Podcast: The Cure to Our Polarization and Outrage: Humility (Gavin Ortlund)

January 09, 2023 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

The Joy That Comes with Humility

In today's episode, Gavin Ortlund talks about misconceptions we often have about humility—that it corresponds to weakness or that it hides our abilities—and discusses how humility is so foundational for experiencing true joy in Christ.

Humility

Humility

Gavin Ortlund

In Humility, Gavin Ortlund explains that humility is not just an abstract virtue but a mark of gospel integrity, casting a vision for gospel-centered humility that is ultimately self-forgetfulness leading to joy.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:11 - Misconceptions about Humility

Matt Tully
Gavin, thank you so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast.

Gavin Ortlund
Great to be with you, Matt.

Matt Tully
Today we’re going to spend some time talking about humility, a virtue that I think we all would say is important. Christians know the importance of humility for our lives, but it’s nevertheless probably something that most of us would do well to focus a little bit more attention on in cultivating in our own lives. But before we get to a positive definition of humility, I wonder if you could start by telling us what it’s not. And so I thought it’d be fun to hear you complete this sentence: Humility is not . . . .

Gavin Ortlund
It is helpful to sometimes ward off these misconceptions, because there are a lot of them out there. And sometimes I’ve found Christians don’t think about specific virtues as much. We just think very generally about spirituality, but we don’t think about humility or courage or charity and so forth. With humility, I think one of the misconceptions is that it’s hiding your talents. The sentence would be, Humility is not hiding. If you can pitch a 95 mile an hour fast ball. Humility doesn’t mean that you never tell the baseball coach. It doesn’t mean you have to obscure yourself or act like you don’t have something to offer. And another one very closely related to that, I would say, is hatred of yourself. Humility is not denying your value or your dignity as a person made in God’s image. It’s not being overly self-deprecating or something like that. I think sometimes we have these ideas that it means you think you have no value or you’re putting yourself down. Properly defined, I don’t think humility takes away any of our value and dignity as an image bearer of God.

Matt Tully
Another thing that you highlighted is that humility also can be viewed as weakness. It’s this inherent weakness that we maybe exhibit. Could you unpack that a little bit more?

Gavin Ortlund
This one I could just speak to in terms of I’ve just seen this with real people. Some of the most humble people I have known are very, strong, forceful, and they can be very blunt when they need to be. But sometimes people have this idea that a humble person is pleasant to be around, but they’re not the person you want by your side in a battle. They’re not going to stand their ground. And I really do think that’s another misconception. I actually think humility will give us a freedom from self-preoccupation, from defending ourselves, that will often make us more strong, more willing to disagree, able to enter into conflict in the right way, to not lose our temper, give us more ballast. I think the big picture is when we see humility for what it really is, it’s wonderful and delightful. It’s a joyful virtue.

Matt Tully
Before we get into more of that on humility specifically, I want to go back to something you just said at the beginning, that we often don’t spend a lot of time talking about specific virtues like humility. That’s fascinating to me. It does resonate with how we talk a lot about growing and sanctification and Christlikeness and these big, general categories. Why would you say it’s so important for us to, at times, dial into specific virtues when we think about our own growth in our walk with Christ?

Gavin Ortlund
Yeah, this is so interesting. It just occurred to me a few years ago that historically that has been more of the tendency in the Christian tradition. You think of the seven deadly sins, for example, or C. S. Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity. One of the main sections of that book is just working through different virtues—charity, hope, faith. He has a chapter on humility and a chapter on pride. That is the historic way. A lot of times today, especially among evangelical Christians, we just think in very generic and squishy terms. We’re just growing spiritually, and that means something very vague. But with these specific virtues, I think it is helpful for many reasons. One is just that it gives you something more tangible to aim for, and it also helps you see what spirituality actually is. It gives you a more concrete picture of how it plays out in the nitty gritty of life.

Matt Tully
Because it’s not just a vague idea. Christlikeness really isn’t a thing in itself. It is inherently displayed in these virtues.

Gavin Ortlund
Yes. To be a godly person, to be a Christ-like person, is very nuanced, very specific. My dad once mentioned to me that in fiction (and I often think about this in real life scenarios), evil is alluring and exciting, whereas good is bland and prosaic. But in real life, it’s just the opposite. Evil is bland and it’s repetitive. It’s monotonous. Evil tends to look the same over and over after a while, whereas good is wonderfully diverse, and each saint and angel will look a little different. And so having a concrete and specific picture of these different virtues that we want to pursue can really help us because it will help us not have this bland picture of what Christlikeness looks like. It will help us to see the full beauty of it as it plays out in real life.

06:28 - What Is Humility?

Matt Tully
So let’s get into a positive definition of humility. How would you simply define that virtue?

Gavin Ortlund
The short definition I offer in the book is self-forgetfulness leading to joy. And this is drawn from C. S. Lewis and Tim Keller and others who have this idea that humility isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less. I’ll explain that in case that isn’t clear to anybody. In other words, it’s not just having a lower view of yourself, it’s just thinking about yourself altogether less frequently and being less self-preoccupied altogether. You’re just not so concerned about yourself. And the idea of the book is just that this posture toward the Lord, toward others, but even just toward external reality altogether really is a wonderful feeling of joy. It leads to joy, it leads to flourishing, it leads to health. It’s how we’re designed. Humility is like oxygen. It is to our soul what a good night’s sleep is to our body. It just wonderfully opens up life to not be so self-preoccupied all the time. The last image for this is if you just imagine you’re looking up at the stars. I live in Ojai where it’s kind of a more rural place.

Matt Tully
That’s in California.

Gavin Ortlund
That’s right. Ojai, California. Yeah, exactly.

Matt Tully
Not Ohio.

Gavin Ortlund
Yeah. Commonly confused. Ojai, California. We just bought a trampoline for our kids, and so over the summer, on some nights I would just go and lie on the trampoline and look up at the stars. And it is just breathtaking. It never gets old how beautiful they are. And one of the great feelings you feel is the sense of how small you are. You just feel like the world out there is so huge, and I’m so tiny. That’s actually a wonderfully joyful feeling. It’s an enchanting feeling. And humility, I think, is the pathway to that feeling in all different scenes of
life.

Matt Tully
Unpack that more. Why is joy so inextricably tied to humility? Just share a little bit more about why that is the end result of humility.

Gavin Ortlund
I’ll start my comment on this by referencing a scene from the book, The Hobbit. This is something I quote in the book, the children’s story by J. R. Tolkien.

Matt Tully
If you haven’t read it, stop the interview right now and go start reading.

Gavin Ortlund
Exactly. It’s a great story. There are all these big movies that have been made from it, but the story itself is a children’s story. It’s a little briefer than The Lord of the Rings. The final scene is this great scene between two characters—one is Bilbo, this Hobbit, and Gandalf the Wizard. And basically, to summarize, Gandalf is saying to Bilbo, Bilbo, it’s not about you. All these things came true, you had a role to play, these prophecies were fulfilled, but it’s not about you. His exact words are, “You’re only a little fellow in a wide world after all.” And Bilbo’s response to this, and it’s the last sentence of the whole book, is simply to say, “Thank goodness!” And then he laughed, and they’re smoking their pipes together. And just something about that really captures something that even to my own satisfaction I can’t fully articulate. But it’s the sense of the relief of humility, not needing to be a big deal. One way to think of humility is just embracing life as a creature, embracing life as finite, recognizing your limitations, not needing to be something that you’re not. And there’s just something about that that is so relaxing and so calming. It enables you to really listen to others and observe others. I do think that the virtue of humility is at play in how well we listen. For example, we’ve all known people who are just not good listeners. It doesn’t matter what you’re saying, it doesn’t make a dent in their perception. Humility is the opposite. It wonderfully sharpens your attention to the vividness of what’s around you, whether the words of others or just the external world. It enables you to enjoy things. It’s sort of like when a car is running smoothly and all the pieces are performing and it’s just humming and moving along the road and nothing is out of order, to me, humility is like this for the human soul. It’s just a matter of embracing life and living in the way that God designed us to live. So that actually might be a helpful way for some of us to think about humility—it’s just a sort of honesty. It’s a recognition of who we really are as finite and dependent creatures who receive every breath as a gift from the Lord.

Matt Tully
But I’m struck by how that honesty—because it is honest and because it is true to reality, as you’ve said—it leads to peace, it leads to joy, and it leads to things fitting together the way they’re meant to fit together. So I want to get into the opposite of humility, which is obviously pride. But maybe before we get there, almost as a bridge, you’re saying humility is relaxing. It’s not having this pretense that we’re putting on. What’s the difference between humility and not caring about how we’re perceived or not caring about how we present ourselves? That could be something as simple as physical appearance, but obviously there are all kinds of other ways in which we present ourselves. Is there room for caring about how we come across to other people and how we present ourselves?

Gavin Ortlund
I’m glad you asked about this, and I’ll just think out loud about this for a second. We definitely want to say humility isn't apathy. It’s not disregard for our impact upon others or how we’re coming across. I think more what we want to think about is proud concern about how we’re coming across. Wanting to come across better than we actually are. Wanting to appear more powerful, more intelligent, more virtuous than we actually are. So that’s what we want to steer away from. This is good to highlight as a danger too. We don’t want to think of this as therefore we’re just completely—it is possible to be so comfortable in our own skin that it’s kind of unhelpful to other people around us because we’re not really paying attention and we’re not really considering the impact that we’re having upon others. A humble person can get right in there and really be vigorous in their conversation. They can take great care of their appearance and how they’re coming across, but it won’t be reflecting from a heart that is full of conceit and is full of vain glory. It won’t be coming from those motives.

13:05 - The Great Sin

Matt Tully
Let’s speak about pride. How would you describe pride if you were going to define it shortly?

Gavin Ortlund
There’s an interesting idea in C.S. Lewis, and I think others have talked about this as well, as pride being the central vice, the great sin, the original sin. In Mere Christianity, the chapter on pride is called “The Great Sin.” And it’s a fascinating idea to think that pride is the original sin. It’s what happened to Satan in that moment, when pride came into him that caused him to rebel against God. He calls it the complete anti-God state of mind. And because humility is the opposite of pride, this can really help us understand the importance of humility. And I talk about a sermon from one of the church fathers named Basil, who talks about this and says that basically pride is the cause—the ultimate and deepest cause—of all of our problems. Humility is, therefore, the solution to all of our problems. All of life should be bathed in humility. But I think what some theologians have talked about with pride is, and this goes back to humility being embracing your status as a creature, pride is, in a sense, putting yourself in the place of God. It’s wanting to be God. And Tolkien talks about this in his fiction as well, as pride being this situation where you don’t want to say, Okay, God is God, and I’ll bow to him. Instead you say, I want to be God. I want to call the shots. And there is a sense in which I think we can trace all sin back to that instinct. It’s not wanting to accept the creaturely limitations and rules that God has set. All humility, therefore, does begin with this bowing the knee and saying, You are God, and I am not. To me, that’s a helpful entry point to start thinking about the nature of pride. There are two things in reality: there’s the Creator and the creatures. Pride is essentially switching and saying, I want to be on the Creator side of that equation.

Matt Tully
And that helps to connect back to even how you defined humility as fundamentally a self-forgetfulness, because I think pride seems like, in the opposite way, it puts self at the center, even so far as saying, I am God. Would you agree then with the statement that the root of all sin ultimately is pride in a certain sense?

Gavin Ortlund
Yes. I think that is a very profoundly true statement. Pride being that transfer, that refusal to accept my status and the implications of that status as a creature. Because to be a creature means to be dependent and it means to be obligated to obey the Creator. And that is because of who he is as God. If we understand who God is, we understand that to try to live any kind of existence not in submission to him, it just cannot work. It’s like trying to survive without eating. Your body needs food. That’s how it’s designed. And our souls need God. That’s how we’re designed. And so I do think we can trace all sin back to this basic core. And it is helpful to reflect upon that. When we’re struggling with a particular sin down the line, maybe it is manifesting as losing our temper or something like this, it is helpful to try to think about that. How can I trace this back to that basic posture of my heart before the Lord? Because I do think it starts there.

16:31 - Misconceptions about Pride

Matt Tully
A few minutes ago we talked about some of the common misconceptions people have about humility. What might be a few that people would have about pride and what it looks like in our lives?

Gavin Ortlund
The first one that comes to mind is when sometimes people think of pride as it’s kind of a good thing, just don’t have too much of it. We can see this in our language when we speak of Take pride in your work or Have some pride. We say things like this, and to some extent that’s just an issue of language, but what someone might mean by that is pride is kind of on a spectrum. On a scale of one to ten, you don’t want to have a ten, but you also don’t want to have a one. You want to be about a five. You want to have a little pride, but not too much. I think that’s a misunderstanding. Any pride is bad. I think what people might be thinking of there is self-respect or self-esteem, and already we’ve tried to say that humility is not at odds with having a proper regard for yourself, as having value and dignity. But any pride is bad because pride isn’t just thinking okay of yourself. It’s a kind of over-focus on yourself altogether. So that’s the first one that comes to my mind.

Matt Tully
That’s really helpful. You could have a lot of self-respect for yourself and still be a very humble person. And vice versa—you could have a lot of pride and actually not respect yourself very well, and that’s a problem too.

Gavin Ortlund
And one thing I just want to throw in—this is a little bit of a parenthetical comment, but I really want to make sure that this is clear. I wanted to emphasize this in the book too. When people are being mistreated, humility does not mean that you accept that mistreatment. A humble person should be well capable of guarding their dignity, protecting themselves if they’re in an abusive situation or a bad relationship where someone is insulting them. In fact, it’s good and honoring to the Lord to set up the appropriate boundaries to protect yourself. A proper self-regard like that is consistent with humility. I just think that’s really important to be clear about that.

Matt Tully
I think that’s such a wise word, given that we’ve just heard so many stories of people in positions where there was abuse, there was neglect, or there were things that were done. And sometimes that issue of pride and humility can be used almost as a weapon to keep people in those positions.

Gavin Ortlund
Absolutely. We just want to be very clear to people to say it’s not wrong to protect yourself. You have value, you have honor, you are made in the image of God, and that’s not at odds with humility.

19:08 - Relational Humility

Matt Tully
Now I wanted to briefly look at three spheres or contexts where we live our lives, and I’d love for you to paint a picture of what examples of humility might look like in these spheres—at least even the disposition that we might exhibit that would be a humble disposition in these areas. The first is just general: How do we demonstrate relational humility? This is humility in our relationships with other people, whether that’s people in my home (with my wife or my children) or even people at church as I interact with them.

Gavin Ortlund
One thing that I think can reflect humility in our relationships is valuing all other people for their differences and the ways they’re different from us. I think pride will often lead us to categorize people very quickly. Pride will make snap judgments. For example, let’s suppose that your personality is such that you really value not interrupting. You really value speech where each person is given time to unpack their thoughts and so forth. Pride might make you extremely judgmental when someone interrupts. Humility might also. At times it might be okay to recognize when interrupting is bad and to address that in the appropriate way. But it will also recognize there are God-given personality differences that cause people’s brains to communicate differently. Some people are more verbal processors, others are more mental processors. And so humility will have more respect for those differences, and it won’t be so quick and harsh in the judgment upon another person. It will recognize, People are different, and I actually have something to learn from people who are different from me. Those personality differences are not always matters of right versus wrong. Sometimes we’re just wired differently. And so a humble person in relationship will be the kind of person who will go into all the world, all the different people that God has made, and they’ll be with this heart posture of, I have something to learn from all of them. Everybody out there is going to have some uniquenesses. They’re going to have some ways they’re different from me that allow them to see things that I can’t naturally see. Therefore, I really want to be a good listener to understand that. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to agree, of course, with everybody else, but just the recognition that there’s real value in other people—their personalities, their dispositions. And so I really want to have my eyes wide open and my ears wide open to listen, to see, to observe how people are different. That’s one thing. Another basic thing is just the simple value of an apology. It is really unfortunate that sometimes, even in Christian circles, we have this idea that apologizing is somehow at odds with being a leader. For example, if you’re the pastor of the church, or if you’re the parent, should I apologize? Well, absolutely! We should all apologize when we’re wrong. But humility will enhance our authority. When we are in a leadership position and we’re willing to apologize, people see that and respond to that well, usually. The inability to apologize is a cause of so much grief and pain in the world. It’s just a wonderful thing to just be able to come to someone and say, not I’m sorry that you . . . —a fake or quasi apology—but I was wrong. I’m sorry. And when I do that with my kids, it’s amazing how quick they are to forgive me. I just say, I’m sorry. I was grumpy. I was impatient. No excuse. Will you forgive me? And they quickly forgive me. And then it’s like, oh, we’re all good now. It takes the pressure off of them. And just in relationships, the ability to regularly apologize, if we have something to apologize for, is just a wonderful thing.

Matt Tully
What a great practical, concrete example of the joy-inducing, relaxing, quality of humility. We’ve all felt that—when we finally apologize and when we just humble ourselves. It’s so hard to work myself up to that sometimes, but when I finally do it, and especially if the response is gracious and forgiving and kind (as it so often is in our relationships with other Christians), it takes such a burden off our shoulders.

Gavin Ortlund
Absolutely. To be forgiven, it’s like opening up the windows in spring cleaning and getting the fresh air in. It’s like that for our souls to forgive. It’s a wonderful thing. Sometimes reconciliation can be pressured in ways that are unhelpful, and so then people have a negative idea in their minds about reconciliation. But when reconciliation is done well, it’s a wonderful thing. Hopefully, if the gospel is flowing through our hearts, we’ll have the kind of relationships with other Christians, for example, where reconciliation is a regular feature of apologizing and then offering forgiveness, so that we can have a culture where it’s safe to apologize.

24:07 - Doctrinal Humility

Matt Tully
So let’s dial in then a little bit more narrowly into another sphere where we can demonstrate humility, and that’s in our doctrine and in our theological systems—how we think about our theology, and how we engage with others with regard to theology. How might we exhibit humility in that domain?

Gavin Ortlund
Well, a couple things that might be helpful for us. One is that I think that all humility must start with the gospel itself, and that this should be our motive for humility. And I go into this more in the book, but just to say the cross of Jesus Christ should humble us. The metaphor I use is to imagine you’re going to stand before a king and he’s on his great throne and you’re in this marble hall room and the ceiling is so high and you’re intimidated by the glory of this king. So you’re humbled in one sense, but now imagine the king gets off of his throne and comes down and embraces you. He’s been worried about you. He serves you breakfast. This humbles you in a different way. And that’s the kind of humility that should be provoked in our hearts by the gospel. Our Lord has become a baby. God became a baby, and then God died on a cross for us. So we should be the most humble people because of this, and this is the driver that should ultimately be motivating our humility. And then in terms of how we wear our doctrinal convictions, I’d want to say something similar to what we said about other areas like with virtues. Like humility not being weakness or self-hatred, humility is not softness of conviction. It does not mean that we don’t care for the truth. We should be willing to die for the truth. But what I think humility will do is, first of all, it will help us do the theological triage—to mention a term we’ve talked about in other contexts—which is ranking different doctrines. We’ll recognize not every hill is a hill to die on. We’ll recognize that some things are clearer than other things, so therefore we should be more cautious about the things that are less clear because we make mistakes. We see through a glass darkly. We are not perfect. Therefore, dialed into all of our thinking should be this distinction between the truth as it is and the truth as I see it. And therefore, the less clear something is, the more murky it is, the less universal it is throughout the church, for example, and the more we want to be careful. So I think one way humility can play out in regard to our doctrine is we must not find our identity in our secondary and tertiary doctrinal distinctives. We can hold to those, and we should hold to them, but we shouldn’t find our identity in them. I think a lot of the wrangling and fighting that happens in the body of Christ happens because sometimes we find our identity in these secondary and tertiary distinctions. Rather than just maintaining them and advocating for them, we actually see this as like, This is who I am. This is my tribe. We put undue loyalty to those that should be directed really to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And that can cause so much division. And so that’s one area we need to be mindful to practice humility.

Matt Tully
So I wonder if you could respond to the person listening right now who maybe has some alarm bells going off. They have to acknowledge that they can’t really disagree with anything you just said regarding doctrinal humility. It’s all, I think, pretty obviously true, but for them they would say, But when I hear people talk like this, so often this is sort of the first move in a broader theological slide. This is the language that so often is used when people are drifting away from the truth. It’s often cloaked in the garb of, Hey, I want to be humble about what I don’t know and about the breadth of the Christian tradition and what people believe about these things. And that can sometimes be used as cover for a slow, progressive slide away from holding fast to what Scripture teaches on some difficult topics. So how would you respond to someone who’s skeptical or nervous about maybe even embracing this obviously biblical language and this emphasis that you have on humility in terms of our doctrine?

Gavin Ortlund
Well, I want to acknowledge this concern first and foremost and give it lots of breathing room. I want the person who’s feeling this concern to feel that the concern is appreciated, because it’s a very valid concern. One thing that might help is in the book I start off on chapter one saying we have to divine humility before God first, rather than before people. And I think this can help us here. A lot of times when there is language that is talking about humility may feel humble, but it’s actually kind of the first step toward doctrinal erosion. A lot of times this is focused more on the horizontal level, and we want to come back and say, first and foremost, humility is a matter between my soul and the Lord, and I’m humbling myself before him. And there’s a great quote in Luther. I’ll just paraphrase. I won’t be able to get it exactly right. I think Spurgeon references this, but he’s basically saying that the person who is trembling before God, whose knees are knocking before God, will then be bold as a lion before people. So, I think when we start by defining humility before God, first and foremost, it’s humility before him, we’ll actually see that being wishy-washy doctrinally is not humble, because it’s not humble before God. We’re not actually honoring the Lord in that posture. And so that might be one way to start to help distinguish a true humility from a false humility, because what I really want to encourage here is that when we see humility leading to doctrinal erosion, that’s actually a false humility. That’s not just too much humility or something like this. It’s actually not true humility. And I think if we define humility before God, that can help us distinguish a true humility from a false one.

30:30 - Social Media and Humility

Matt Tully
A true humility will actually lead to greater doctrinal fidelity, greater doctrinal confidence in the things that Scripture clearly teaches. That’s such a helpful emphasis to note here as we talk about that. But one last context for humility, and that’s just online engagement. We all live online so often these days. Many of us are involved in social media, and it’s a truism to say that social media is awash in toxic pride in how people engage with one another. So what does it look like to engage humbly online?

Gavin Ortlund
I have an appendix in the book that deals with this, so people that might be of help to people. Just two things I’ll mention that are very practical, hopefully, that might be useful for people to think about. One is simply limiting our usage of social media. This can happen through taking breaks. We really need to be careful. I’ve had to be so careful with this. Every six months or so, I actually have to recalibrate and assess, How am I doing? And a lot of times what I realize is it’s been encroaching and I need to set up better guardrails to keep social media at bay. The encouraging thing is I don’t think for most of us it necessarily will mean we can’t use it at all. Maybe for some, but for most of us, I think it’s a matter of discipline to just keep it at bay because if it’s overrun our time and our consciousness, it will be much easier to fall into proud usages of it. For example, on Twitter, what I’ve come to see is that there are just so many conversations that shouldn’t be had on that platform, but should be better had in real life or even over YouTube. Honestly, other social media can be easier where you don’t have the character limitation. Just seeing the limitations of it and going into social media with more modest goals of what you’re hoping it accomplishes. Also taking sabbatical breaks. I think that’s just one thing that I have found really helpful. Another is remembering that it is real people on the other side. However much it might seem like you’re talking to a robot, it’s a person with feelings and thoughts, and often with real pain that is animating their attack of you or their words or whatever it might be. There might be incredible pain underneath those words that are coming at you. That doesn’t resolve the problem totally, but boy, that is helpful along the way to remember. So those are just a few thoughts.

32:51 - Humility over the Course of a Lifetime

Matt Tully
So helpful. All right, last question, Gavin. As you think about your own life and your own relationships, who would be an example of an exceptionally humble person that you know who’s had a big impact on you? What is it about that person that you would point to as evidence of their humility?

Gavin Ortlund
There are so many people I could think of. Even within my own family, I look up to so many people. The person I’m going to mention is the person I dedicated the book to, and that’s my grandfather on my dad’s side: Ray Ortlund Sr., one of my great heroes in all of life. He was a humble man. He modeled this idea that humility leads to joy. I remember as a college student going with him to the driving range and hitting golf balls, and he was in his seventies and I’m about twenty or so, and it was just like two friends hanging out. He was just so easy to be around. He had such a great sense of humor. Humility over the course of a lifetime sweetens you in your personality, in your relationships with others. You meet someone who’s been pursuing humility for fifty years like this, by the time they’re ready to go be with the Lord, it’s almost like they’re almost already glorified to some extent because their personality is so delightful to be around. And he was like this. His humble heart for the Lord and for others, his servant's heart—absolutely delightful to be around him. It’s given me a model that I want to chase after. And I just feel compassion for people who’ve never had a model like that. And so that’s one thing that hopefully, we, the church, can do is be a model to help people see humility and other virtues like this that the gospel calls us toward are actually beautiful. They’re life giving. They are wonderful. They make life go more smoothly. But my granddad is the person I think of.

Matt Tully
What a great example. Gavin, thank you so much for helping us to understand this virtue a little bit better. I think even more than that, painting a picture of the joy and the peace that comes from pursuing it that we all can experience in Christ. We appreciate it.

Gavin Ortlund`
Thanks, Matt. Great to be with you.

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