"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 (5th 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.
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