Joy Letter - How To Have A Humble Heart

Philippians 1:27
Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.

Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel.

Mark 1:14-15
…Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

Acts 28:30-31
He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

Jesus' gospel is simply this: the kingdom of God has now, through Jesus, become available for ordinary human beings to live in. It's here. Now. You can live in it if you want to. God is present here and now. God is acting. You can revise your plans for living around this cosmic opportunity to daily experience God's favor and power.
John Ortberg

'Gospel' is the announcement that everything has changed in the coming of Jesus and it leads us to a new kind of living. It is a kingdom of God lifestyle with allegiance to a King as the ultimate restorer.
N.T. Wright

God is becoming King, and he is doing it through Jesus! And therefore, phew! God's justice, God's peace, God's world is going to be renewed.
N.T. Wright

In God’s kingdom, everything is exactly how God wants it to be.

Genesis 1:27-28
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…

Through the cross, there is forgiveness of sin, restoration of God's image, and restoration of our heavenly vocation to fill and subdue the earth. 

The kingdom of God has become available to you through Jesus, so whatever happens, keep living your lives based on the reality of the greatest announcement of all time. 

Philippians 2:3-4
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of others.

A life formed with the gospel in mind is a life dripping with humility. 

Humility: renouncing self-centered pursuits, actively regarding others in the best light possible, paying attention to the concerns and interests of others.

To live a life in a manner worthy of the gospel, we need to be people whose hearts and minds are directed away from self and toward others in the practice of attentive, humble service.

Philippians 2:5
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2:6-11
Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Blessed be his name, he stoops, and stoops, and stoops, and when he reaches our level and becomes man, he stoops, and stoop