“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[b] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”      Philippians 2:1-11

Years and years ago (Sandi and Chris’ senior year) I told a story about Kevin Tommasini at the football banquet.  I said that Kevin was a pretty spiritual guy and before one game I went  by his locker and he was praying.  I heard him say, “Lord make me humble.”  Unfortunately, I said, God thought he said, “Lord, make me fumble,” and Kevin did, three times, and it made him humble. So God answered his prayer, but not in the way Kevin envisioned!

God has a way of bringing humility to our lives if we start to think a little too highly of ourselves.  Max Lucado says that it is hard to be filled with Christ if we are too full of ourselves and that is so very true.  Today’s verses give to us the greatest illustration of humility that the earth has ever known and explains to us how we can tap into the power of humility, as well.

I say the power of humility because it is power.  Many see humility as a weakness and that is their first mistake.  These verses show us that the most powerful man who has ever lived, lived in humility.  He could have destroyed those who hurt Him with just a wave of His hand, but instead He humbled Himself and died for those same people.  Had Christ not had humility, we would not have eternal life. If Christ would not have put us above Him, we would never rise above with Him.

In verses 3 and 4 Paul reminds us that we need to esteem others more significant than ourselves.  Many take this to mean that we need to think little of ourselves, but this cannot be.  We were formed in God’s own image; we are important, God said so in His Word.  What God really means is that we are to see ourselves as significant, but even in seeing that, treat others as more important. Christ did not have a self-image problem and because of that went to the cross. No, Christ knew He was the creator of the universe, but He chose to place man’s need over His own.  He knew the pain that was ahead of Him and yet went through with it for our sake- that is humility.

One way to keep ourselves in prospective is to remember that all we are and all we do are by the grace of God.  It is He who has made us and He who should get the credit.  We like to credit ourselves with our accomplishments, but that would be like the donkey taking credit for the raucous reception of adoration when he carried Christ into Jerusalem.  The palms and alleluias were not for the donkey any more than others praise of us is really for us.  When we reach that understanding, we will be able to put others in a  proper place.

George Washington Carver, the scientist who developed hundreds of useful products from the peanut once said, “When I was young, I said to God, ‘God, tell me the mystery of the universe.’ But God answered, ‘That knowledge is reserved for me alone.’ So I said, ‘God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.’ Then God said, ‘Well, George, that’s more nearly your size.’ And he told me.”    Anytime we begin to think too much of ourselves we should look a the universe around and look at a peanut and see what really matches who we are.

DL Moody was once approached by a man who said he had ceased to sin and had not sinned for ten years.  Moody said, “Really, you must be pretty proud of that.”

The man replied, “Yes, I am.”

Moody smiled and said, “That, apparently, is your first sin in ten years.”   He knew that as soon as we start to be proud of humility, humility is dissolved.  At the end of the day if we are not humble, we will stumble. That is a fact.  Pride led to satan’s fall and he wants to take us with him the same way.  Don’t be like the preacher who once said, “I am very humble and I am proud of that.”  Be like Christ who did not state humility but lived humility.  If every Christian did just that one thing, our world would be a different place.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” Psalm 91:1

The traffic in Lincoln City, Newport, and Depoe Bay is often formidable  and the crosswalks are challenging because a person could grow old waiting for the flashing walk sign or not grow old at all trying to cross without one! Combine that with the influx thousands of drivers of various skills, it is a challenge to walk and drive on the coast on weekends at certain times of year. As a sidelight, I heard that the reason the baseball teams were named what they were in LA was because the pedestrians there were either dodgers or angels. The analogy is theologically weak, but you get the point. It is not much different on the Oregon coast.

A few years back Elaine and I decided to cross the road and get a bite to eat in a restaurant. We pushed the walk button to cross the main road (45 mile an hour speed limit) and waited and waited. We had go through two crosswalks to get to the restaurant that was catty-corner to us anyway, so hunger drove us to cross the less busy road in spite of the flashing wait sign. There was no danger because… well, it is too hard to explain, but believe me, there was no danger. So we got to the other side and waited to cross the busy road once more. Finally we got the okay from a friendly flashing light and crossed. All of a sudden we heard a huge noise and I looked over and a large truck had lost its load of metal pipes at the intersection. When he stopped, all the pipes (and there was a bunch of them) shot off his rack, over the hood, through the crosswalk and into the intersection. They were big, heavy, and sharp. If anyone would have been in the crosswalk, they would have been surely injured and maybe worse. An army of men piled out of the truck and started gathering up pipes. It dawned on me that had we waited we would have been in that crosswalk when everything took place.

We were okay and it did not spoil our appetites, but it really made us think. What part does God play in our daily lives when it comes to protecting us. When we are safe is He protecting us and when we are hurt, He is not? Why does one person die in an accident and another survives? Why is one prayer seemingly answered and another seems to sit dormant for years. What’s going on here? Do we live on God’s roulette wheel of happenings and once in while we just get the black ball in the right or wrong slot?

We live in an unstable world populated by unstable people governed by an unstable, rebellious angel. There is a popular cliché that says “The safest place is in the center of God’s will.” However, does that mean when something bad happens we are outside of God’s will or if we seem to be protected we are obviously in God’s will. The Word (and experience) seems to say otherwise. Was Paul not in the center of God’s will when he was stoned, beaten, and imprisoned? Do missionaries suffer and Christian martyrs around the world shed their blood because they are out of God’s will? Or what about the reprobate who seems to enjoy God’s protection for a time- is that person in God’s will? What, then, is the need to be in God’s will if suffering and protection seem to be so random.

Well, because it is not random from God’s viewpoint and that is the viewpoint that counts. One my favorite passages on this subject is found in Daniel 3:16-18: “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

Basically, these three men of God said, “God can deliver us and if that is part of His plan, okay. But if he does not deliver us, it doesn’t change anything. He is still God.” I believe there are things that will happen because they must happen and there are things that can change because they can change. I believe there are things that may go one way if we neglect our prayer and another way if we do pray. I believe that God has possible scenarios that will play out depending on our prayer life, people involved, His sovereign will, and our free will. Do I believe that, as the above Psalms verse states, we were sheltered by God. Yes, but the incident and its outcome did not determine the sheltering. If we remain close to Him He will protect us regardless of what happens to us. His protection is beyond what we can see. We are limited to seeing today, seeing our own lives, and cannot see the entire scope of humanity like God can. Is God God because He did not allow a pipe to hurt us? No, God is God because He is God regardless of our situations.

God’s umbrella of protection is over us if we are in Him, but sometimes we have to share it with others and sometimes we may even have to give it to someone else because they need it more. I may have to step out in the weather so someone else can be brought to where he or she needs to be. God knows and I don’t. I just need to trust that He will do what I would do if I had the mind of God. Remember, when we step into eternity and have so much more knowledge, we will never look at God and say, “I don’t think I would have done it that way.” I think we will probably say something like, “Well done, good and faithful Master,” and shake our heads in amazement at His wisdom.

“Indeed, my plans are not like your plans, and my deeds are not like your deeds, for just as the sky is higher than the earth, so my deeds are superior to your deeds and my plans superior to your plans.”  Isaiah 55:8,9

I like to think of myself as okay. Not great, but at least okay. I am probably not the only one who likes to think that way (not about me, but about themselves!). It is comforting, I guess, to look around and believe that there are a lot of people worse than we are. But today I was looking at these verses in Isaiah and I realize that the word “your”  in these verses was talking about me. Not the other guy, but me. My deeds are not like God’s deeds. My ways are not God’s ways. In all ways, His ways are superior to my ways.

This reality can be fairly depressing if we ponder it. We fall short in all ways. Not just some of us, but all of us! Well, it would be depressing if the story stopped there. But God does not stop there and leave us with no hope.  Almost every part of the Bible is about hope. It tells us how we can triumph in spite of our misguided ways. The Bible gives us hope in a world of hopelessness. Psalm 46:1 says that “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble,” which is so much more comforting than “I am my own refuge and strength and I can rely on myself in times of trouble.” Since my ways are not God’s ways, to rely on myself is a losing proposition.

A few years backI took back a couple of inferior rafts that I had bought for camping. I upgraded to one (not two cheap ones, but one good one) that actually floats. I thought it would be a good investment, especially for whoever is in the middle of the river in it. (Never go cheap on eye surgeons or rafts.) Our ways are like those rafts. They are inferior and regardless of how fast or slow the leak is, our ways will eventually “leak.”  Like the rafts, we cannot patch them on our own. We can try to fix things up, but it will never work. I had to get a new raft, just like we have to become new creatures. We can’t patch up the old, we must become new. That can only be done through Christ.

I like to think some of my ways are good. But no matter how good I think they are, if they are mine, they fall short of the perfect ways of God. What I need to do is to know God well enough to know His ways. When I start becoming more like Him, my ways will start to come in line with His ways. Some of us will go through life trying to patch one thing up after another. We leave God sitting over to the side, waiting for us, while we patch hole after hole, only to have the next one spring up. When we do that, we are just kicking the can down the road. The fix will be temporary. The only permanent fix is to give ourselves over to Christ and allow Him to make things new. By the time some of us are old we are floating in a pathetic raft barely staying afloat made up of more patches than original raft.  We paddle around wondering why we are so stressed, while a brand new one with our name awaits just in reach.

Many people want to try to do their own thing and try to align God with them. That would be like coming back to camp and instead of pulling ourselves to shore, we try to pull the shore to us. The shore, like God, is fixed. We must be the ones that move. If God’s ways are superior to ours, why should He come to us. It is logical that we go to Him. Unfortunately, the common practice is for us to do our own thing and then try to say that is God’s way as well.

On one of our camping trips with the kids and grandkids I was out in the river and my raft started sinking. I realized that I was probably going to go down with both ends of the raft above my head closing  like a giant clam.  Between screams for help,  I thought how much better it would have been to have a raft that holds air. Now I have one because I purchased one. The good news is that if we want to get rid of our inferior ways, we don’t have to make a purchase.  Our new ways have been paid for in full, and all we need to do is to receive them. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was the same prayer we should pray for ourselves. “(I) am asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give (me) spiritual wisdom and insight so that (I) might grow in (my) knowledge of (Him).  (I) pray that (my) heart will be flooded with light so that (I) can understand the confident hope He has given to those He has called—His holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance.”  Now that’s how you fix a leaky raft.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

Forgiveness is one of the most profound acts of grace we can extend to others. It mirrors the heart of God, who forgave us completely and undeservedly through Christ. Yet, forgiving someone who has wronged us can often feel like one of the hardest things to do. We wrestle with pride, hurt, and the fear of being vulnerable again.

Jesus addressed this struggle directly when Peter asked how often we should forgive someone. His response—“seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22)—was not a numerical limit but a call to boundless forgiveness. Why? Because God’s forgiveness toward us is equally limitless. Every time we fall short, He remains faithful to forgive, inviting us into His grace anew.

When we forgive, we are not excusing wrongdoing or pretending it didn’t hurt. Instead, forgiveness is a decision to release resentment and trust God to bring justice in His perfect timing. It’s freeing ourselves from the chains of bitterness and allowing His peace to fill our hearts.

One powerful example of biblical forgiveness is Joseph forgiving his brothers (Genesis 45:1–15).

Joseph’s brothers had betrayed him by selling him into slavery out of jealousy. He endured years of hardship in Egypt, including slavery and imprisonment, before God elevated him to a position of power as Pharaoh’s second-in-command. When a famine struck the land, Joseph’s brothers unknowingly came to him in Egypt to buy food, not realizing he was the brother they had wronged.

Joseph had every reason to exact revenge. Instead, he chose forgiveness. In a deeply emotional moment, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, saying:

“Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” (Genesis 45:5)

Joseph recognized that God had used even the evil intentions of his brothers for a greater purpose—to save countless lives during the famine. He chose to see his circumstances through the lens of God’s sovereignty rather than through bitterness.

Joseph not only forgave his brothers but also provided for their needs and their families. His forgiveness restored their broken relationship and exemplified the grace and mercy of God.

This story reminds us that forgiveness often requires seeing beyond the offense to God’s greater plan. It encourages us to release resentment and trust that God can bring redemption even from the deepest pain.

This morning, we should ask God to reveal any areas where unforgiveness may linger in our hearts.  We should offer those situations to Him, asking for the strength to forgive as He has forgiven us. Remember, forgiveness is not about the one who hurt us —it’s about our obedience to God and the freedom He wants for us.

Here is a front pocket prayer that we should keep handy:

Father, thank You for the forgiveness You’ve given me through Jesus. Teach me to reflect Your grace by forgiving others, even when it’s hard. Help me release any bitterness and trust You with my pain. May my heart reflect Your love and compassion today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.