Humility in the Disciples of Jesus

The lives of Jesus’ disciples provide a mirror for us to examine our own lives and learn, just as they did, how to walk in true humility. In this interview, Mike and Jeff explore three aspects of these men’s walk with God and help us see how we too should hunger after this same change of heart.

Mike: As we continue our discussions on humility, we want to talk today about humility in the disciples of Jesus. In Luke 22:26 it says, “But among you, those who are the greatest should take the lowest rank and leaders should act like servants.” What do we begin to see as we look at the disciples of Jesus as it relates to humility?

Jeff: Well, I think right away what we realize is that the Kingdom of God operates completely different than we think it would, and it is opposite to what the world teaches. We sometimes do not realize how opposite our thinking and actions are to what Jesus teaches us.

Mike: If we look at the disciples after the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, we can see a dramatic change in their lives. But before that, and all throughout their time with Jesus here on earth, these guys were a mess.

Jeff: I kind of like the fact that they were a mess because I can look at their lives and I can learn a lot of things about myself. I can look at their decisions and the course of their lives as told in the gospels and ask myself, “What did they need to learn that I maybe need to learn?” I'm glad that God is able to use the example of people’s sins and mistakes to teach us even today.

Mike: As we look at these men, let's consider three important lessons that we can learn from them. First, we see what tremendous zeal and Christian activity we can have in our lives where humility is still sadly lacking.

Jeff: When you look at the disciples, you can see that they were extremely zealous. They walked away from everything right from the beginning and they forsook their lives to follow Christ. I believe they loved Him and obeyed Him as much they knew how at the time that they first started following Him. But they didn't understand yet what it meant to follow Him in every way. I think they still had a lot of pride imbedded in them. They had the wrong mindset, and they really needed some insight. Even though they had left everything behind, believed Jesus to be the Son of God, and even though they seemed to be zealous to follow Him, they still had issues in their hearts that needed to be dealt with.

Mike: And really when you say pride, it's not as if pride is this one small sin that we need to deal with. It's in the core of our being and it is the root of what is wrong with us. When we fast forward 2000 years and look at things today, whether it's pastors or evangelists or missionaries, we see the same problem.

Jeff: Absolutely. I've seen it in my own life. Being in the ministry there were times where God has shed light in my heart and used a situation to reveal to me when I am not exhibiting a humble attitude. I have to be open to that and let God help me. We all need the grace of God. We are unable to walk in humility on our own, and until we understand our weakness, God won’t be able to help us.

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Mike: I think one of the things that exacerbates that particularly in modern ministry is that many people who are in ministry are so well trained in so called “skills of ministry.” So, in a sense, they're depending on self and they're depending on their abilities. I know that is my testimony and in ministry we all have different talents that God has given us, but He doesn't expect us to be depending on our own ability in order to have the power to transform lives.

Jeff: No, and really in 2000 years the pride of men and the way it causes men to fall away has not changed. Usually God must bring us through some hard trials to teach us true humility.

Mike: Yeah. And even oftentimes failure. That's been my experience and I'm grateful for it. Let's look at a second thing. We can see how weak teachings that only produce more head knowledge or efforts rooted in our own striving are in helping us overcome pride and developing a meek and lowly heart.

Jeff: Well yea. When you think about it, the disciples walked closely with Jesus for three years. And during that duration of time, He was regularly teaching them the ways of humility. But all that external teaching didn't produce humility. So we could learn about humility from someone at a seminar or we could do studies on humility, but just having head knowledge of a godly attribute is not going to bring us to a place of overcoming pride in our lives.

Mike: What does have to take place inside of a person to be able to walk in humility?

Jeff: One thing we see in Scripture is Jesus leading by example. He showed His disciples what it looked like to walk in humility. The greatest example I can think of is when He washed their feet. And then He told them to follow His example. I know that's what helps me, because outside of the action of humility I don't have a way to define it or even begin to understand it. I have nothing to compare it with. But I can look at Jesus, learn from His example and then simply enter into His yoke. Once I do that, I am able to learn to walk as He walked, because He gives me the grace to do it.

Mike: I want to put an exclamation point on something that you just said. We don't have Christ-like humility in ourselves. Humility is a combination of all the different aspects of Jesus’s life and character. It's not the kind of thing that we can produce in self-will. It's something that we must recognize we do not have, and then go to God and ask Him to make us humble.

Jeff: Yeah, basically it takes a miracle that only God can perform and until we come to the place that we see our need for that miracle to come about in our lives, all the teaching in the world isn't going to bring it about.

Mike: The third thing we can learn when we look at the disciples of Jesus is that it is only by the indwelling of Christ in His humility that we can become humble.

Jeff: It's true, and we can see the disciples had the desire. They wanted to do the right thing, but really until Jesus departed and sent them the Holy Spirit to dwell inside of them, they really did not have it in them to do what Jesus was teaching them while He was with them on Earth. But Jesus promised them that when He went away He was going to send them a Helper. I think that through their failures and coming to the place where they finally understood that they didn't have the power of God in themselves, they saw their need for that Helper. They were ready then to say, “Okay Lord, we're going to wait,” because Jesus said, “Wait until you are endued with power from on high.” So they came to the place where they knew, they needed something to happen inside of them and that God had to give it to them. That was the promise of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’s death, He destroyed the power of the devil. But then in His resurrection, He gives us the power to live that new life.

Mike: Amen. Well, I guess what we could encourage folks to do then is to allow the Lord to search our hearts. Allow Him to show us the areas of our lives where we are not showing the humility of Christ. Then we must be willing to acknowledge that that's true about us and ask the Lord to change our hearts.

Jeff: Yes. And in my own personal life, God has been challenging me to believe Him for that. Because sometimes we can see through a situation we are going through how much pride we still have, but God does not want us to despair in those times. He wants us to acknowledge it, go to Him and believe that He has provided His Holy Spirit to help walk as He walked. That is the promise of the Gospel, that we will be transformed into His image and into His character.