A Good Word 9.21.21
Humility Matters for the Way that we Think
Rev. Stuart Mizelle, Pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Sumter South Carolina. This sermon was originally delivered on June 21, 2021.
Stuart Mizelle leads a church in a small town you probably have never heard of in South Carolina. He is a faithful pastor and a faithful presbyter. This sermon was a part of a longer series on the significance of Humility in the Christian life. The sermon begins with his reflection on his upcoming sabbatical. In the announcement, you can hear his pastoral heart bleed through.
Then as he started the sermon, I have to say, I was completely hooked. The 3 illustrations that opened the sermon compelled me to keep listening. They showed cleanly and forcefully where the sermon was going. They exposed in a real way our need for humility.
I was struck by how in a sermon on humility Pastor Mizelle showed the very humility he was talking about. Using his own failures to illustrate the way pride works. In addition, he took difficult concepts like cognitive bias and made it understandable to anyone listening.
This sermon is an excellent example of pacing as well. Stuart never seems hurried or rushed. He repeats key ideas to make sure they sink in. This sermon does a great job gathering up the thread of humility from the proverbs, taking time to be expositional in the midst of a sermon that is on a specific topic. The exegesis is at its best when he shows all the ways of the fool, then landing the punch that it is better for a fool than for those who are wise in their own eyes.
Justin Woodall
A Good Word is a weekly feature of Semper Ref. We believe what we all need more than good articles is the word of God preached to our hearts. Those of us in ministry particularly need to be regularly hear the word preached by people other than ourselves. Beyond sharing good, Christ-centered messages that embody the ethos of Semper Ref a particular goal of this feature is to give exposure to the ministry of ordinary pastors pursuing faithful Ministry of the Word. For that reason, while we will occasionally share sermons from more well-known individuals, most of the messages in this series will be a good word from a pastor you’ve likely never heard of.