The Humility of God

"At Babel, as someone has said, 'earth proudly tried to ascend to heaven,' while at Pentecost 'heaven humbly descended to earth.'" -Sam Storms (quoting John Stott in Chapter 2 of The Language of Heaven)

What a profound observation the above quote draws us toward. As I read this, it got me to thinking about human striving in the history of all things. Consider the fact that God, from the very beginning, took a humble posture towards humanity. He condescended to us where we were. The God of the universe... do you understand actual weight of who he is? The literal God who created everything and holds all things together walked personally with our first father Adam. Most of us would probably think that someone who is running the universe wouldn't have much time for such a small creature as a man. Yet he did. God took the time to walk with Adam. That's amazingly humble and it is our example. The only one who ever had a reason to be proud, that is God, walks humbly. Amazing!

So what about humanity? Clearly something has gone amiss with us. We are not humble like God. Some would challenge God's humility by pointing to his severity when responding to sin and evil in the world. Our problem is that we are short sighted. God is a humble God, but he is also a very good and just God. He will not allow injustice to stand and when we fell into sin, we became injustice in the flesh. At that point we had placed ourselves against God and he was forced to react to our rebellion. A king must do what is right even if he does not like it. In the same way, God takes no pleasure in the destruction of anyone, but he must carry our justice. We will get back to that again in a moment.

The people of Babel are representative of the whole of the broken human condition. Back in the Garden of Eden, people walked with God in his humility and grace. He tested them by giving them a restriction. Would they trust God to descend to them and raise them up to their proper place in time? Or would they strive to take it for themselves? We know how the story goes. Rather than trusting in the goodness of God to disciple them and train them so they could rule by his side, they proudly tried to ascend to heaven on their own and thus began a series of failures which do nothing more than perpetuate our rebellion against God and our destruction.

Every time we trust in something other than God to grant us life, we fall into a pattern of striving for heaven on our own power. We attempt to usurp God's rightful position and claim it for ourselves just like Adam and Eve, the people of Babel, and many who came before us. God calls us to something different, and it is hard for us to accept. It's so simple and requires us to trust in his goodness rather than our abilities. He calls us to rest in him with the promise that when we are at rest in him, he will come to us and give us the heaven we always wanted in the first place.

As God has always done, he has condescended from heaven to earth in order to draw people to himself and to train them how a person should live as a citizen of his kingdom. Rather than just destroying us, Jesus came to us and took the punishment we earned in our place. He was crushed for us and rose from the dead, declaring sin and death forever defeated. You see, God always wanted Adam and Eve to be wise, to know right from wrong. Their desire for knowledge wasn't wrong, but their striving for power apart from God was. Jesus does for us by the Spirit what he wanted to do for Adam and Eve. He is training us to live the way God created us to live. You see, the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of royal priests. Each citizen has dominion over a part under the leadership of God. We get to join God in building the earth out the way God intended. Earth is to become an extension of heaven! We see that at the end of Revelation and it is amazing.

The humility of God is truly an amazing thing. He has come to you. Have you heard his voice? Perhaps he is calling you now. You were meant for much more than to strive to scratch out a small kingdom for yourself before you die. You were made for eternity, to join God in building out his kingdom on earth. Don't you want to be a part of that? If so, why don't you stop striving and start resting in Jesus? If you want to pursue this further I highly recommend you reach out to me or a pastor near you. I also recommend you to pick up the Gospel of John in the Bible and read it, asking God to reveal himself to you and to teach you what to do next. I am certain of this, everyone who turns away from his life of sin and turns to Jesus, believing the gospel, will be saved. Come join the journey with this amazingly powerful, yet amazingly humble and loving God who is calling out to you.