Humility
and tears don’t sound like something we would strive for, do they? Most of us concur that life is found avoiding
humility and tears. The apostle Paul
makes some very bold statements in the New Testament books he wrote. Some wish that he never said what he said
about women especially. In Acts 20:19,
Luke quoted his description of ministry when he wrote Paul’s words: I served the Lord with great
humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my
Jewish opponents.
Paul’s
audience was the elders from Ephesus.
These were church leaders who could better comprehend how humility and
tears are part of serving God. Perhaps
they needed to hear it again. They
needed to hear it from the one who taught them all he knew about loving and
serving God. These words were most
likely received like affirmation that their own service to the Lord was on
track with Paul’s example. This was
Paul’s last opportunity to address this group, which caused them great grief
(Acts 20:37). These parting words would
need to carry them through their future service to the Lord.
Whether
you are in paid or unpaid ministry, you would do well to learn the mystery of
service to the Lord that Paul is describing because without humility and tears
it is likely that your service will be meaningless to the Lord. It seems to be the only way to serve
Him. One spiritual observer described
ministry without humility this way:
If we are not humble we can make ourselves
unfit for helping those around us, for pride infects everything. Where you have a proud person nothing goes
right; nobody is treated properly: his family, his friends, his colleagues…He
expects and demands special treatment for himself because he considers himself
different; one has to take care to avoid hurting his very vulnerable
sensibilities. The dogmatic tone of his
utterances, his ironic or sarcastic contributions to any discussion—for he does
not mind anyone else being shown up in a poor light if he himself is going to
come out well—his tendency to cut short conversations which arise quite
naturally, etc.: all these are signs of
something deep seated: It is the
all-consuming egoism that takes possession of the personality when the limited
horizons of one’s life are centered on oneself. (Francis Fernandez)
Humility
is the opposite of our sin nature and difficult to maintain; that is precisely
the reason we are in desperate need of tears.
Tears are a gift from heaven.
There are two kinds of tears: there are bitter tears and contrite
tears. Humility breeds contrite tears,
while pride produces bitter tears. I can
tell you from personal experience contrite tears are the way to go. They connect you to heaven. They lead to great joy. I can also tell you from personal experience
that bitter tears will lead to despair and never satisfy a soul until they turn
contrite. We can only feel contrite when
we experience our humble status before God and realize all our judgments and
blaming is against the One who loves us.
I
was surprised when Paul positively described his service to the Lord with the
words humility and tears, rather than a headcount of those he had baptized or
how many were in the churches he founded compared to Peter. After further thought, I conceded that humility
and tears is the way I want to describe my service to the Lord.
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