Amen, Lord. Grant that in the song and in the word, we would be like John the Baptist who

saw the bridegroom, beheld his glory, and was so moved with joy that he rejoiced to

say, he must increase, he must increase, and we must decrease. Make that our

gladness, I pray, in his name. Amen. You may be seated.

Before I try to define the uncommon virtue of humility, let me give three

clarifications that limit and guide my effort, number one, clarification, number one. I want

to get in step with President Rigny's direction that he set for us on January 19 when this

series began, and he explained what it meant that he wanted us to talk about uncommon

virtues. So first, he defined virtue like this, the habitual good exercises and inclinations

of the heart toward good things, and the virtue consists in the beauty of those exercises

of the heart, and then he defined uncommon virtues like this. First, they're uncommon, and

this is least important because they're rare in culture and in the church. Most important

is this. He said that they're uncommon virtues because they are rooted in what makes us

Christian. In other words, the uncommon virtues flow from union with Christ, from faith in Christ.

Therefore, no unbeliever has any uncommon virtues as Joe defined them and as I'm defining it.

They exercise common virtues, unbelievers do, but they are radically different than what we're

talking about, namely uncommon virtues because they have no roots in their union with Christ,

because they have no union with Christ. Those virtues that you see in your unbelieving friends are

shells, where the soul has been removed. Now most of you have learned in your time here, if not

before, the difference between common grace and special or saving grace. So God, by his common

grace, enables unbelievers to perform common virtues, and the New Testament even calls them at

times good. Temporal good, horizontal good, pursuing some human betterment, horizontally, not

...