More Than Human

You are more than you seem. You are not the sum of your parts. You are not the result of indiscriminate laws of genetics. You are not your parents. You are not your past. You are not a product of your environment. You are not merely human.

The catch phrases of our society are, “I can’t help it. That’s just the way I am,” and, “I had a difficult childhood,” and, “I just have a _____________ (fill in the blank…addictive, explosive, subdued, extroverted, introverted, unique, abnormal, dysfunctional, etc.) personality,” and, “I was temporarily insane.” But, these are just excuses. These are all lies–at least the way we mean them and want to use them.

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, reminds these Christians that they are called to something bigger and better than their humanity:

The Problem of Pride

I’m sure you probably already know, but preachers have a difficult task.  Even if we don’t consider all of the pressures, expectations, opportunities and responsibilities of ministry, there is still one single element of preaching that makes the job so difficult: and that is…preaching.  Okay, so here is what I mean by being so blatantly obvious in saying that preaching makes preaching difficult: it is not enough just to preach.  A preacher can’t go about picking random topics or scriptures to expound upon and be faithful to his responsibility to build up the church.  A preacher must be willing and able to take stock of the needs of a congregation and build sermons and series that will address those needs.

Some needs are specific to the congregation, and some are more general, faced by every or nearly every Christian.  In my personal efforts to take stock of needs to be able to produce meaningful sermons, I have decided that there is (at least) one main issue that every Christian struggles with: pride.  Every conflict and every sin can be summed up as an issue of pride and humility.  If one brother hurts another, the problem is pride: putting self before others.  If a Christian decides to disobey God, the problem is pride: putting self before God.

But, in order to be humble, we must understand humility.