If your attitude is not right, I don't
think you can fix anything else! Everything else in your life depends upon
attitude: Your participation in worship; Your responsibility to your spouse
and children; Dealing with people; Handling temptation; Enduring suffering;
Being properly related to other Christians. If your attitude is not right,
you cannot effectively handle, or deal with or fix anything else. It is as
Solomon wrote in Prov. 4:23, "Keep your heart with
all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."
If we will develop good focus and clarity
about attitude, that will put us in position to properly approach every
other aspect of practical life. Just look at the words and phrases packed
into this little paragraph: love, affection, mercy, and joy and then,
consolation in Christ; comfort of love; lowliness of mind. Further, observe
what is forbidden: selfish ambition and conceit.
This is about attitude, and this attitude
of unselfish humility is essential in order to please God, follow Christ,
have personal peace of mind, and to live in harmony with others.
We cannot be united with each other until
we are first united with Christ. Our relationship with God through Christ is
the basis of our good relationship with each other. And when we address the
subject of unity, we need to be sure we work from the right place, and the
right place is in Christ. If I'm living in Him, and you are living in the
same place, we will be able to be united in attitude.
"Let nothing be done through selfish
ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better
than himself."
Earlier in Philippians, reference is made
to preachers who may deliver the right message but their motives are wrong.
Back in 1:16,
there is the reference to preaching
Christ from selfish ambition. Teaching from this text I recently said: For a
man to think about elevating himself above another is never a right thought!
I said -- For a preacher to worry about why some other preacher has more
attention, or more praise or acclaim?
There is never a time when that kind of
thinking is justified.
Now, here in
Phil. 2:3,
we are back to that and it is exceedingly
important for every one of us to get this. "Selfish ambition or conceit"
just has no good place in our attitude.
Never a time...
Never a place...
Never a circumstance...
No occasion ever, when we should be driven
by selfish ambition or conceit.
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain
conceit...."
"Nothing!" Just forget it! These immature,
selfish attitudes can never be justified.
And I think we all realize, where there is
selfish ambition and conceit, people don't get along and the Lord's work is
not done. Isn't that right? You show me a group of people where there are
power plays . . . battles for personal prestige . . . rivalry . . . desire
for recognition -- it is ugly; there is discord, division, and tension
people can see and feel. Selfish ambition kills churches, dishonors the
cause, makes people sick, and offends God.
So let's make up our mind, we will have no
part in it! I need to make a specific choice. You need to make a specific
choice that you will not have a parade in your own honor and that you will
not exalt yourself and look down on others. You will not praise yourself,
boast, or act in any conceited way. We need to learn what good attitudes are
in keeping with the gospel of Christ, then evaluate ourselves, review that
teaching, and determine personally: we will do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit.
See more about this in
Jas. 3:13-18; Eph.
4:1-3; 1 Cor. 3:1-3 and Matt. 18:1-5.
"...in humility, consider others better
than yourselves"
(Phil. 2:3b).
Now let's be honest, sometimes we come to a
passage in the Bible like this, and our first thought may be, "That doesn't
really mean that! That has to be an exaggeration. There must be some
interpretation, figure of speech, literary form, something!" Honestly,
sometimes we seem to want to unload the Word, taking the power away.
While there is such a thing as hyperbole,
I'm convinced -- in this context -- looking now at the last phrase in
verse 3
in
Philippians 2,
we need to let this stand, and be challenged by it: "...consider others
better than yourselves."
If we try to take something off of this or
minimize it through some sophisticated explanation, I think we're going to
wind up putting ourselves above others, and arranging ourselves above others
will take us away from everything this passage says about genuine humility.
Add
verse 4
for further explanation: "Each of you
should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of
others." Our selfishness may not be well concealed. We talk about ourselves
. . . We get upset when people don't pay attention to us . . . We expect
people to treat us in a certain way, and we are almost defensive before we
meet people -- wondering if they will give us the attention we believe we
need. We may have our greatest interests directed to what people can do for
us, rather than what we can do for them.
Self-centered preoccupation is just not
very graceful.
Our good brother, Walton Weaver, helps us
with this in his commentary: "But Paul says the Christian must esteem others
better than themselves, not merely view them as equals. This is to be done,
not because it is the natural thing to do, but because as Christians we are
commanded to do it. Jesus in his example showed it is the proper thing to
do, and he taught that it is the mark of true greatness ... It was for this
reason that the apostles commanded it. True unity among brethren is
impossible without humility on the part of each Christian" (p. #77, Truth
Commentaries, Philippians, by Walton Weaver.).
