"Don’t
be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of
others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own
interests, but take an interest in others, too." (Philippians
2:3-4)
I struggle
with these verses. They aren't an easy thing for me to read and they
totally punch me in the stomach. Do they do the same to anyone else?
But if the NLT isn't tough enough, look at The Message translation.
It's even rougher:
"Don’t
push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top.
Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed
with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to
lend a helping hand." (Philippians 2:3-4)
People, the
struggle is real with these verses. Every time I'm on the road, I see
my wonderful self as the most important car on the road; my
destination is more important than yours. When there is only one
lonely piece of coconut bark left and one of my cherubs asks to share
it with me, I hate to admit that I say no and shove the whole thing
in my mouth more often than not. Or even better, I hide the entire
beautiful bag in my nightstand and don't even tell them it exists.
Yes, that is a more honest statement.
These are
tiny examples. Does Jesus really care if I share my coconut bark or
grumble at a car that can't hear me as they meander slowly down the
road? I want to say no here. I want to say that he doesn't care one
little rip because it just does not matter in a world where we are
killing each other, judging others for killing animals that are
hurting children, and eliminating the youngest, most vulnerable among
us because they are a huge inconvenience (abortion).
But the
small things matter. Each one of those tiny moments where you push
your way ahead and try to be more important? They add up to lots of
moments. They add up to a characteristic of who you are, not just one
little poor choice that you made in the moment. It's like the giant
glass orbs that hold all the little gem points that each house earns
in the Harry Potter movies. One little gem doesn't matter much. But
add lots and lots of them and before you know it, you're winning the
house cup. The great hall is all decked out in gold and red (because,
come on, in this imaginary strangeness, we are clearly all
Gryffindors).
And you know
what that characteristic is, right? It makes me shudder to even say
it here, but that nasty characteristic that I'm displaying when I
want to get past that slow car, when I think I'm more important than
anyone else? It's pride. And the Bible very clearly says that God
hates pride. Here are some verses about it:
"The
eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought
low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day." (Isaiah 2:11)
"In his
pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no
room for God." (Psalms 10:4)
"Pride
goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
(Proverbs 16:18)
"A
man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor."
(Proverbs 29:23)
So, if I'm
honest, I would rather embrace this issue as a selfishness issue.
That sounds better to me for some reason. I guess I see it as more of
a choice on my part to stop being selfish than to stop being
prideful. Pride sounds terrible. It sounds like this permanent part
of me while selfishness still sounds like there is hope for my
pathetically selfish self. Is it just me? Yes? Okay then, let's keep
going...
So what do
we do instead?
Let's see
what the Bible says next in Philippians 2:
"Think
of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal
status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to
cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all.
When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on
the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed
human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim
special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and
then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at
that—a crucifixion." (Philippians 2:5-8)
Let's make
sure we've got this straight. Jesus had equal status to God. They
were one in the same even while Jesus was here on earth. And instead
of choosing to be full of pride over that, Christ chose the opposite.
He chose humility! He chose to stay human and to serve everyone
around him even though they really should have been serving him. He
demonstrated perfect humility to everyone who knew him in its
absolute purest form.
So, if we
want to defeat our selfish, prideful selves and be more like Jesus on
this one, we need to choose humility too. We need to look at Jesus'
example for us, study it, embrace it, pray over it, and take it on as
our own. Keeping with this theme, I have this acronym that I learned
from my son a few years ago when we got home from vacation. It's JOY.
JOY stands for Jesus, Others, Yourself. It's the order that we should
be doing things. So we should be serving Jesus first, then Others,
then Ourselves. This is the key to living humbly rather than
embracing pride.
I heard this
sermon once that also applies here. I can't remember for sure who was
speaking but they were speaking about this idea at the time. The
speaker said that he strives to remind himself that others are more
important than he is. He goes so far as to think to himself, "Go
ahead. You are more important than me." He said it was a great
way to remind him to stay humble. Sometimes I think of it when I'm
out in the world.
Here are the
first steps that I think we need to take if we want to get on track
with this. Pray. A lot. Pray to God, tell him what's going on, tell
him about your struggles, ask him to guide you and lead you in the
right direction. Ask him to reveal it to you when pride is inching
its way into your life. When you feel that pride seeping in, stop
what you're doing and acknowledge it. Tell God you're sorry and start
over again. Will we get better over night? No. But stick close to
God, study his word, talk to him constantly, and I think we can
become more and more like him, the humble servant. Focusing on God
rather than ourselves is the first and most important step.
Let's pray.
God, thank
you for knitting us together so wonderfully. Thank you for being here
in the midst of our struggles and failures, for your unending
patience and grace. I ask you today to come alongside each one of us
and show us our prideful selves. Help us to see it so that we can
change it with your help. And help us to see ourselves the way that
you see us. Loved no matter what. We love you, Lord.
Amen.
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