"And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." — Micah 6:8
If we get excited when a film we love has a Part 2, we should be at least as excited for this sequel. Part 1 stayed in the temple, with two men praying and only one going home justified. We learned to come before God without pride, without condemning the people we think we are more righteous than, as sinners who all need His grace. Part 2 walks out of the temple and into the week, because the humility God accepts is the humility other people can feel — humility in how we live with our brothers and sisters.
What God Requires
The requirement has not changed. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. And the classroom has not changed either: "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart" (Matthew 11:29). We do not develop humility privately and then display it. We learn it from Christ and it shows up in how we treat the person next to us.
So — who here is humble? Good, nobody raised a hand this time. Last week, somebody did.
Walking Humbly Before People
1 · We Must Walk Humbly Before Others
Paul is blunt about the alternative. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit" (Philippians 2:3). Selfish ambition wants the position. Vain conceit wants the credit — bilib sa sarili. Before we became Christians, many of us had plenty of it. Bro. Marc's own motto back then: guluhin mo na ang buhay ko, huwag lang ang buhok ko. Mess up my life, just don't mess up my hair. Both are perfectly compatible with a full church calendar.
The replacement is not passivity, it is direction of attention: in humility value others above yourselves, "not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others" (Philippians 2:4).
By nature that is hard. We want to be the one cared for first. So start small. You are near the front of the lunch line and you can tell the food might not stretch. Take a little less, so the sister who always eats last does not end up with three potatoes. You can always come back for more if there is extra. It is a simple example, but it is the shape of the whole thing.
Notice it does not say ignore your own interests. It says do not stop there. Humility shows up at the exact point where someone else's interest costs you something and you pay it anyway.
2 · Jesus Humbled Himself to Serve Us
Then Paul raises the standard past anything we would have dared: "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5).
He "did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage" (Philippians 2:6). Hold that. If anyone was entitled, it was the Creator. Think of the beings in the films with the power to wipe out whole worlds — He holds more than that, and He did not come here to throw His weight around. He was not pretending to be lower than He was. He genuinely held the highest position there is, and He declined to leverage it.
"Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant" (Philippians 2:7). He served us. He washed His disciples' feet to show us how to treat one another. If that were our attitude, most issues in a church would settle quickly. Misunderstandings and hurt feelings will come, especially as relationships grow close. But if you put your brother's interest first, you start to feel what he feels — empathy — instead of dwelling on what you feel.
And further down still, being found in appearance as a man, "he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8). Was it easy? No. In Gethsemane He struggled in prayer and asked three times for the cup to pass from Him, because He could already see the shame and the suffering. And He still put our interest first — thinking even of us, the ones who would one day believe.
Follow the descent. God, to servant, to man, to death, to the most shameful death available. The One with every right to be served went furthest down of anyone who has ever lived. Every claim we protect looks smaller measured against that.
3 · We Must Imitate the Humility of Our Lord
"Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1).
That is a bold sentence, and Paul can only write it because of the second half. His model of humility was the Lord Jesus. He is not offering himself as the original. He is offering himself as proof that an ordinary person can copy Christ, which is exactly what makes the next three pictures worth looking at.
Paul's Example of Humility
Watch where Paul places himself, and watch the direction he moves as he gets older in the faith.
4 · The Least of the Apostles
"I am the least of the apostles", Paul says, and he does not even deserve the title, because he persecuted the church of God (1 Corinthians 15:9).
Now set that beside the record. He wrote thirteen letters of the New Testament. He planted churches in Corinth, Ephesus and Thessalonica. While Peter led the work among the Jews, Paul carried the gospel to the Gentiles — people like us. And he and Peter are the two apostles Scripture records God using to raise the dead.
Any one of those would be enough for most of us to build an identity on. Paul totaled them up and still put himself last, because he did everything for the glory of God and could not forget what he had been forgiven of. Many of his letters were written from prison — and from there, in chains, short of food, in the dark, he could still write that he had learned the secret of being content in any and every situation (Philippians 4:11–12).
5 · The Least of the Saints
The ladder goes down, not up. Not least of the apostles now, but "the very least of all the saints" (Ephesians 3:8, ESV), and grace given him anyway to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
And this is the man who could list five floggings of forty lashes minus one — the Law set forty as the limit, so they stopped at thirty-nine to be safe (Deuteronomy 25:3). Three beatings with rods, a stoning, three shipwrecks, a night and a day in the open sea (2 Corinthians 11:24–25). Constant danger from rivers, bandits, his own people, Gentiles, city, country, sea and false believers. Labor, sleeplessness, hunger, thirst, cold and exposure, and "the pressure of my concern for all the churches" (2 Corinthians 11:26–28).
Five floggings — and what was still on his mind? How is the church in Ephesus doing? Is there trouble in Corinth? That is why he kept writing letters. Suffering did not earn him a higher opinion of himself. It lowered him further, and it made him tender toward the weak: "Who is weak, and I do not feel weak?" (2 Corinthians 11:29). As we said last Friday, Jesus treasured His spiritual family. May that be our heart for one another.
6 · The Worst of Sinners
The bottom rung. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst" (1 Timothy 1:15). Present tense. Not was the worst, am the worst.
Do we ever compare our righteousness with others? Laging absent ito, pasulpot-sulpot lang. Buti pa ako, laging present. If you see a brother or sister growing weak, encourage them and pray for them instead. Bro. Marc says it plainly: he thinks he has more sins than all of us. Do not measure who has more. Stay low. Because when you know you are the worst of sinners and Christ still forgave you, you can believe the same grace can reach anyone.
And he says why God allowed it: so that in him, the worst of sinners, Christ could display His immense patience "as an example for those who would believe in him" (1 Timothy 1:16). Paul's résumé of sin became a public exhibit of mercy.
Which is why he kept a short leash on himself to the end: he struck a blow to his body and made it his slave, so that after preaching to others he would not himself be "disqualified for the prize" (1 Corinthians 9:26–27). Sumunod ka! The body is only a tent, a temporary shelter; the real you is soul and spirit. So do not let the flesh rule you. If there is unforgiveness, fight it: forgive, talk to the person, love them.
There is a film we have watched together at devotional, Left Behind, about the rapture. The worst moment in it is a church emptied of its people — except the pastor. They are all in heaven. Why are you still here? No one is exempt — not the pastor, not the church leader. Each of us runs our own race. You cannot ride on someone else's back into heaven — hindi pwedeng umangkas.
When you fall, get up, dust yourself off, and keep running. You were made clean when you were baptized; walking through this world you pick up dirt, so confess it and shake it off. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith (Hebrews 12:2). Do not look left and right — they stopped coming to devotional, so maybe I can stop too. Our Friday gathering has grown thin. If you have class or work, that is understood. But if you are home with nothing to do, come. You probably cannot remember what you had for dinner last Friday, but it sustained you. The same is true of your spirit. Skip enough meals and the flesh starts winning, and the enemy's first target is your joy — because the joy of the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10). Know yourself, know your enemy, know how he operates, and do not be fooled. He is the father of lies.
Paul never graduated out of needing mercy, and never assumed he was safe.
What God Does With the Humble
7 · Humility Is Rewarded by God
This is not self-hatred with a religious coat on. God attaches a promise to it.
"All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another" (1 Peter 5:5) — all of you, no exemptions — because God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Opposes. That is the word. Pride does not merely fail to impress God, it puts you on the wrong side of Him. He humbled Himself; how could we exalt ourselves? And He knows we cannot make it to heaven on our own strength. We need Him.
"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time" (1 Peter 5:6). We go low. He does the lifting, and He picks the timing. And the anxiety we would normally manage by defending our own position goes somewhere better: "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7).
Bro. Marc told us about a sister who lived this. Years ago, she joined an office as a temporary employee. When the project ended, they wanted her out, and they made it hard for her. She would come back from a bank errand, sweating after the long climb back up, and before she could sit down: "Buy us some banana cue." She cried to the Lord: Lord, I used to be the one who sent people on errands, and now I am the one being sent. She did not fight back. She cast it on Him. And in the end, the two who made it hard for her were the ones let go — and she became the manager.
So do not take vengeance into your own hands. It is tempting, because getting even feels good. Let the Lord do battle for you. If a neighbor keeps quarreling with you and looking down on you, let it be. God sees it — and He sees your heart too, whether it wants revenge or says, Lord, Ikaw na ang bahala. He will lift you up.
Paul closes the same way. Live a life worthy of the calling you received, "completely humble and gentle, patient, bearing with one another in love" (Ephesians 4:2), making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all (Ephesians 4:3–6).
Read that list again. It is a list of things nobody in the room owns more of than anybody else. So let us not tear each other down or gossip about each other. Love costs nothing — libre naman magmahal — so give it extravagantly. Humility is simply agreeing with that list.
Challenge
This week, find the place where the cost is real.
Pick one person in this church whose interests you have been quietly ranking below your own. A brother you compete with. A sister whose ministry you privately rate. Someone whose attendance you have been keeping score on. Value that person above yourself this week, in something that costs you. Give them the credit, the preference, the last word, the help they did not ask for. Take less at the table so they get more.
Then do Paul's exercise honestly. Write down the thing about your walk with God you are most pleased with. Underneath it, write what you were saved out of. Keep them on the same page, because the moment the first line stops being read next to the second, we are back in Part 1, standing in the temple listing our fasting.
And if someone is making your life hard, cast it on Him and let Him lift you in His time.
We did not lower ourselves to get here. He came all the way down first.
To God be the glory!
