to me, all that labor and that are heavy laden. Of course, it's the whole human race. Heavy laden means you have a heavy spirit. You're weighed down in the emotional, in your emotions. You're weighed down with things. Come to me, and I'll give you rest. Now, rest is the term. It involves many things. He's talking emotionally. He's talking about giving us the power of a vibrant spirit, a free spirit. Rest is talking about a happy spirit. It's joy. And he said, now I'm going to tell you how to enter into rest. I'm going to tell you how to get free from the heavy spirit. And there's many different expressions of a heavy spirit. We all know them. I mean, we all have experienced a heavy spirit many times throughout our life. But Jesus says in verse 29, he goes, here's the way to freedom. You have to take my yoke. You have to yoke yourself to me, and you have to learn from me, because I'm gentle and lowly in heart. Lowly in heart is translated in other Bible translation as humble or meek. Lowly of heart. And he says that you'll find rest for your souls if you do this. He repeats the promise that you'll enter into rest. You'll have a vibrant spirit. The spirit of heaviness will lift off of you over time. Then he goes on in verse 30, and he gives an encouragement. Stay with the process, because if you stay with it, you'll find out that my yoke is easy. Now the illustration of a yoke is very, very important. It's central to this teaching of how to live in freedom and liberty. Now in the ancient world, which happens still today, they would put oxen or other animals in a yoke. And sometimes it'd be two, and sometimes there'd be many oxen yoked together with a wooden yoke. And the yoke would be around their neck. And you know, the lead oxen and then the newer oxen that was just being broken in and trained how to plow the fields, they would be yoked to an experienced oxen who is giving the leadership. Now Jesus is the experienced ox. We're the new one. And when we put that yoke on our neck, that yokes to him in just the agricultural world, the beginner ox, if you will, the new one, they would tend to go to the right or to the left, but they couldn't get off the path because they're yoked in this wooden yoke next to the experienced oxen that's staying on the path. Jesus said, put that yoke on you. Because we're chaining ourselves or yoking ourselves to his pathway of meekness. He says, I'll walk the path. Yoke yourself to me. And when you want to go right and left, the yoke will keep you in the center. And that yoke is your commitment to learn from me and to walk with me in this pathway. Now it's the yoke of meekness. And nobody will put that yoke on you. God won't put it on you. We have to put it on ourselves. We put it on ourselves by making the commitment to learn from Jesus in the realm of meekness and to follow it through with him. And so we put that yoke on us and we begin the process of learning from him. Now the challenge of being yoked is that the early days of being yoked, the beginning stages of being yoked, the new oxen feels the sores and the blisters of this new yoke. And it's uncomfortable. It's awkward. The new oxen wants to get off the path and resist it and kind of bucks the system and doesn't like it at first. But over time, they get into a rhythm and the new oxen adjusts to this new pathway, this new way of life. And so it is a process. It takes time. There's a resistance. It's awkward at first. But Jesus is telling us in verse 30, he says, my yoke is easy. And the implication is if you stay with it, if you will stay yoked to me in this pathway of meekness, eventually your heart will find, you'll carry your heart in a new way. Now to be yoked to the Lord, what the process is about is where we go from humility as a virtue that we understand is important, but humility, our natural, our natural response to humility is to dodge it. It's to find ways to escape the yoke of humility. Even Bible verses, you know, the grace of God has freed us. Or with social maneuvering, where we get out of having to face the issue of humbling ourself in relationships with people. We don't like that yoke. But once we decide to take it on and we wrestle with it, then over time it becomes a primary life goal. I mean, it's not just something we're enduring. It's not something we're trying to escape. It's actually something we settle in on. Our life goal isn't just comfort or, or more blessing or more honor. Our life goal is to excel in humility. And when that happens, the yoke becomes easy and we carry our heart in a different way. Something happens on the inside when our life goal, one of our primary life goals, takes hold of meekness. Because it's not natural to any of us to make that a primary goal in our life. But it's the Lord's agenda for our life. He's the meekest man that ever walked the earth. But he also had the freest and the happiest spirit of any man that ever walked the earth. And the two are related to one another. Now this is the only characteristic Jesus ever proclaimed about himself. Now he gave many of his titles, but he never ever described a character trait about himself except in this verse 29. Where he said, I am meek or I am humble or I am use the the word that you want. The Lord commits himself to training us in meekness if we will go. Now verse 29. Take the yoke. Sign up for the class. He won't make you take this yoke. And again, putting that yoke on, we're chaining ourself, we're binding ourself to a life of meekness on his terms, his definition. That's what it means to take the yoke. Taking the yoke doesn't just mean we ask the Lord to forgive us for our sins, we're born again, we've taken the yoke. No that's only the beginning of the beginning. The yoke of meekness is the call to discipleship. Matter of fact, in this very chapter, Matthew chapter 11, earlier in verse 12, Jesus talked about spiritual violence, this radical abandonment to God. This is the yoke of meekness that he's actually talking about. He described it just a few verses earlier. In John the Baptist, the forerunner ministry, the spiritual violence, now he's laying it out. It is living the yoke of meekness. Not the occasional expression of humility, but humility defined as one of the primary life goals of what we want to attain in this life. It's violent, but once we settle that, it becomes easy. Meaning, doesn't mean that the the life externally is easy, but our heart comes to peace. There's a enjoyment of God, there's a vibrant spirit in coming to peace with this new alignment of our life goal, being to walk in the meekness and the yoke of humility that that Jesus walks in. Well we never graduate from this class. Sign up for the class, the yoke of meekness, and it's a seminary course, it's an internship that you will be in all of your days. We need to assume that pride is strong in our being. Some folks have the opposite opinion. When somebody suggests they're proud, they're scandalized. It's exactly the opposite. Of course we're proud. I've had people tell me that over the years. You're proud. And it's like, yeah, I'm assuming that. This is a, the gravitational pull of all of our hearts is towards pride. And the assumption that we're free from it is presumption on steroids. I mean when people are troubled or offended that somebody hints at it, like hints at it, the reality is it's the biggest disease in the human heart. I'm talking about in the midst of the family of God. And it's the biggest battle we will fight all of our days. But it's a battle that we can win. It's the pathway of meekness. It's this course we never graduate from. We spend all the days of our life learning this from Jesus. Now I would encourage you to, verse 29, he says, learn from me to take up that invitation of Jesus and make it a part of your life routine. Meaning, based on this verse, I've put this on my personal prayer list. I have a teaching, ten prayers that strengthen the inner man. And I take the the word fellowship, which is ten letters, the acronym fellowship, and assign a theme and a Bible verse to each one of them. And I try to pray through that list on a regular basis for my own life and heart. And the H in fellowship is humility. It's this verse, where I take a few minutes, I try to do this as regular as possible, and say, Lord teach me. Teach me the way of humility. Now I'm going to ask you this question, and don't raise your hand, do you actually ask Jesus to teach you? Because he committed to teach you if you want to learn. Because if it's not intentional, you won't do well in this class. If you don't know you're in this class, you probably won't do well in the class. But if you're intentional, and you're committed that you're going to go the distance, this class will go well for you. But it's not just even an issue of praying once or twice. I urge you to make this a prayer that you pray on as close to daily basis as possible. Teach me, Lord. I want to come to you to learn this yoke. Give me insight on how it is to be expressed. Because humility has so many facets to it. I'm only going to identify a few today, many more than I can identify in one teaching. I don't know all the facets. I only know a few of them. But pride has many, many tentacles that work beneath the surface in our heart. And so it's a lifelong journey to learn from him. We sign up from the course. We stick with it all the days of our life. But as we, as we grow in it, our heart gets freer and freer. Now anybody that trains people in how to get free in the heart, you know, different counseling ministries, which I really appreciate, I want to encourage you to make verse 28 to 30 here, Matthew 11, premier curriculum. I mean, main source of curriculum, because there is no liberty apart from this yoke. Anybody that promises freedom from the heart without the yoke of humility, without yoking themselves in a long-term way to Jesus in this way, then freedom is only a mirage. It's never going to happen at the heart level. They, the people will live continually weighed down, heavy laden in their emotions. Let's look at paragraph 4, still here in page 1. Jesus said, my yoke is easy. Now he's not talking about the yoke. He's not talking about external circumstances. Your life will be easy externally. That's not what he's saying. He's talking about the internal condition, the state of your heart. From, you will enjoy your walk with God once you settle in that meekness is one of your primary assignments in this life, to grow in meekness. It's, your primary assignment is not to get rich and famous. That's not your primary assignment. You may end up rich and famous, but that's incidental. Your primary assignment actually is to grow in meekness, to grow in love. Now meekness and love are interchangeable. Meekness and love are interchangeable. Meekness, if I had to point a distinction, a nuance between them, I would say it this way. Meekness focuses on our attitude. Love focuses on the action, deeds, and words that are expressed to others. The two are just two sides of one coin. They're, they're two tributaries out of one river, or I don't know what analogy you want to use, but we have a humble spirit so that we, we express deeds and words of love to other people. But it's in reality, it's the same thing in essence. So the easy yoke is the ability to enjoy God. The ability to have greater grace to obey Him. That's the yoke. That's the internal yoke that we're starting, that, that Jesus is promising the people. Paragraph B. Now the humblest man that ever walked the earth gives the teaching of how to live called the Sermon on the Mount. And the Sermon on the Mount, paragraph B here, begins with eight beatitudes. He gives eight statements in Matthew 5 that begin with blessed are. And he starts with blessed are the poor in spirit. Then he goes, blessed are those who mourn. And he goes right down, he gives eight statements, and he gives a blessing. And that's why we call them the beatitudes, because that, the word beatitude connects to the word blessing. But here's the point I want to make. The beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the first of the eight beatitudes, begins with humility, poverty of spirit. Humility and poverty of spirit, it's the same thing. Or that's where humility begins, with poverty of spirit. Poverty of spirit is not the full flower of humility, but it's the beginning point. Jesus said in verse, Matthew 5 verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom. When he said theirs is the kingdom, they will be positioned to experience the reality of the kingdom in an ongoing and deeper way. That's what he means by they, theirs is the kingdom. It means the kingdom blessings, the kingdom experiences, the transforming grace of the kingdom is within their reach. It's theirs if they walk in poverty of spirit. Now the day we're born again, it takes a certain measure of poverty of spirit. We admit our need, and we need a Savior. But that's only the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of this beatitude. To be poor in spirit means, that we have a deep sense of our need. A deep sense, we're poor. We don't have the resources in ourself. We have need to be helped. That's what poor in spirit means. To be rich in spirit, in this analogy, would be pride. To be poor in spirit is to see, I don't have the resource of myself. I don't have the wisdom. I don't have the resolve. I don't have the focus. I don't have the follow-through. I don't have the ability to do this without help. That's the posture that begins our experience of the kingdom. But beloved, we never graduate from this beatitude. Never. From poverty of spirit. This is the fundamental beginning of the flower of humility. Now humility has many more expressions, but this is the beginning point of it. We have a need to be taught. We have a need to be helped. And we will take the help of God in any way that He sends it. And I'm talking about mostly instruction and inspiration. And often God will send instruction to our heart through the voice of one not qualified to give us that instruction. He does it on purpose. But if we're so eager to learn, we will take the nuggets of truth from any voice that God speaks them through. Because we're eager to learn. We need to be eager to learn from from the ten-year-olds, the twenty-year-olds, unbelievers that would criticize us. Let's learn from them. Let's find the nugget of truth in what they have to say that God would teach us in, because we have need of instruction. Our critics, and we all have critics, they are actually a blessing to us. Many people look at critics as something to get rid of. But if God takes away a few critics, it's you need, I need, that He raises up more. Because critics speak to us in a way that friends don't, even faithful friends. And though the critics may have a wrong spirit and they'll give wrong information, there's often nuggets of truth in what our critics tell us. And if we are eager to learn, because we don't believe we have it all ourselves, we need help outside of ourselves, we won't despise our critics, we'll actually benefit from them. I encourage people, I say, whether the critics are friends or enemies. I said, don't, don't be offended at your critics. View them as being helpful. It's like a free research team. For real. I mean, I've had a research team over the years, and research teams, some of them could be expensive. But, I mean, a critic, it's free research. I mean, they give it for free. Often a wrong spirit, and even a lot of what they say, the information's wrong, but there's a nugget of truth and it's yours for the taking. Take it! That would cost you thousands of dollars in a professional setting to get some of that information. I'm being serious. So when they come and tell you whether it's friend or foe, when somebody criticizes you, walk away from it and say, Lord, talk to me. I'm listening. I am so eager to learn. I'm listening. Anything. Tell me. Give me any bit of adjustment that you could give me through that. Well, pour in spirit, is the way of the kingdom. Paragraph C. Now we are by nature, all of us, proud. It's the gravitational pull of our unrenewed minds. It's when we're not exerting effort to walk in humility, pride is our default. Don't be scandalized and offended when somebody hints that you're proud. Say, of course. Say, you don't know the half of it. Now you don't have to say that. You'll probably offend them. But in your own heart, don't say, can you believe they said I'm proud? They don't know the half of it. The truth is, we don't know the half of it about our own heart. But because it is the gravitational pull of our life, and because it's the virtue that if we line up with it, we get freedom in our emotions, what's called rest. We get liberty. And we have greatness in the age to come. And the Lord, the scripture says, He beautifies us when we walk in humility. The grace of humility. There are so many benefits of humility. So therefore, take it from anyone that can help you. Doesn't matter what the source is. Take it and make it the pursuit of your life to grow in this, because there's so many dynamic benefits to walking in humility. But because our gravitational pull is towards pride, we need to zealously seek for humility all the days of our life. Not as a casual thing that we pray about twice a year, or even once a month. I'm talking about, put that thing on your daily prayer list. Jesus, you said you would teach me humility. I'm asking you. And the Lord says, well if you'll put my yoke on you, if you'll take the class, and you'll not, don't audit the class, pay for it. I mean go all the way. And don't bail out when the class gets tough. Stay in it to the day you meet the Lord face-to-face. Now the problem with our pride is it's unperceived. The tentacles are varied and multiplied deep in the surface of our emotions and our thought life. We can't even define all the tentacles of pride. It's unperceived, and it's beneath the surface, and it's many layers. So therefore, it's a very dangerous enemy that's hard to get our hand around because there's so many layers to this enemy. I think of it as, it's like a peeling an onion. Like you peel an onion, you pull a layer off, and you actually gain a little ground. Not much. You pull another layer off, you pull another layer off. I mean here it is, you know, hours later, it's a big onion just for the analogy, pulling off layers, pulling off layers, and say am I ever going to get to the end of this? Same-o, same-o, same layer, crying all the way through it. Seems like we never get to the end of it. The same thing over and over, that's what attacking or addressing pride is like. That's what the yoke of humility, it's layers and layers with tears, stay with it all the days of our life. That's what we're committed to. Now, some people, they have a wrong idea about pride. They don't know how elusive and how evasive pride is. I mean, how many, how, how many, the tentacles are in our mind and our emotions in complicated ways with layers. And so they have a, a pretty simplistic view of pride, and it's a proud person is somebody who overtly struts. Now that is pride, but 99% of the pride is not the guy who overtly struts and brags. And the reason that's important to get this, because if that's our definition, we think we don't strut and we don't brag overtly, we must be humble. Wrong, wrong, because the, the gross expressions of pride are not the essence of it. The real essence of pride is a preoccupation with ourself that is bound to many thought processes and many negative emotions that are all tangled up together in a complicated way. That's what pride is. It's a preoccupation with ourself. I mean, it's a powerful emotions, many diverse kinds, binding, we have fears and complaints and bitternesses and jealousy and envies and comparisons and, and, and the approval of man and left out and, and, oh, promoted too early, promoted too late. So many emotions all tied up together in this fixation of preoccupation with ourselves. We're all born that way. We come by it honestly. We inherited it from our great-great-grandfather Adam all the way through. So don't imagine that if you avoid blatant strutting and bragging that somewhere you're mostly humble. No, that's a completely wrong view of humility. Many people have enough social protocols and etiquette. They know how to be polite in right settings. That doesn't mean their hearts humble at all. That's just, that's, that's nice. I like people polite in right settings. But that doesn't mean that they're humble. Humility is taking the yoke of Jesus at the heart level for a lifetime. To live in humility by His definition of it. Now the enemy tempts us with pride. I'm still on, on paragraph C at the end. The enemy tempts us with pride that lies subtly beneath the, underneath, you know, beneath the surface. And it's in our attitude. And what pride does, pride gives us an inappropriate confidence about different subjects related to our life. It's, it's a confidence that's inappropriate. It's not based on truth. And that confidence, it emboldens us in a proud way to have attitudes and to have actions and words towards people that are opposite of love. And so that's the, it's kind of the devious, complicated, elusive nature of pride. Now pride, the main stronghold of pride, and I'm only going to hit just the one, is knowledge. And that's clear from the Bible. The main stronghold of pride is knowledge. The idea that we know more than the others. And that puts us in a position of, of, of superiority, no matter what area we're talking about. That we know more, therefore it emboldens us with a confidence that we operate in pride instead of love in our words and our actions. It's that attitude. Let's look at Roman Numeral 2. We're gonna look, we're gonna break this down just a little bit. I'm not gonna, I have seven evidences of humility. And we're only gonna look at a couple of them. Humility has many different expressions. It's a, a diamond with many facets. I'm only mentioning seven because I like the, the number seven. I mean there could be 15 of these here. One of the evidence of a person that's poor in spirit, that, that knows they have need, that they're humble. Number one evidence, and they're not in, in necessarily in, in the right order, because again the list could be much longer, is having a teachable spirit. Having a teachable spirit. 1st Corinthians chapter 8 verse 1. Paul makes it clear, knowledge is important, it's powerful in a positive way, but knowledge is dangerous because it puffs up. Knowledge has an intrinsic ability to puff the human heart up. No, I mean good knowledge does. And so knowledge is not neutral. Though it's beneficial, it, it's dangerous to the human spirit. But we're to pursue knowledge. But we're to pursue it knowing there's a danger that goes with it. It emboldens our spirit in a confidence that's inappropriate. And that confidence spills over our attitudes and actions towards people that the Bible calls pride. Knowledge puffs up. But love, or you could call it humility, is the attitude. Love is the action. It edifies people. Love edifies the kingdom. Love edifies your own life when, when, when we walk in love. So what the first evidence of a humble spirit is a teachable, or, or the first one I'm highlighting, is to have a teachable spirit. To be eager to learn. To be, to learn from others. Others less qualified. That's the key phrase. It's easy to learn from somebody more qualified. A teachable spirit is easy to be corrected. It's quick to hear. It's slow to instruct others. One of the best verses on humility I know of in the New Testament is James 1 verse 19. This is such a practical teaching on humility. James says, let every man be swift to hear, quick to hear. One translation says, quick to hear. And let it be slow to speak and slow to wrath, which means anger, slow to be exasperated. Now we don't like the word anger. And not even exasperated. So put the word frustrated. Frustrated we could live with. Because if we're frustrated, we're, we're not, it's still not bad. So I'm really frustrated with that guy. Oh so you're angry. No, no, I'm not really angry with him. You're exasperated. Well, no, no, not that. I'm just really frustrated. You're angry. There you go. Thank you. I like frustrated. That makes me feel better about myself. But Paul, James says, be quick to hear. Now in this context, be quick to receive instruction. Be quick to receive correction. Be quick. And be slow to give out instruction to others. Don't be the know-it-all. Don't be in the setting where you have the answer nobody has time and time and time again. Don't be that person. James is telling him, now I have to put a qualifier. Because there are formal settings where teaching is essential. In a classroom, the coach of a team, the leader of the worship team, the head of a ministry, the head of the business, the head of a department. Teaching is critical. We're not talking about teaching in its appropriate biblical context, because there's a teaching role in life that is critical to have that has to do with leadership. Even if you're giving leadership to three, if there's a teaching dimension, you're called to disciple new believers. You must teach them. Be a teacher. So I want to emphasize that that's not the context Paul's talking, I mean James is talking about. He's not criticizing that, that you're quick to want to impart to people. No, that's good. I'm talking about, I mean James is talking about informal social relational settings. You know, there's those people, they've always got the answer that the other ten need to know. They have a condescending spirit, they don't know it of course, and they're always showing the people the better way. And what James says is, go the opposite direction. Be quick and eager for them to receive from others, for them to teach and correct you. Don't be eager to correct them. Go the opposite direction. And when you do it, do it in a tender spirit. Be very slow to yield to the frustration that continues on to wrath and to anger. Now this attitude of teaching, of the one who knows the way. Now again, it's a, it's a, it's a, there's a balance, there's a tension, because we want to teach. We want to help, but we don't want to have a know-it-all spirit. Of course, I've never met anybody with a know-it-all spirit who thinks they have one. So it's almost like a wasted sentence, because no one thinks they have that. I've never met a human being ever that thought that. Here's, Paul addresses it in 1st Corinthians 3 verse 18 in a very direct way. He's talking about the stronghold of knowledge, how it has a tendency to fuel up pride. Again, knowledge is very helpful. That's, that's the challenge of it. It's extremely helpful, knowledge is. But that very knowledge that is helping others, it emboldens the spirit of man. It's, it's dangerous. If we don't understand, it's dangerous. Just like there's, you know, some chemicals that are very helpful, but if mishandled, they're very dangerous. So many things that are helpful are also dangerous if mishandled. Well, Paul addresses the subject of knowledge again in 1st Corinthians, because he just told us earlier, knowledge puffs up in Corinthians. And now he's talking about knowledge again here. He says, don't let no one deceive himself. He goes, don't be deceived. If you think you're wise, if you think you really have the insight on a regular basis that the others need. He says, here's what I challenge you to do. Become a fool. Now, he doesn't mean be foolish. He means posture yourself as though you're at the, put yourself attitude-wise like you're at the beginning of the learning curve. Become a fool. Become somebody in attitude that is in such need of learning. He said, change your posture dramatically from the one that typically has the answer that the others need, to the one who sees themselves as needing the answer from others. It's an attitude shift he's talking about. He goes, if you do that, you'll become wise. You'll have a spirit of wisdom. You'll have a teachable spirit. You'll have a learner's heart in all the days of your life. This will benefit you. He goes, but you can't really have wisdom, a learner's heart, because wisdom has to have a teachable spirit, or it really, really won't be wisdom. You can have a lot of knowledge, but not have wisdom. He says, I urge you don't be deceived, because it's a very, very deceptive area. A very deceptive area. Okay, so the first issue that I want to put the most of the time on was the teachable spirit. The second evidence of humility, top of page two, is in quick to see our personal faults, and to take responsibility in a very specific way. Quick. Pride is really slow to take responsibility for personal faults. I mean, pride first showed up the very first thing after the fall. Adam said, it's the woman. She did it. Instantly, he blame shifted. Instantly. The first evidence of sin on the planet was pride, was blame shifting, refusing to take responsibility for the error that he stumbled into. Now, you can tell the confessions of a proud person and a humble person are very, very different. Here's the confession of a proud person. I mean, a believer. They love Jesus. Here's how they confess their sin in a relational conflict. I'm sorry, starts off good, if, it's getting bad already, if you are offended. I'm sorry, if you're hurt. I'm sorry, if you misunderstand. So, it's an apology based on the fact that you're so fragile and confused that you're easily dizzied by their brilliance. So, I'm sorry. I want to apologize to you. Okay, good. I'm sorry, if you're hurt. You're confused. I'm sorry, if you misunderstand. That's a really lame apology. Let me tell you how a humble person apologizes. I'm sorry that I spoke wrong to you. I apologize that I sinned against you. Now, in my home, the I'm sorry that you're hurt apology doesn't go down as an apology. Long time ago, we decided that's just rhetoric. If we're going to apologize, we're going to own the thing that we're apologizing for, and that's the only way that it works. Paul talks about the novice, and I'm putting this in relationship to personal faults in 1st Timothy 3, 6. He's talking about leaders in the church, but this could be leaders in any place of life, any kingdom business, any position in the kingdom of God, in the marketplace, in the school. He's warning those in leadership not to put a novice in leadership too quickly. He says don't put a novice in 1st Timothy 3, 6, because they'll be tempted to be puffed up with pride. Then they will fall. They'll be tempted to fall into the same condemnation the devil fell into. Now, this is an interesting, a very profound pastoral warning. Now, the novice, they're not a novice in their skill or in their craft. They know their skill set. They know it well. So they don't lack knowledge in their area of responsibility. What they lack knowledge in is the dynamics of their own heart. They're a novice with themselves because they haven't had this position of authority, and if they get into a position of authority and they don't know their hearts, they're novices with their heart. They may know their skill and their craft very well. What will happen in the new place of authority, there'll be positive dimensions of blessing and increase, and there'll be negative dimensions of criticism and uncertainty, and the positive and negative, that whirlwind will create a storm in their emotions, and they'll end up falling. And falling doesn't mean they'll commit a scandalous sin. It didn't say, Paul's not saying they'll steal money or they'll run off in an adulterous affair. He doesn't mean fall that way, because the devil did not fall that way. The way they will fall is that if they get in a position that's before their heart, they know the dynamics of their heart, they will be dizzied by the positive and the negative emotions, the exhilaration of good things happening, the criticism, the expectations, the fear of failure. All these things will hit them. The whirlwind will be on the inside, and they will end up in that dizzy place, making decisions that will hurt their life. They will be emboldened in that kind of dizzy place, and they'll make decisions that take them out of the will of God, and they'll hurt their life and they'll hurt others. He goes, they're novices with their own heart. That's the issue. Evidence three of humility is a grateful spirit. Now a humble man, a humble woman, they see that they're getting a better deal than they deserve if all the information was really on the table. You know, if all the information about your life was really presented, we don't deserve any of the good things we get. But the proud man only sees the one area of their life they've worked hard in, and how they deserve promotion related. They don't see the whole of their life, and they're kind of mad at God, mad at the church, mad at the business leader over them, because they're not getting the promotion they deserve, because they think they're getting a bad deal. And the Lord could whisper, no, I want to get promotion in a way that helps you in your meekness. I'm not interested in a promotion related to one area of your life that you've been working hard on. You've been diligent in that one area, so you deserve to be promoted. The Lord says, now in the whole of your life, I'm still giving you a really good deal. But the humble man says, thank you. Regardless what his station is, the lack of promotion. The proud man, he feels mistreated, he feels bitter. But again, Christians don't use the word bitter, because bitter is such a bad word. They use the word burnt out, or mistreated, or not valued. It means bitter. They're getting a bad deal. They deserve better. That's the spirit of pride. Again, we all come by this very, very naturally. Now, I want you to know where I'm getting this. I'm getting this, because I've sinned in every one of these areas so many times. And as I make this handout, I have blood littered on this page. My own. By my own sin and folly. So I'm, you know, making this and going through this. My third service going through this. This is torturing me, because I'm having memory of the times where the Lord has corrected me over and over on these subjects. Let's go down to number seven. Let's go down to number seven here, real quickly. The inevitance of humility. It's a servant spirit, really what it is. It sees the benefit of others. What happens is, a proud man, again, they love Jesus. Instead of looking out for the interest of others, this verse in Philippians 2, Paul said, with lowliness of mind, or humility, look out. Pay attention to the benefit of the other guy, not just your own benefit. Figure out what their agenda is, and try to serve their agenda and their benefit, even if you lose out in the deal. That's the way of lowliness. But what happens is that a humble man uses his place of influence to help other people get the benefit. A proud man uses his place of influence for self-protection of his agenda, and for a show of power. Hey, I'm in charge, and I want everybody to know it. I'm the guy in charge. And they use their position of authority. Hey, that guy can't get in the way. All I gotta do is fire him, or get rid of him. He can't. I'm in a position of power. I could protect my own self-preservation, my own agenda. I can protect. Paul says, don't use your place of authority that way. Don't do it that way. Use your place of authority, actually, with meekness. Proverbs 18, verse 23. The poor man uses entreaties, but the rich man answers roughly. So the poor man goes to the banker and says, would you give me a loan, please? Makes appeals with meekness and tenderness, and they're kind, and a servant spirit. And the banker decides. The rich man walks into the bank and says, I own the bank. I'm gonna fire you. I can fire anyone I want. He answers roughly. Now using this in the spirit of humility, Jesus had more authority, but lived in greater poverty of spirit than anybody. He answered with entreaties. And so you may be the top of the list of the authority structure, but operate as a poor man. Don't be a bully. Don't be a show-off. Don't use your authority to put people in their place, to show them your power, to make sure nobody blocks your agenda, or nobody distracts what you want to do. But operate as a poor man, even though you have the authority. Operate with entreaties. But the rich man, in this context, would be a proud man. He's rough. Nobody can fire me. I'm the head. So I don't need to answer to anybody. Nobody's gonna catch me anyway. I'll fire this guy and move on to the next thing. And Jesus would tell us, don't answer roughly, just because you can get away with it structurally in the system that you're in. But look before the gaze of heaven and answer in tenderness. I'm gonna go just to one more, just another few moments here. I just want to touch this briefly. 1st Peter chapter 5. This young people. Because we're a young people movement. And Peter talks to young people. And I want our young people to be the evangelist of this message to other young people. He says, young people, submit yourself to your elders. Then he pauses and he expects them to go, what? He goes, yes. Then he brings it up a notch. He goes, well the truth is, that isn't that odd, because we ought to have a teachable spirit. That's what submit means. We ought to have a teachable cooperative spirit with everybody, not just our elders, even our peers and those under us. Submit to everyone, even the younger ones. So these young guys are kind of like, what? Be teachable and cooperative. But I know more. He says, clothe yourself with humility. And here's why. Because God will resist the proud, but he will give more grace to the humble spirit. Because humility is in agreement with him. Therefore humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due season. Now the reason that young people are told to submit to elders for step one, then Peter brings it up a notch. Says, no, not just to elders. Submit to the younger ones. Submit to the unqualified ones, too, young men. Submit to everyone. Have a teachable, eager spirit to learn. Now we don't submit, young people don't submit to older people, because the older people are wiser. That's, you've heard that over the years. So the older people are wise. Well a lot of times the older people aren't. I've seen many times when the older people are more confused than the young people. I've seen it many, many times. And it's not because the older people deserve more honor. I mean there's a case for that, but that's not really what Peter's saying. He's telling young people to submit, to develop a submissive, teachable spirit, because they're in the strategic season of their life when the wet cement is drying. They're in the season of their life where they are going to determine whether they're going to live with pride or live with humility. It's critical at an age 15 to 30 time frame that they exercise the muscle in their spirit, so to speak, of a teachable, humble spirit. Because whatever they land on, however that cement dries, and that's when it dries in that season of their life, at age 15 to 30, they will take it into their marriage, they will take it into their business, they'll take it into their child raising, they'll take it into their leadership style, they'll take it into their friendships. He says young people, this is a critical hour in your life. Excel in submission, not in having all the answers. Go the other direction. Let's look at Lamentations 3, verse 27. It's good. This Jeremiah. Now Jeremiah was the young prophet. Jeremiah was the prophet that began in his youth. He writes Lamentations. So we're talking about a young man who had a national ministry who is now an older man, looking back. He said it's good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. He's talking about the yoke of humility, the yoke of restraint, and it's specifically he's going to identify restraint in speech. Now this is Jeremiah who had a national ministry who had to talk to the older guys when he was a young man by the command of God. So this guy's got a lot of wisdom. He goes, bear the yoke of restraint, particularly in your speech. Verse 28, let him keep silent. He goes, let me tell you something. The guy goes, I have the burden of the Lord. He goes, no, the Lord's laid, the real burden the Lord's laid on you is the yoke of meekness. That's the more important burden he's put on you. Verse 29, he brings it up a notch. Let him put his mouth in the dust. In other words, humble, down to the dust means humble his speech. Come to a place of reserved language. Say little, learn much. Even though you might know more, say, don't say much. And those kinds of settings. He goes, maybe there's still hope for you if you'll do this. That's, again, you can see Jeremiah thinking a little bit of himself. He goes, let's take it up to the next level. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes it and be full of reproach. Now the striking of the cheek means an insult. He goes, let them insult you and let them bear the reproach. Don't even answer it, though you have the answer. Bear it. So what Jeremiah is addressing is two of the primary issues of youth, their speech and their identity. And he says, bear in the yoke of meekness in this season of your life, and it will be good for you if you do this. Now in our setting, we've encouraged our young people to challenge everything they hear. And I'm talking about everything they hear from the pulpit to challenge it to make sure it's in the Bible. I've said it many times that they see with their own eyes what's being preached with their own Bible. But one thing I've said strong, and I'll end with this, is that we challenge but with a meek spirit. We don't answer roughly. We don't have a know-it-all spirit. We don't meet in the classroom and then later tell our friends how wrong the teacher was and how right we were when we're 20 years old. I read it on the Internet. I know that guy's wrong. I just read it on the Internet last night. I know what's going on. Jeremiah says, bear the yoke. Peter says, young men, have a humble spirit. Be learners. Don't be teachers right now. Though you might even know more. Yes, challenge everything, but with meekness, with entreaties, without criticism, without making sure that you tell the group later how right you were and how wrong the others were. That's the pride of youth. We all have that pride. But in youth, it's the chance for the cement to dry in a different way. And so as I think as being a young people movement, that I want to see, I'm just putting this young people application here at the very end, because I want our young people to call young people, not just in Kansas City, wherever they go, to humility and meekness. So the cement dries in their 20s. Then when they're in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, they will bring this into their marriage, into their ministry, to their friendships, to the marketplace, to their leadership style. Amen and amen. Let's stand. Lord, we say yes to you. We say yes to the yoke of meekness. We say yes to learning from Jesus. Jesus, teach me. Teach me the yoke. Beloved, there's no place more important for this than in our marriages, in our families. Husbands having a teachable spirit to their wife and children. I don't mean to give up their leadership, but they lead with entreaty, rather than with rough answers. They lead with poverty. Not as a rich man, a proud man. I'm the boss woman cement. But because I am the leader, I'm gonna approach it with poverty. What would you like? How do you feel? That's the poor man answers with entreaties. Well, I'm done with the message. I just slipped back into another one, didn't I? Let's let's end this. Okay. Father, we say yes to you. Just across the room. I just want to encourage you to close your eyes for a moment, so you're not distracted. Just, I say yes to a lifetime of the yoke of meekness. This is my primary goal. It's not even have a big ministry. That's second. My primary goal is to develop meekness in my life. I want to put my mouth in the dust, to give my cheek to the smiter. If I'm misunderstood, I don't even need to answer it. I'll bear it. It's good for me. I'm a young man. I'll bear it. There's yet hope for me. Lord, as older men, we say yes to this. Lord, I want the humility that you call the youth to. I want to walk in it. If you would like prayer for this subject, or for any subject, healing for your body, you would just like prayer for anything. Come on up. I want to invite you to stand on these lines, if you will. Some of you might come up and you just say, I want to be alone up here a little bit. Set it with my chair. Just to talk to Jesus about humility in my life. Lord, I want to be easy to correct. Easy to learn. I want to be slow to teach others the way in my friendship settings. Oh, we love you, Jesus. We want your yoke on our life. Oh, we love you, Jesus. The meek and humble one. Oh, I want to walk with you in meekness, Jesus. The Lord says there's more grace to the meek. He will multiply grace in your life. Jesus, here we are. I want to be your father's son. Come and cling to me alone. So this is my prayer. It's my solemn vow. With all that I am, with all that I have, I will love you, I will love you. With my soul and my mind, I pour out an offering of worship and cry, I will love you, I will love you. I'm going to invite about 50 of you to come up and pray for folks, if you will. Anyone in the room that loves Jesus, you're visiting or you're local. This is my prayer. It's my solemn vow. With all that I am, with all that I have, I will love you, I will love you. With all of my heart, my soul, and my mind, I pour out an offering of worship and cry, I will love you, I will love you. Come, let us tell you. Lord, release your power right now, we ask. If you're here for physical healing, mention it to the person that stands in front of you. I need about 20, 30 more of you to come up, if you would. Lord, release your glory even now, I ask you. Grace for humility. Lord, I ask for the fire of your Holy Spirit. I ask you for your manifested presence right now to touch our bodies, our hearts. Release your power, release your grace right now. Oh, we love you, Jesus. We love your way. We love your gentleness. We love your loneliness. We want to be like you. We love you.