I’ve been a Christian for 30 years and I’ve seen my fair share of things happening on the church stage. I used to attend a church where they had a huge cross behind the choir loft, which was behind the pulpit. During an Easter musical the church did a reenactment of Jesus hanging on the cross. They got my friend Randal, who was a skinny Japanese guy with curly hair, to play Jesus. Fortunately he was fit so when he hung on the cross without a shirt, it wasn’t a cringe-look-away kind of thing, with his stomach hanging over the loincloth. The musical ended, the choir exited, and the pastor came up to do his Easter message. One problem – they never bothered to take Randal down from the cross. He stayed on the cross the whole message, and a number of us were snickering at him for the rest of the service.
More recently I’ve been concerned with some of the things I’ve seen on stage: smoke machines, spotlights, long musical solos. Sometimes I’ll sit back and wonder where Jesus is in all of this. But there is an even bigger concern: one’s desire to be seen on stage. This goes for anyone who is on stage: worship team, announcers, the preacher. I’ve been around long enough to know when one really enjoys the attention from the audience. I can sometimes sense when the focus is on the messenger rather than the message. It’s as if people on stage like the stage because of the attention one receives.
When this happens one of the results is a constant desire, or even a need, to be on stage. It’s as if one’s self-worth is tied to others seeing them. They like their names in the program or to be mentioned by name by someone up-front. This breeds arrogance and pride.
One morning as I was doing my devotionals, I came across this verse in Luke 13:17, “As Jesus said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him.” The word humiliated caught my eye. I thought, “This sounds close to the word humility.” So I looked up both words in an English dictionary and found they came from the same Latin root word humus which means ground. Then the Lord spoke to me. Everyone will be humbled. HUMILITY is when you take the initiative to put your face to the ground. HUMILIATION is when the Lord has to do it.
God wants people who have humble hearts. I’m reminded of 1Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand that He may lift you up in due time.” James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” It’s as if the Lord is saying, “Stay humble, I will lift you up when your heart is right.” If believers can learn to be humble during the discipleship phase, God can use them greatly during the leadership phase. Why? Because the focus will be on God and not on themselves.
The first Christian book I read was Charles Swindoll’s Improving Your Serve. There was a poem in there that has stuck with me all these years. It’s by Ruth Harms Calkin titled “I Wonder”:
You know, Lord, how I serve You
With great emotional fervor
In the limelight.
You know how eagerly I speak for You
At a women’s club.
You know how effervesce when I promote
A fellowship group.
You know my genuine enthusiasm
At a Bible study.
But how would I react, I wonder…
If You pointed me to a basin of water
And asked me to wash the calloused feet
Of a bent and wrinkled old woman
Day after day
Month after month
In a room where nobody saw
And nobody knew.
Isn’t that a sobering thought? What if God asked you to serve but no one knew about it? Would you still do it? Or would you do it only if others knew about it?
In today’s social media world, there’s a need to be humble. It’s very easy to post what you’re doing, what you’re eating, or where you’re at. At times it’s informational, but other times it come can across as prideful. Not everyone needs to know what you’re doing. It doesn’t mean don’t do anything; it just means you don’t have to let everyone know.
We need disciples who are humble. When you are in a position of humility, Jesus will shine and not you.
Questions to Think About:
Be honest. Do you like when you have the audience’s attention?
Is there an area of your life where the Lord has been telling you to be humble?
© Gary Lau 2013
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