Jesus demonstrated His humility by being baptised. He was identifying with sinners. When we go under the water in baptism, our sins are symbolically washed away but Jesus had no sins of His own to be washed.
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptised by him.
And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptised by You, and are You coming to me?”
But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him. Mt 3:13–15 NKJV
When we go under the water in baptism, we are symbolically burying our old life of sin and our sinful nature and rising again with Christ to the new heavenly resurrection life. But Jesus had no old sinful life and no sinful nature to bury. Jesus became one with us in His humble birth, His humble childhood, His humble social status, His humble occupation and His humble baptism.
If I am humble like Jesus, I will identify with people who might be considered beneath me in social standing, education, age, wealth or position in the church. I will not try to elevate myself above the poor, the mentally ill, the ignorant or uneducated people around me.
If I have more intelligence, education, wealth, rank, power, social standing or any other advantage, I will use that to bless people apparently beneath me, not to make me feel superior or separated from others.
In Hebrews we read that the Old Testament priests had to sacrifice first for their own sins and then for the sins of the congregation. So many preachers subtly behave as if this spiritual truth did not apply to them.
A preacher who gives the impression of living in superhuman victory above the level of his weaker church members can pay a great price for his subtle deception.
The people can form such a vivid mental picture of their leader as a supernaturally superior person, that all exhortations to pray for their leader do not penetrate their heart. Somehow they do not believe in their heart that this great man of God could really be so weak and vulnerable as to urgently need prayer support.
When a preacher plays at being Moses and then he falls, the people get a great shock but sometimes the gifted preacher brought it on himself. When he tried to persuade people of his great need for prayer support, it contradicted the image he created at the same time of being a virtually infallible man of God to whom everybody owed a debt of constant submission and even in some cases of lifelong allegiance.
The overexposed leader, inadequately supported by prayer, suddenly falls into personal sin or does something else equally mad, damaging to himself and his people. He reaps what he sowed.
Some preachers always talk about their achievements and never about their mistakes. This is a serious mistake.
