Humility: Who You Are and Who You Are Not, a sermon based on Genesis 6: 11-22 and John 1: 29-42, preached on January 18, 2026

I love that choir anthem. “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night.” I’ve heard that call. I’ve answered that call. I know that the same is true for so many here in this room, but what is the call exactly? Is there a job description? I imagine Noah had several questions for God after hearing God’s call. Surely, the first was, “Now, how much is a cubit?” and the second, “How will I steer this thing?” Noah’s ark didn’t have a steering wheel. I hadn’t ever thought about that until last week when Cheryl Davenport sent me a daily devotional to this effect. The daily devotional compared our life of faith to floating in an ark with no steering wheel, for so often our call is to trust rather than to control, so Noah was called to entrust his life and the life of his family and the lives of all those animals to the will of God. Yet despite all the detailed instructions that God provided Noah in our first Scripture lesson, there is nothing in there about a steering wheel for this ark. How was Noah to steer it? My friends, he wasn’t supposed to. Neither are we. This morning, I invite you to think with me about the reality of evil in the world; the reality of violence and human brokenness. From time to time, I want so badly to do something about it. Don’t just stand there, do something, some would say. Yet Scripture doesn’t always call us to do or to steer the ship. The lesson from Noah is don’t just do something, stand there. Wait on the Lord. Expect to see the dove. It’s the same as the call from the great poet John Milton, who wrote “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Wait, watch, and listen. You can’t steer this ship, but you can live each day expecting to see a dove, and my friends, doing that is enough to join God in the work of saving the world. I titled this sermon deliberately. Most of the time, I just pick out a word from the Scripture lesson and slap it on there, but I thought about this title, and so I titled the sermon, “Humility: Who You Are and Who You Are Not.” As we answer the call of God, it’s important to understand our job description. You are mortals. We are mortals. We are not God. God is God, and we are not. You know this already, but it’s hard when we live in a world much like the one that Noah lived in. We read in our first Scripture lesson: Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have decided to do something about it.” Your job, Noah, is to build an ark, while My job is to rebuild creation. Notice with me that God didn’t assign Noah the job of fixing everything. Neither did God ask Noah for his opinion. God didn’t say, “Now, what do you think I should do about all this?” Instead, God told Noah to build an ark with no steering wheel and told him to watch as the rain came. To watch as heavens were opened. To watch as for forty days and forty nights, the waters rose so that the ark was lifted above the land, pushed to and fro by the will of the wind and the force of the current. Noah’s job was to build an ark and then to wait and to watch for a sign. You remember all that from Sunday school. Noah opened the window of the ark and sent out a dove, and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so, Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. That was how Noah fulfilled his job description. Nowhere on that job description was the assignment to fix the earth. That’s God’s job, faithful people, but have you been spending your time waiting and watching, which is within our job description, or anxiously trying to do God’s job? I knew a woman named Martha who lived in Tennessee. In her retirement, she took a trip to Rome, and because she was a woman full of opinions who loved to tell other people what to do and how to do it, when she returned from Rome, a man said to Martha, “While you were there, I hope you got the Pope straightened out.” My friends, that’s not our job, but if it’s not our job to fix everything, then what is? Speaking of jobs, I was so impressed with Cassie’s sermon last Sunday. She was right. It is a weird thing to let people know at a dinner party that I’m a pastor. It’s weird. People start to act weird. Once at a wedding that was running low on wine, someone asked if I could do anything with the water that was available. Sometimes, people will ask me if I can do anything about the weather. They’ll say, “Pastor, it’s supposed to rain on the day of the church picnic. Can you talk to Him about that?” My wife, Sara, will tell you that it rained on our college graduation and our wedding day. I don’t have any influence when it comes to the weather. Still, I get that when people find out that I’m a pastor, and once people know that I’m a pastor, they get embarrassed and wonder if they’ve said any bad words. I have heard cuss words before. I don’t mind being around people who drink beer, and I’m glad to listen to anyone who needs to make a confession, no matter the time or the place, so while it’s weird to tell people I’m a pastor at parties, I’m glad to do it, and last week, I heard that there’s a worse thing to say than “I’m a pastor” when someone asks, “What do you do for a living?” and that’s, “I’m retired.” It’s weird to say “I’m retired” at a party. People don’t know what to ask after that. It can feel weird to the person who says it, especially if he’s from the generation that was encouraged to make their jobs their lives. If you worked for 80 hours a week your entire life, then what are you to talk about at a dinner party once you’re 65 and retired? “I’ve been playing a lot of pickleball.” Saying that you’re retired can make you feel invisible. Irrelevant. Yet that’s exactly what happens to John once he points out Jesus. Once John the Baptist says, “Here is the lamb who takes away the sins of the world,” John’s disciples started following Jesus. That’s what happens in our second Scripture lesson. There’s no more for him to do. There’s no one else for him to baptize. Think about it. After this moment, John doesn’t have anything else to do. Scripture tells us that he soon enough met his end through execution, which may have been merciful considering how hard it is to take a back seat after you’ve been driving for so long. My friends, this is a sermon about humility: knowing who you are and who you are not. We all know that God is God and we are not, yet we may also feel irrelevant sitting and watching and waiting for God to fix the world, so it can be a great temptation to get started without Him, but think about what happens to us when we do. There’s a great story I read last week about a seminary professor named Roger Nishioka. I think he came to preach up here a few times. He was famous for preaching all over the place. So often was he asked to go and preach and so often did he accept the invitation that at some point, a colleague took him out to lunch. You see, Roger Nishioka loves the church. He loves the Presbyterian Church, and, wanting to go and help and speak to and encourage as many congregations as possible, he was teaching Monday through Friday then traveling every weakened, and so this colleague asked him out to lunch. He said, “but I’m so busy.” She said, “but it’s urgent.” When they sat down at the table, he asked her what was going on, and she said, “I have some good news.” “What’s that?” She smiled and said, “I want you to know the Messiah has come, and you are not Him.” Looking for the Messiah can feel like so little and yet, if we try to do His work for Him, we exhaust ourselves. Some even make things worse. If you need an example of one who makes problems worse by over functioning, just look in the mirror. Have you ever functioned beyond your job description? How did that work out for you? When you tried to fix someone else’s problems, did it work? When you tried to save someone who didn’t want to be saved, did it work? My friends, we live in a broken world full of broken people, and we are called to be salt and light, but we lose our saltiness when we become discouraged, and we stop reflecting the light of God when we become unscrewed. The great bishop of South Africa, Desmund Tutu, who ministered during Apartheid while assassination attempts were a persistent reality, is famous for saying, “Our primary vocation is to be like a light bulb. It is to shine His light in a dark world, and the only way for us to do that is for us to stay screwed into the source.” If you stay screwed into the light source, if you take the time every day to regain your hope, if you live expecting joy to walk down the sidewalk towards you, then someone will ask you to testify to the hope that is within you. They just will, but if the darkness overwhelms you, then you’ll end up just like everyone else. My friends, when we open the windows of the ark to wait on the dove or walk through our neighborhoods expecting to see the Savior, more good is done through us than we could ever do on our own. When we walk with our heads held high, noticing beauty around us. When we dare to compliment the outfit of the person walking our way. When we get our heads out of our cell phone screens to thank our waiter for working so hard. When we notice the sweat on the brow of the ones who are cutting our grass, or the care our neighbor takes in planting flowers in her front yard, spirts are lifted. Lives are changed. My friends, I’m embarrassed to tell you how often I feel discouraged. I’m embarrassed to tell you how often I feel overcome by the brokenness of our world, yet when I take notice of His miracles, when I celebrate all that is good, when I walk down to the Square and speak to three or four people who return my smile, my spirit lifts. One day, I walked into the Tuesday Coffee Shop, as I often do. I walked in, spoke to the guy behind the register. I asked him how he was. He said, “Are you a pastor?” I looked at him, wondering why he’d ask, and said, “Yes.” Then he looked at the other worker behind the counter and said, “I told you he was. He’s way too happy to be just a normal person.” Now that doesn’t happen every day, but when it does, it makes me realize that my witness as a Christian is the strongest when I take the time to notice the miracles. Notice beauty. Notice people. Notice kindness, for God is at work in the world, and you are not Him. Remember who you are and who you are not, for He, not you, is coming to take away the sins of the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.