Spiritual Awakening - Humility

Update: 2022-09-04

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Daniel 4:1-37

PDF Manuscript: Spiritual AwakeninG - Humility

The other day, our family was watching a documentary on ocean life—everything from the smallest of fish to whales and sharks. It’s incredible when you stop to think about the vast amount of life that exists at sea. Did you know that the Pufferfish can inflate into a ball shape to evade predators? They’re sometimes known as blowfish. They fill their elastic stomachs with huge amounts of water, and sometimes air, blowing themselves up to several times their normal size. However, they also contain a toxic substance that makes them foul tasting and potentially deadly to other fish. The toxin is deadly to humans—1,200 times more deadly than cyanide. There is enough poison in one pufferfish to kill 30 adult humans, and there is no known antidote.

Like Pufferfish, we can blow ourselves up with pride and arrogance to make ourselves look bigger than we really are. Pride is a toxin that poisons our lives—our marriages, our friendships, our church, and our souls. This morning, I want us to see that pride is the greatest barrier to what God wants to do in our lives. Donald Grey Barnhouse once said, “Christ sends none away empty but those who are full of themselves.” Everything that God wants to do in our lives, pride opposes.

Well, why talk about pride today? Three weeks from now, Life Action is returning to our church. Most of you are aware that this type of event is designed to teach us principles of spiritual revival and awakening in our own lives. But unless we prepare ourselves, it’s possible this will simply be another event that comes and goes. Richard Lovelace once said that revival is defined as an “awakening to a true knowledge of God and self.” In other words, the spark of revival is built upon an accurate understanding of the greatness of God and the depth of our sin. It’s like the prophet Isaiah in chapter 6 of his book when he sees a vision of the holiness and the power of God. It strikes at the root of his own self-understanding, and he responds by saying, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

I want to spend three Sundays considering how we might set the stage for spiritual renewal in our lives. We begin today by looking at Daniel 4. It’s a story of a man, Nebuchadnezzar, whose vision of God and understanding of self were terribly obscured. It details his journey from pride to humility, by way of a great fall.

As you’ll see, it’s somewhat of a strange story. But even though we might feel far removed, its relevance holds. The human heart is still the same—susceptible to pride, and the God of the universe still knows how to humble the proud. He still knows how to remove the greatest barrier to the work of God in your life. But how far will God go in order to humble us? I’m going to read verses 28 through 37, but if you will, keep your Bibles open as we draw from the chapter in its entirety.