Sam Roberson: Jehovah Loves the Humble Ones

(Prov. 29:23)​ (08:25)

Contents

1. Prov 29:23 Haughtiness will Humble man 2

1.1. Country song of the proud 2
2. Meaning of Humility 2
2.1. Rom 12:3 Not to think more of himself than necessary 3
2.2. -1 Pet 5:5 Clothe yourself with humility 3
2.3. Tie you oneself with knots 3
2.4. CO blowing his horn 4
 1. Prov 29:23 Haughtiness will Humble man
Let's take a look at our text today from our revised New World
translation. Look at the whole verse. It mentions in Proverbs 29:23.
“23 The haughtiness of a man will humble him.”
So the haughty will be in for humiliation. We remember Haman,
Naaman, Saul. Many examples there. Pride before the crash, and
then we have the point made here.
“23b But whoever is humble in spirit (they have the disposition of
humility) will obtain glory.”
Now obviously, we'll talk about humility, as many of our panel
certainly did. Why is the subject of humility alluded to so many
times? Why so many times in our publications? In our lectures and
morning worship? Why do we need to consider this so much? Well,
this is because sinful humans have that imperfect slant to just lean
toward the feeling of self importance, the feeling of superiority,
because perhaps beauty, race, rank, talents or wealth.

1.1. Country song of the proud

There's an old country song that had these lines:
“Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror 'cause I get better looking each
day.”
And it goes on and gets a lot worse. We have the tendency to
think of ourselves as perfect. We become legends in our own
minds. We become above it all and this is the tendency of imperfect
humans. Pride grows like weeds. Humility has to be cultivated and
maintained.

2. Meaning of Humility
What does humility mean?
Well, one Hebrew word is translated: “The idea of humble
yourself”. Which means literally stamp yourself down. Don't put
yourself on high.
 In the Greek scriptures, the word tapeinophrosune is translated
humility, lowliness of mind, and it has a couple of words involved
with it that indicates make low the mind not be high minded. In
Latin we have the word, humus, earth, ground. There's an
expression about having your feet on the ground, and that's
something that a person would do if they have humility they
wouldn't think too much of themselves.

2.1. Rom 12:3 Not to think more of himself than necessary

In fact, in Romans 12:3 Paul puts it this way:
“3 . . . I tell everyone there among you not to think more of himself
than is necessary to think, but to think so as to have a sound mind,
each one as God has given to him a measure of faith.”
Romans 12:3 JB Phillips translation there states:
“Try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities”.

2.2. -1 Pet 5:5 Clothe yourself with humility

And think of the attitude of humility. The Apostle Peter hits the
nail on the head. In 1 Peter 5:5, take a look. 1 Peter 5:5. And notice
the Apostle Peter mentions:
“5 In the same way, you younger men, be in subjection to the
older men.
But all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another,
because God opposes the haughty ones”
And so we would never want to challenge God with haughtiness
there. He opposes, we'd never win that battle, but he gives
undeserved kindness to the humble one. So Jehovah approves of
the humble ones.

2.3. Tie you oneself with knots

How did Peter mention the idea of humility? It says “clothe
yourselves there with humility”. And if you check your interlinear
sometime in the word for word idea of Greek transliteration there.
You'll notice it says “tie you oneself with knots”. There's not a
strange expression “tie you oneself with knots”.
But what does that mean when it says in English there? Clothe
yourselves with humility. Well, what do you put on to serve other
people? Let's say you're going to barbecue for someone and you're
going to get greasy as you cook. What do you put on to serve
others, an apron? And this is the idea of “tie you oneself with
knots”. You put an apron on and tie a knot in it, but this is plural
knots, so you don't want to lose that humility. That idea of serving
others.
The Today's English version of the Bible at first Peter 5:5 says
this:
“And all of you must put on the apron of humility to serve one
another.”
So in our mental attitude, the idea of serving others “tie you
oneself with knots” and that would be the driving force and how we
view our brothers. Lowliness of mind toward others. Serving them.
Now, just because we can define the word humility. It doesn't
mean we have it. In fact, it's been said that humility is elusive.
When you think you have it, you've lost it. It would be kind of like a
person who says I'm really proud of my record of humility. Well,
that's certainly wrong, thinking, isn't it? We have to constantly work
at it, we’re not once humble, always humble.

2.4. CO blowing his horn

Think of a circuit overseer and his wife who realized they needed
to work on this, they started even seeing it themselves as they
were out in service. They would use the word I a lot when
somebody would tell an experience they would top it with a better
experience. When somebody asked a question to the car group,
they automatically began to answer rather than let others enjoy an
answer, sharing.
So they began to think we've got to do something about this. So
at their little family worship evening, they decided they would get a
little horn from a toy store, little toy trumpet, and when each of them
would notice one of them saying something or alluding to
themselves, or trying to top an experience and not allowing others
to really enjoy it, they would call it to each others attention. And
whoever did it would have to blow that trumpet. So they would call
it to mind what happened and then that particular one would blow
the trumpet. “do too do too too, toot toot” and that would remind
them that they got out of line. Right? And they had to blow that,
blow their own horn there.
Well, that went on for a while and they were working at that and
then their district overseer at the time came by and he said “Hey,
I've heard about that Horn thing. How is it working?”
And the Brother circuit overseer? He said, you know it's working
really well. It's reminded us many times of how we need to let
others be involved and try to draw attention to others rather than
ourselves. In fact, I'm thinking of how beneficial it is. I haven't had
to blow the trumpet. Let's see, it's been a month. I haven't had to
blow that trumpet.
And his wife says. “Here Dear.”
That's how fast it can go, right? We have to work on it. It's a work
in progress. And think of what we have. Jehovah is the beautiful
example of humility. Giving his son, looking upon lowly. Jesus is a
beautiful example of humility.
Glory is what we receive. Its privileges in Jehovah's Organization.
If we're humble in the fashion of Jehovah and his son.