Encore - 978 - Humility Unlocks Joy - 1 Peter 5:6

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today, I want to talk about how humility unlocks joy for us. Let's use 1 Peter 5:6 as our verse. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you at the proper time.” Exalt is one of those words that I don't use very often, but when I look at the word, I see the definition: it's to raise in rank, or to elevate, or to praise.    We want to experience the exaltation of God. My goal here is to experience this relationship with Jesus, where I experience His joy. I enjoy what He's doing in my life, and it's not a transactional thing. His exaltation and lifting me up, I believe involves me more in the work that He's doing.   I experienced joy when I joined Him in the work that He's doing in and around the people that I'm with, the people that I work with or in my family. When I humble myself under His hand, what I'm doing is I'm realizing my position. My right place in the world is doing whatever God says. He's the one who created me.   He will always be my boss. He will always be my king and my Lord. Those are awkward. Some of those words are awkward for us. We think we're in charge, but when we can humble ourselves under God's mighty hand and do what He says, we experience exaltation. We are lifted up. We are blessed. We are praised. We are exalted.   That's the word. That comes from having a right understanding of what God is doing, and where we are in relation to Him. In relation to God, I'm not that much, yet He died on the cross for me. Jesus died on the cross for me to restore my relationship with Him. And today, if I can remember who He is, and who I am, it's my job to just shut up and do what He says.   It's my job to listen to Him and do what He says, and then I will get exalted at the proper time. If you've experienced the joy of following Jesus, you know what I mean. And if you haven't, maybe you need to ask God to give you some direction on how you can be humble. How you can have a proper understanding of where you fit in the world.   I believe God will give you that if you ask Him for it. In fact, asking Him for it is our first daily activity. Praying, punching in, telling God that we're on the clock. Here we are. We want to do whatever He has for us to do today. And listening to Him. That's our job. When we do that, we're on a mission trip.   We're on mission with Jesus Christ when we obey God in our world, and in and among the people we meet every day. I want to challenge you today. Stick your foot in the ground, and from here forward, say “I want to do what God calls me to do.” You'll mess up again pretty soon if you're like me. I mess up pretty regularly, but I want to keep trying.   I want to follow God and do what He says. And I'm on this podcast, I'm involved in this ministry called Follower of One, because I believe as I do that, and as we do it together, we help one another. Check us out at followerofone.org where you can practice this a little bit. One of the ways we practice is through our marketplace mission trip.   Trust God today, humble yourselves under His mighty hand, listen to Him, do what He says, and trust that He will exalt you at the proper time. We have a choice to make. Every action is a choice. Make the choices that line you up in the right relationship with God and watch Him exalt you. You will experience joy through that.   Thanks for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for listening to this and for sharing it with people. Let's follow Jesus today and do what He says. Thanks very much.