Philippians 2:3-4 Who Comes First?

Philippians 2:3-4

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." (NIV)



From Just Turn It Around:¹

Hook: You’re right, Wendy. I shouldn’t have taken them. But I was so desperate. We’ve never won a soccer game. My team’s been completely demoralized for years, simply years!

Wendy: Wow! I never thought about it that way. Winning was so much fun.

Hook: But every time you won, we lost! Where there’s a winner, there’s also a loser.

Wendy: (pauses and looks like she’s thinking) Well, how’s about we call this game a tie?

Fergus: (looking up) A tie? Really?

Tomasina: You mean, we don’t have to lose this game?

Wendy: Absolutely not! We can all be winners! 

School’s started again (students begin next week) and the conversations about how to recognize effort are again starting. It’s the same most years and I don’t mind the conversations repeating because I think that recognizing effort is important, particularly for children who are immersed in activities they’d rather not be doing. (I mean, for most kids, sitting and learning just isn’t that fun.) The most recent discussion was about recognizing those students who were able to reach their reading goals in one year. (They are all invited to go to a movie.) I couldn’t help but thinking about the students I teach, the students receiving special education services, who rarely get A’s; who, when compared to their peers, will probably never have strong academic success. For my students, learning to functionally read (5^th grade level) is a huge success. Most will never take honors classes in high school or go to Stanford. (And most will not be invited to go to the movie.) But they can look forward to becoming great spouses, great parents, and successful adults, given the chance.

Unfortunately, before they can reach adulthood, they have to navigate years of being "told" that they will never be quite as good as some of their peers. They have to sit through classes where they won’t have the answers, assignments where they won’t understand what’s being required, and tests where they will fail. Meanwhile, there are students (and, growing up, I was probably one of them) for whom school is easy. Students who learned early how to read (and read well) and figured out how to navigate teachers and classes and assignments in order to get high grades. Students who, truthfully, aren’t working nearly as hard, but are having far greater success. And that success doesn’t measuring drive or determination or effort. It measures ability, something we are born with. From the earliest days of kindergarten, kids know who was born to easily succeed in school . . . and who wasn’t. And if you’re one of the "wasn’t’s", it can be, frankly, demoralizing. Like Hook, in the play, losing becomes a constant of life and life then simply isn’t palatable anymore.

As believers, we have the responsibility to try to even the playing field as much as possible. You see, Christ—by His death on the cross—evened the playing field for us. By taking our place and paying the price for our sins, Christ made it possible for us to live eternally with God. Without His sacrifice, we would be spending eternity in hell. We don’t deserve heaven, but Christ made it happen. He asks us to do the same for others.

(1) Christians are to look to the interests and needs of others.

(2) Christians are to live sacrificially.

(3) Christians are to take a back seat so that others can be first.

Christians are to look to the interests and needs others.

Those of us in America live in a society founded on competition and winning. We love sports and contests of all sorts. Frequently we will even see another believer—a sports figure, a beauty queen, a candidate—standing up and "giving glory to God" for the fact that they won. Yes, they won . . . and someone else (or many someone else’s) lost! Winning requires losers. So while we, as Christians, brag about our win, there are others who are demoralized because they didn’t win. There are losers trying to invisibly creep out the door because they are devastated that they didn’t get the trophy, the crown, the acknowledgment of their efforts.

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:3-8 NIV)

In your relationships with one another . . . humble yourselves, become servants, be like Jesus. Christ didn’t use His abilities to lord over us, though as God He had the right! Rather He became a servant in order to serve us. He asks us to look to the needs and interests of those around us. He asks us to live as He lived.

Christians are to live sacrificially
"But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back." (Luke 6:27-30 NIV)

It’s one thing to compete against someone else. It’s perhaps even easier to back away and allow them the opportunity to shine. It can be completely another thing when someone is purposefully mean to you. But Jesus is explicit in what He says. Our forgiveness should not only be swift and complete, but we should also be fully giving and compassionate. This is what Christ did for us; He expects His Holy Spirit, living in us, to continue to love the dying world in the same way:

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8 NIV)

The Lord Jesus sacrificed for us. While we were still sinners He died for us. The word for "sinner" is hamartolos (Strong’s G268) and means devoted to sin, not free from sin, pre-eminently sinful, especially wicked. Before we became Christians, we were awful! It doesn’t matter what we had done. We were horrible people in total rebellion against our Creator. We were His enemies! Christ died so that we wouldn’t have to stay that way. He asks us to do the same, to love those who are our enemies.

Christians are to take a back seat so that others can be first.

"Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’" (Matthew 20:25-28 NIV).

They say that a great leader won’t ask his followers to do anything he isn’t willing to do himself and our Lord Jesus was no exception. He simply asks us to follow Him, His path, His way if we want to be His disciples. "Whoever wants to become great . . . must be your servant." If we truly love Him, if the Holy Spirit truly lives in us, then we will live lives of service. We will step back and allow others to shine, to have the recognition, to even have their way. We will live like Jesus.

There’s a world of people out there who feel like losers. They feel unrecognized, unloved, unvalidated. This is what so many "movements" are about. Those movements aren’t about numbers (data), but rather about heartache, about misery, about sorrow, about loss. We have the opportunity—the great Commission even—to reach out into the world and minister to those people, to make them feel special, to make them feel loved. They need to know that the Lord Jesus loved them so much He died for them. If we aren’t willing even to give up our place in line, how will they understand how much they are loved?

"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’" (Matthew 25:34-40 NIV).

1 Just Turn It Around, a musical play by Robin O’Hare. © 2016. All Rights Reserved including performance rights.

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Will You Say: "Your Life Matters"?

Your life matters!

It seems, in the last week, that our nation has erupted into craziness. And, unfortunately, with the tragedies of death and violence that have occurred, it seems that the social networks have erupted with everyone’s opinion about what’s right, why things have happened, and what should happen next. People are even arguing about whose life matters or matters more!

"Your life matters. It matters to God and it matters to me." Maybe that’s what we should be shouting: "Your life matters!" Because when we start taking "sides" in this insane debate, we communicate that we need for someone to think our　life matters. They think our arguments are all about us and that we are ignoring their cries of pain, of fear, of frustration.

Oh, Church, we need to begin to think about someone other than ourselves! We need to get out of our own self-centeredness and begin to reach out to those around us, those next door to us, those standing in line behind us. We need to begin to start ministering and stop trying to change what we were never called to change.

We need God to change us so that we can become who we were meant to be. We need to stop being self-willed and learn how to submit to God and to His plan for this hurting world.

"The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed." (2 Peter 2:9-10 a NKJV)

This issue of submission, surrender, and authority goes to the very heart, both of the matter and of our hearts as believers. One might even ask if it is at all possible to truly be a believer and not understand and practice submission. There is, within scriptural teaching, these two ideas standing in opposition to each other: despising or rejecting authority and submitting to those around us.

John H. Westerhoff III, an Episcopal priest and professor at Duke Divinity, wrote in his book, Living the Faith Community: The Church that Makes a Difference:

"The typical church person living in any historic Christian denomination has been so influenced by the modern spirit of individualism and its social expression, relativism, that it is almost impossible for persons in any denomination to reach agreement on what is central and fundamental for religious or moral life. When you bring up the issue of authority, almost everyone becomes uneasy. We no longer have an authoritative tradition. We have lost our corporate moorings and, thus, communal life has been made next to impossible.

"Authority has a poor reputation with most of us; liberty is more popular. But liberty that holds authority in contempt is but a mask of self-will. The question, therefore, is not one of authority or no authority, but What is our authority? To what do we give obedience?" (p. 41)

There are three issues in this portion of Westerhoff’s book:

• To whom or what do we give obedience? To whom or what do we surrender?

• Where does judging of others fall into this paradigm?

• How important is submission in the life of the believer and how does that intersect with civil disobedience, tough love, and standing one’s ground for one’s beliefs?


To Whom Do We Submit?

Paul dealt with surrender/submission in Romans 6 when he wrote:

"For we know that our old self was crucified with Him [Christ] so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." (v. 6).

There is a very important concept hidden within this verse (and within v. 14, 16, 18), and that concept is this: People who are unsaved are slaves to sin! The Greek word is douleuo and means "1 to be a slave, serve, do service. 1a of a nation in subjection to other nations. 2 metaph. to obey, submit to. 2a in a good sense, to yield obedience. 2b in a bad sense, of those who become slaves to some base power, to yield to, give one’s self up to." (Strong’s G1398). There are some very important connotations here. First, the slavery is self-chosen; those who are unsaved have chosen by their rejection of Christ and His gift of salvation to become slaves to sin. Second, the slavery involves service. As a slave, one serves the master, doing the master’s will without recourse. The unsaved serve sin without the ability to question or turn from the sin. They are slaves and have yielded their obedience to sin, to the rejection of God, to rebellion against Him. Third, they have fully given themselves up to the sin.

So, initially there is this issue of surrendering ourselves to sin or surrendering ourselves to God. What’s interesting about Paul’s premise in Romans 6 is that there is no other option, no middle ground of any kind. We are either slaves to sin or slaves to God; we either surrender to sin or surrender to God; we either submit to sin　or submit to God. And, in Romans 2, Paul makes it clear that those who are self-seeking are those who are submitting to sin:

"For those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and following evil . . ." (v. 8 NIV).

The act of self-seeking is the act of rejecting God’s truth. The act of self-seeking is the act of refusing to submit to God’s authority, to His will. Westerhoff wrote: " liberty that holds authority in contempt is but a mask of self-will." And so that first step in obedience is submission to God’s authority, surrender to His will.

We are first to submit to God.

Because Father God knew that we could, in our self will, say that we are submitting to Him when we are actually submitting to sin, He also outlined what obedience and sin looks like.

In Galatians 5, Paul compares the "works of the flesh" (self-will/sin) and the "fruit of the Spirit" (submission to the Holy Spirit):

"The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

(Galatians 5:19-26 NIV)

Paul is explicit in stating a list of sins and ending with "and the like," meaning that the list isn’t inclusive; there are (many) other sins. But as believers, we are no longer enslaved to our "flesh," but instead are to submit ourselves as slaves to righteousness. We are to live out the fruit of the Spirit all of the time.

"Fruit" is singular, meaning that this list isn’t a list of separate characteristics, but rather is a concise description of the submitted Christian life. We can’t be loving if we aren’t good. We can’t be faithful if we’re not joyful. We can’t be gentle if we’re not self-controlled. And all of this has to do with completely submitting to God. Submission to God is first and that is what it looks like.

We are also to submit to other believers.

"Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world." (1 Peter 5:5-9 NKJV).

Peter begins this passage with an admonition to younger people to submit themselves to their elders. Now, we have to be careful with this because this isn’t permission for those of us who are older to lord over those who are younger. (Peter follows with stating that we all are to be submissive to each other.) Rather, I think this is much more about becoming life-long learners.

It’s been awhile since I was "young," but I still, in many ways, feel immature. There are so many things that I need to learn and so much that I still don’t know. And that feeling isn’t exclusive just to me. I had a very dear adopted aunt, a great saint of the Lord (and a worldwide minister), who told me in her very senior years that she was realizing how much she didn’t know about being a Christian. At the time (and I was much younger), I was astonished because I greatly admired and looked up to her as a great saint of the faith. Now that I’m approaching that age myself, I totally understand what she was saying. As we grow older, we become wiser, not in having all the answers, but in realizing how many of the answers we don’t have!

Another one of my adopted aunts was always learning. She cultivated relationships with younger people in order to learn from them and keep current. (She even bought her first computer at age 78 and diligently learned how to use it.)

That being said, there is an arrogance that seems to come with youth. For those of us who are older, we all remember when we were in our 20s and how much we thought we knew. Then as we aged, we realized how little we actually knew at that time. I think that arrogance is what Peter is talking about, admonishing young people to continue to look to their elders. If I had been more humble in my 20s and looked to my parents for guidance, there are many mistakes I think I wouldn’t have made, many consequences I wouldn’t have had to live.

But all of us can learn from each other. All of us need to have a teachable spirit, need to want to be learning, need to listen to what others have to say. We are to submit to each other, both in learning situations and in life itself:

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." (Philippians 2:1-4 NIV).

Value others above ourselves. Looking to the interests of others, rather than to our own interests. Submitting to others in the Body of Christ. Being a Christian is about serving others, not getting for ourselves.

"They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all..’" (Mark 9:33-35 NIV).

Submitting to other Christians is being a servant. And not just a servant sometimes or to some people, but the servant of all. Whoever wants to be first must be the very last. This is the will of God.

"Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God." (Ephesians 5:17-21 NKJV).

Sometimes we might ask what the will of God is for our lives. His will is to be filled with the Spirit (actively and only living out the fruit of the Spirit), worshiping Him together with others and alone, giving thanks for everything, and submitting to each other! Father God is less concerned about where we are (our circumstances) and much more concerned about who we are (our character). And our godly character begins and ends with submission: Submission to Him and then submission to those around us.

We are finally to submit to everyone around us.

"You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (Matthew 5:38-44 NKJV).

What is the Lord Jesus actually saying to us?

First, He is talking about how we relate to nonbelievers. Pon ros means evil and is particularly used to describe Satan. We know that we are commanded (1 Peter 5:5 and James 4:7) to resist the devil in the sense of not choosing to sin, so that can’t be the meaning here. When we look at the context, Jesus is obviously talking about those nonbelievers who want to either take from us or persecute us by forcing us to feel pain or sorrow. We are to love our enemies. Why? Because they are also those for whom Christ died. And in loving them, we are to do more than they asked of us. If we are asked to walk one mile, we are to walk two. If we are asked to give our tunic, we are also to give our cloak.

How might that look in our society?

I think that first we have to understand what our obligation is to the unsaved around us. Let’s look at this example that Jesus gives. Rather than trying to compel the unsaved to stopping sinning, the Lord Jesus commands us to treat them with great mercy, even to the point of seeming to walk beside them as they were in sin. Under Roman law, soldiers could compel Jews to walk one mile, carrying the soldier’s equipment. While this was legal, it was obviously immoral. It was asking a free person to work as a slave, even though temporarily. It was also asking that the free Jew ignore his legal freedom and even his own obligations while seeing to the needs (and comforts) of the oppressor.

"Well," you might say. "Isn’t that being complicit in the sin of the soldier? That Jew didn’t have any reason to become a slave, even temporarily. That soldier was being mean and demanding. If that person walked willingly, not only for one mile, but two miles, how is that not buying in to that soldier’s arrogance, narcissism, and desire for power?"

It is, actually. There is a real sense of complicity in this command, at least from one perspective. And do we sin when we come alongside a sinner who is sinning? The Lord Jesus has made it very clear that we do not sin when we submit to the needs, requests, and even demands of the unsaved around us. Rather we exhibit the finest character of God, loving them unconditionally and fully while they are still sinning: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8 NIV). In fact, the way in which we view others should be completely different once we are saved:

"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NIV).

We are:

• To regard no one from a worldly point of view.

• To not count people’s sin against them.
• To commit ourselves to the message of reconciliation through submission and unconditional love.

Notice that Paul is imploring the Christians of Corinth to be reconciled to God through their love to others. How can we minister reconciliation to others? By submitting to them, by loving them unconditionally.

As a side note, I feel compelled to address a concept that has been permeating the Church at large and that is the idea of "tough love." Even if we haven’t articulated that this is how we love those we don’t like, it is, in a very real sense often what is happening.

The term "tough love" is actually very new to American culture (originating in 1976), but has been embraced as both a parenting model and use in interventions for addictions. (On a secular note, it has been found to not be highly successful in changing behavior). Some Christians have embraced this concept as a rational for being brutally honest with those who disagree with them. In essence, I can tell you you’re wrong and I can tell you how wrong you are because I actually am loving you by doing so.

The problem that I have with this is that this model of love is used sparingly in scripture. And, in every case that it was used, the person using it (who was usually God or Jesus) had an authoritative relationship in the situation. Even the Apostle Paul, when he spoke firmly to others, had an apostolic relationship to the churches to whom he was writing. What, then, is the difference? I believe that the difference between our use of "tough love" and God’s is our willingness to actually sacrificially love.

Let’s look at what God did. His "tough love" (actually called judgment) was to say that the "wages of sin was death" (Romans 6:23) and then HE died. In other words, He was willing to take the natural consequences of our sin upon Himself because He loved us. The concept of "tough love" is to be blunt (brutal?) in telling the person what is "right" and then allowing the natural consequences of their decisions to occur. God’s concept of love is to lovingly tell us what is right and then to take the consequences of our decisions upon Himself. God submitted Himself to our decisions so that we could live with Him!

Are we willing to do that? For each other? For those around us? How can we submit more to God in order to become more like Christ? How can we submit to each other in the Church, meeting needs and pouring ourselves out for them? How can we submit to those around us who are hurting and angry and afraid?

I am becoming convinced that we need to demand less that the culture around us change to make us more comfortable and that we need to be willing to sacrifice our comforts, our schedules, our pleasures, and even our own needs in order to minister to a world that desperately needs the love of God in their lives.

Are we willing to learn to say to everyone around us: "Your life matters. It matters to God and it matters to me. What can I do to love you?"

(c) 2016 Robin L. O'Hare.  All Rights Reserved.