The Way of the Humble - Christmas Eve / Luke 1:46–55 / Lance Blythe

Wondering tonight what fills the heart, the congregation is invited to imagine an empty photo frame as a way to name the images, stories, hopes, and wounds carried into worship. Those inner pictures are sacred and shaping: they inform outlook, relationships, and one's connection with God. Mary’s canticle becomes the first clear articulation of the upside-down kingdom — a God who brings down rulers and lifts up the humble — and her song exposes humility as the posture God prefers. The incarnation itself is presented not simply as divine action but as divine demeanor: God’s entry into the world is marked by humility, choosing the lowly manger over majesty as the means of redeeming a fractured world.

A parable about two schools — one favored by wealth and power, the other systematically neglected — dramatizes how systems of advantage harden inequality, yet how humility can reverse that trajectory. When a long-serving teacher refuses to exact revenge and instead pleads for compassion toward other children, the town shifts from bitterness to cooperation; shared loss becomes the occasion for mutual flourishing. That moral of communal repair shows humility as practical, costly, and catalytic: it refuses retribution, bears others’ losses, and opens space for restoration.

The sermon presses the conviction that humility is not self-denigration but a reorientation away from self-centeredness — thinking of oneself less so others can be seen more clearly. Possessions, status, and success tend to squeeze humility out of the heart; they foster self-sufficiency and a narrative that credits personal achievement rather than grace. Yet the one sphere each person can influence is the content of the heart. God seeks not external privilege but the humble heart that aligns with Christ’s own life.

The Christmas story is framed as an invitation to let humility become the lens through which life’s joys, disappointments, and relationships are seen. Humility, when embraced, reshapes responses to injustice, enables forgiveness, and becomes the vehicle for God’s reconciling work among people. The closing prayer asks that humility take hold of the heart as both gift and practice so that lives might be re-colored by mercy and the kingdom’s upside-down ways might be lived out in ordinary decisions and collisions of community life.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Humility defines God's upside-down kingdom Humility is not a soft sentiment but the defining posture of divine action: God’s reversal of worldly hierarchies exposes power as provisional and virtue as vulnerability. Embracing humility reorients ambitions and measures success by mercy rather than dominance, inviting participation in a justice that lifts the low and restrains the mighty. [05:11]
• 2. The heart's contents matter deeply The images and stories that occupy the inner frame shape perception, response, and destiny; they are the soil in which faith either flourishes or withers. Naming those contents allows intentional formation; neglecting them leaves one captive to cultural narratives of self-sufficiency. Caring for what is held inside is therefore a spiritual responsibility. [02:32]
• 3. Humility enables reconciliation and hope Choosing humility creates space to forgive, to bear communal loss, and to craft shared futures rather than retaliatory settlements. It is a costly stance that refuses short-term vindication for the sake of long-term flourishing, turning scarcity into solidarity and fragmentation into repaired community. True restoration often begins where someone refuses to take another’s opportunity as recompense. [15:18]
• 4. Choose what fills your heart Material gain, status, and success tend to crowd out humility by fostering narratives of merit and self-reliance. The only domain fully accessible for transformation is the heart’s content; reordering it toward service, gratitude, and attention leads to life shaped by Christ’s example rather than cultural acclaim. This choice is daily, practical, and decisive for how one loves others. [20:15]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [00:43] - What’s in Your Heart?
• [03:38] - Mary’s Song Explained
• [05:11] - Rulers Down, Humble Up
• [08:22] - East & West Schools Parable
• [13:52] - Missus Brown’s Appeal
• [17:10] - Humility Undoes Injustice
• [20:15] - You Can Influence Your Heart
• [26:57] - Prayer and Closing

{'input_documents': [Document(metadata={'source': "00:23"}, page_content="Wonder tonight, what's in your heart? What are the things that you carry with you here into this worship service today on Christmas Eve? Now if you've got a busy next twenty four hours, but if you think carefully, if you listen to your heart, what are the things that you're carrying with you today? [00:43] If you could take them out of your heart and you could place them within the frame of this empty photo frame, what pictures, what images, what stories, what colors would the things of your heart tell? What stuff would come out if you could take the contents of your heart and fill it within this frame? Would it be images of a full table, a Christmas lunch with family and friends, family gathered around a Christmas tree with presents and gifts and laughter? [01:16] Would it be some things of success and and and victory and achievements that you're proud of throughout this year? Is it your backyard pool that you're looking forward to jumping into? A place or that summer holiday that's just a few days away? Would this photo frame be filled with images of color, warmth, [01:40] and things that make you smile? For others of us here tonight, this frame might be filled with tears."), Document(metadata={'source': "01:54"}, page_content="There'd be empty spots, missing pieces, missing places, and missing people, Muted colors, missed opportunities, [02:00] and long lost hopes. What is it that's in your heart tonight? What would fill this frame if you could do it? [02:14] Because the images that fill this frame, they matter. They're sacred. They're deeply personal. They they're powerful pictures of the things that you are carrying with you in your life today. They can be hard to articulate, but they matter infinitely. [02:32] They will influence the very course of your life, your outlook on the world, your thoughts about other people,"), Document(metadata={'source': "02:44"}, page_content="your thoughts about yourself, and your understanding and connection with God. [02:47] Because he is invested in the contents of this photo frame. He is invested in the things that you are passionate about. [03:02] He is passionate about the color and the content and the thoughts and the feelings that you carry in your heart tonight. God is into your stuff. He is invested into the very things that matter [03:20] to you, the tangle and the mix of pictures, images, and colors that would fill this frame tonight. Mary's song that we just read, the scripture that Anita read for us is an articulation of Christmas. All of the wonder and the joy and the the the the things that we celebrate is captured [03:38]"), Document(metadata={'source': "03:44"}, page_content="in Mary's song. And it's also an articulation of the stuff that's in her heart. The things that she's carrying in this moment of her life, holding close to her heart as she's learning about the news that she's carrying a baby that would be God's son. [04:00] And in this moment of pure joy, the contents of her heart spill out into song, and we read them under the title of Mary's song. Things start bubbling away from inside of her. The things that have been unseen, she now starts to declare and make them seen so that we are all brought in to the story. Like a photo frame being filled with the contents of her heart, we see [04:26] the things that she's carrying. And as she speaks of God's great works, his faithfulness to his promises, his mercy to all who seek him. She speaks of his love and protection for the poor and his deep and unending ways of justice in this world. And then in the middle of it all, she she speaks in verse 52 of a profound and powerful image. She says that God has brought down the rulers from their thrones, [04:57] but he has lifted up the humble."), Document(metadata={'source': "05:05"}, page_content="God has brought down the rulers from their thrones, and he has lifted up the humble. [05:11] God has reduced those who are powerful and mighty, successful in this world, and instead, he is doing a work [05:23] of lifting up those with a humble heart. It's a very Christmassy kind of thing to say, isn't it? That the powerful will be reduced, then the humble will be lifted up. We've probably gotten used to this kind of phrasing at Christmas. We speak about peace and hope and joy and goodwill to all people, and we get used to it when we think about Jesus. This baby born and placed in a manger who grows up and says things like, if you wanna be the greatest, [05:52] you you need to become the least. It's the first who will be last and the last who will be first. And then Jesus himself says, I have not come into this world to be served but"), Document(metadata={'source': "06:07"}, page_content="to serve. And Jesus articulates [06:10] and speaks all of these ideas that we might describe as an upside down kingdom. To the ways of the world that we become used to, that we understand and we know and we live within Jesus speaks in a way that tips it all upside down. Things like rulers will be reduced, and the humble will be lifted up. Things where the king is the one who does the serving, and things where the first become last and last become first. Their articulation of the inverse ways of god, the upside down kingdom [06:44] that we know so much about when we read stories of Jesus. But you see for Mary, as she speaks these words, that's all yet to come. She knows nothing of this kingdom that Jesus will come and articulate and describe. She knows nothing [07:03] of the stories that Jesus will live out. She simply has the contents of her heart, the things that are bubbling deep inside of her, and she sings out the things that are on her heart. And in doing so, Mary becomes the first person in the gospel of Luke [07:23]"), Document(metadata={'source': "07:28"}, page_content="to describe the upside down kingdom that we will see throughout the rest of the story. Mary is the first one to describe what this kingdom looks like, rulers being reduced and the humbled being lifted up. And what Mary describes as she searches her heart, as she reflects on her humble state, [07:44] and the power and glory and majesty of God coming to her, a poor peasant farmer's girl, is that god does his business with those who are humble. [08:03] God's ways are the ways of humility. Let me tell you a story. A long, long time ago, in a town, there was two schools set up, one in the East and one in the West to serve the families of this town. And these two schools are very similar. There wasn't much that separated them. The town the school in the East was set up on the banks of the river that ran through the town, and the school in the West was set up on the side of a kinda a raised small hill. [08:22] The school served the the families in the town, and over time, the property"), Document(metadata={'source': "08:43"}, page_content="that was waterfront facing next to the river became quite sought after. A whole lot of wealthy people began to buy up the waterfront homes next to the river and send their children to the school in the East. They were quite wealthy, and they became quite connected [08:56] with the mayor and the local government. And they started asking the mayor for more funding for their school. The mayor obliged. He was wined and dined. So what's an extra couple of $100 to the to the local school as some, payback for the treatment he was receiving? Well, the school pretty quickly got some better academic results. So the mayor sent some more money their way, and their academics results improved even more. [09:20] And so more and more, these wealthy connected families were lobbying the mayor for more and more money to be directed to their school. Eventually, there was only so much money allocated for education in the town, And so the mayor started redirecting money from the school in the West to the school in the East, taking money that was there for those students in the West and redirecting it to the students in the East. They got better facilities. They got greater, [09:51] teaching support, better classrooms, and their academic grades went through the roof. Their sporting achievements flourished."), Document(metadata={'source': "10:01"}, page_content="All about this school was amazing. Their facilities would blow your mind, and this happened year after year, decade after decade, until after thirty years, the difference between the two schools was stark. The school on the banks of the river was flourishing. It was sought after. It was impeccable in every way. [10:15] The school in the West was characterized by cracked and moldy classrooms, broken down air conditioners, delayed spending on resources for learning, [10:34] bullying in the playgrounds, teachers leaving, and terrible study scores. But even more concerning than that was the state of the community around the schools. In the East, they were flourishing. [10:49] In the West, their suburbs were defined by crime, brokenness, and despair as generations went without proper education. In the East and West of the town, they didn't mix. [11:02]"), Document(metadata={'source': "11:05"}, page_content="They kept to their own quarters Until eventually, one day, it rained and rained. The banks of the river broke, and a flood swept through the town, destroying everything, mud, silt, and debris destroying people's homes, their sporting clubs, the community centers, factories, and shops that they lived in. Everybody was affected, and the two schools were affected as well. The school in the East was utterly destroyed, completely uninhabitable. They had to demolish it, knock it down, start all over again. It was it was destroyed so badly [11:35] as it sat on the banks of the river. School in the West was impacted, but not quite so bad. It was on some slightly higher ground. Its classrooms were still quite poor. They were damaged, but they remained useful. A town meeting was called to work out how we could rebuild the town. And tensions were high in this meeting. There was a lot of finger pointing, blaming, a lot of anger towards the mayor who had misused funds and could have spent them on protecting the town from flood but had spent them elsewhere. And when the topic of education came up, anger reached fever pitch [12:12] in the room. The mayor's idea was that students from the school in the East would be put on buses and bussed across town to the school in the West. That was their only option. The only way that everybody could receive education was to place them in in the West the school in the West and overcrowd the already stretched classrooms there. Well, the parents in the West were outraged. After years of underfunding, after years of neglect, after years of having things taken from them and given to the school in the East, they were now gonna have to wear the penalty for the misuse of funds over there. They were gonna have to suffer [12:41] so that the students over there could get their education. The the parents of the students in the East, they were equally frustrated."), Document(metadata={'source': "13:02"}, page_content="They were concerned about the future of their town. Their future was at stake. And so they proposed a plan of priority of access. Those with the best study scores should be the ones who can go to school. Those who don't have great study scores, well, they could go and do something else. The future of our town depends on the education of our best and brightest children. [13:21] But with these ideas in the room, anger grew all the more. There was name calling. There was finger pointing. Intentions were rising higher and higher as parents started to go at each other until eventually a teacher from the school in the West approached the microphone. Her name was missus Brown. Missus Brown was known across the town. She'd given her whole life to teaching school in the West. She'd been given opportunity after opportunity to move schools to the school in the East, and she declined every time. She stayed to serve and care for her community. [13:52] She came up to the microphone. She waited for the room to settle and fall silent, and then she began to speak. I've given the last thirty five years of my life, she said, to teaching the students of the school in the West. Over that time, I've seen our funding cut and given to the school in the East again and again. This has impacted our students. It's taken away their opportunities. It's robbed their futures, [14:26] and it's made my career at times almost unbearable. Almost certainly, the suggestion made tonight by the mayor will further stretch our resources, impact our programs, and make my work as a teacher of this school even more difficult. She paused, and then she continued."), Document(metadata={'source': "14:51"}, page_content="We know firsthand the experience of losing the very things that are needed to give our children the best chance of success in life. [14:53] Because we know this kind of loss firsthand, we must never be the ones to take away any opportunity for the future from someone else's child. And with that, missus Brown quietly sat down, and the room fell silent. [15:18] Gradually, one by one, parents stood up and started proposing solutions to the issues and problems that they were facing. Gradually, they started working together on how they could manage the overcrowded classrooms and stretched resources, and people offered to chip in here and chip in there. And by the end of the meeting, there was a sense of hope. There was collaboration that the town was going to work together to rebuild and see what they could achieve as a town. A week later on the first day of school, hundreds of students got on buses in the East. They traveled across their grief stricken town and went into the broken down classrooms of the school in the West. They filled the classroom. [16:03] They almost overflowed out of the classroom. They shared resources. They learned new names of their fellow classmates. And, gradually, friendships emerged. Students who had never spoken before began to connect in new ways. And over the three years that followed, while the school in the East was being rebuilt, study scores increased remarkably. [16:26]"), Document(metadata={'source': "16:29"}, page_content='Both sets of students flourished. Lifelong friendships were made, and as these children became adults and became influential in their town, the old divisions of East and West fell away, and they became one town of equal standing. They allocated funding differently, and families from all walks of life were given opportunities to flourish. When they opened the school in the East, eventually, they put a plaque on the wall. [16:55] And the plaque read, in the year we lost so much, we found that we had much to give. You see, it takes humility [17:10] to forgive. It takes humility to turn aside from a history of injustice, of harm, [17:23] of betrayals in life.'), Document(metadata={'source': "17:28"}, page_content="It takes humility to turn away from these things and instead fix your gaze on a hope of a better tomorrow. And the ways of God are that of humility. [17:40] He chooses not only to turn his eyes away from the injustices, the betrayal, and the wrongs that we have brought into the world, but he goes even further, and he takes these injustices, these wrongs, and these betrayals, and he puts them on himself to his own great cost so that we might be the receivers of redemption, [18:03] reconciliation, and hope for our tomorrow. Friends, he doesn't punish you for the pain in your life. He takes that pain on himself. And the undercurrent of this work, the foundation stone that enables it [18:19] is an attitude, a heart of humility. And we see this. We know this. It's portrayed in the most powerful way in the Christmas story,"), Document(metadata={'source': "18:35"}, page_content="that the creator god, the god of all power, majesty, strength, and glory, that he humbles himself to take on human form to be like us. But then to go beyond that, not just to be like us, but to be the least [18:39] of us, to take on the form of a baby born into rags and placed in an animal trough. This is a stark and powerful image, a portrayal of the very heart, the very nature of God himself, the upside down kingdom being embodied and lived out by the king [19:08] himself. Friend, if you ever wonder what God is like, if you find yourself wondering what is he like, who is he, what would he say to me, then look no further than the Christmas story. It tells us everything we need to know about what God is like, about who God is. It's humility that defines him, humility that undoes the injustices of this world, and humility that enables hope instead [19:33] to take a foothold. God is after those with a humble heart, those who embody and take after his very nature. What are the things that fill your hearts [19:55]"), Document(metadata={'source': "19:59"}, page_content="tonight? What are the things that you're carrying with you? You see, the good news is that you can control. You can influence the contents of your heart. This is the one thing that you can influence. God is after the thing that is in your control. He's not after the things outside of your control. [20:15] He's not after the things of power and and success, of wealth, or anything like that that you can't control yourself. He's after the thing that you can control, the contents of your heart. Because here, with our own heart, there is no priority. There is no favor. There is no privilege or head start, but each of us has access to our own heart in equal [20:41] measure. This is great news because the thing you can influence, the thing you can control is the only thing he really cares about and is the thing that he is searching through in your life. Humility bursts out of the heart of Mary. [20:59] She sings with joy about the ways of God and how they align in with her humble state."), Document(metadata={'source': "21:12"}, page_content='Humility is what leads missus Brown in our story to offer forgiveness and grace and a hope for a better future. And humility is what defines the image of a king born into rags, placed in a manger full of animals in a poor, distant, and impoverished [21:27] town. But the problem is that for any of us who have, for any of us who succeed, who who have any degree of wealth, power, or control at any level, to any of us who will sit down to a full plate of food over the days to come, [21:41] The problem we face is that the more we have, the more humility can be pushed out of our hearts. Because the more that we have, the more we believe that we earned it. We deserve it. We found it ourselves, [22:06] and then the more we try to hold on to it, to protect it, to not lose it. And in doing so, we become self sufficient, self reliant, self focused, and the contents of our heart'), Document(metadata={'source': "22:21"}, page_content="is built around images and ideas and stories that's about us. The self reliant [22:27] is a world built on yourself. Our stories and images, the things that we carry in our heart, they're all about us. We become the center of the universe, and those who we love most are the ones who sit just on the rim of that, center of the universe. And here, humility cannot gain a foothold. Humility is squeezed out amongst the self sufficient, [22:55] self reliant, and self focused because here's the thing. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. Humility is thinking of yourself less. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. I'm so bad. I'm so terrible. I'm not good enough. I'm not this. I'm not that. That's not humility. [23:08] Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. And so if you're the center of the universe, it's very hard to think of yourself less. You see, if we're gonna take on the ways of Jesus, things like mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness, and peace, we first [23:31]"), Document(metadata={'source': "23:38"}, page_content="need to start with a humble heart, a heart that is weighted towards service and love and care for others, one willing to admit our own weakness and respond with a humble acceptance of God's love [23:55] and his approach towards us. Because this child born and placed in a bed of straw, it's not acute sounding fairy tale. [24:08] It's a true story. It's a profound and powerful story of truth. This baby is God's true gift, a gift so powerful, so transformative, [24:25] so amazing. He is a gift given to turn the world upside down,"), Document(metadata={'source': "24:32"}, page_content="given so that the world might be restored, that the world might be set right, given so that people like you and me could experience forgiveness and being set free, [24:43] living with hope. This is why he has come. It's only in humility. It's only through humility that he has come to us. [24:57] So, friend, let me ask you one last time. What is it that's in your heart? What is it that you're carrying with you tonight? If this photo frame could be filled with the images, the pictures, the stories, the words that matter most to you, [25:16] what would it look like? What stories would this frame tell? The Christmas story"), Document(metadata={'source': "25:30"}, page_content='is an invitation to let humility be the filter, [25:32] the lens that covers everything in this frame, that redefines, reshapes, remodels, recolors [25:44] every experience, everything that you carry in your hearts, that you and I would be a people marked [25:53] by humility just as Jesus embodies and lives out for us. So, friend, my gift, my prayer, my hope for you is that humility would reign in your life. [26:06]'), Document(metadata={'source': "26:11"}, page_content="My hope for you and for everyone around you is that humility would take hold of the contents of your heart. Just as it brought overwhelming joy to Mary, would humility redefine the unexpected, the hardships, [26:27] and the challenges that will come in your life? And just as humility brought brought God into the arms of a human mother, would humility humility bring you into the outstretched arms of God? [26:43] Because that's all he's ever wanted, for you to know his embrace and to live in his ways. Let's pray together. Gracious God, we thank you that you are near, [26:57] close, and that you love everyone,"), Document(metadata={'source': "27:08"}, page_content="with everyone who is here tonight, who's watching online. And [27:16] you desire nothing more than for us to walk with you, to know you, to be shaped by your ways. So on this Christmas Eve night, would your humility shape us? [27:31] Would it be your humility that guides us? Would the photo frame of our hearts be filled with your character, your ways? Would the experiences [27:49] of our life be seen through the filter of humility? Lord, would we be a people who give ourselves away just as you have done for us? Would we be a people who think"), Document(metadata={'source': "28:07"}, page_content='and and and live for the sake of the other? [28:09] And as we do, will the world be turned upside down? Would your kingdom come and your will be done in profound and powerful ways? Would gifts be given to every man, woman, and child who encounters this kind of love, who is wrapped up in this kind of incredible humility. Lord, give us this gift. Unwrap it in our lives [28:37] and reveal yourself through it all. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.')], 'output_text': ''}