Me, Myself, & I
We have a divided nation right now. America looks like it is coming apart at the seams. Unfortunately the church is reflecting too much of the nation at this moment. There is divide over race, there is divide over politics, there is divide over how church is done, there is divide over masks, whether we should gather together or not. Everywhere we look it seems that we are dividing over something. Sadly some of this is not new to our church history, we've divided over salvation by grace, we divided over the working of the Holy Spirit, and so on. However, right now in America we see so many of the issues of society dividing the brothers and sisters of the body of Christ. So today I want to look at what Paul implored to the Philippian church.
Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:2-4
In verse 2 Paul is calling for the people of the church in Philippi to be of one mind, to be unified. This church was not all one nationality, it was Jew and Gentile, it was made up of different socioeconomic classes, people from all different backgrounds. Paul was calling for unity because that is how we accomplish what God told us to do in the earth, spread the Gospel! He addresses here what causes the division in the church and how to combat it.
Self
The love of me, it is the thing that divides us. Selfish ambition is what drives our nation, you can see it in the corporate world. You can see it in our political system, where it seems like our leaders across the spectrum are trying to see how much power they can grab. Our congress will vote laws that apply to the rest of the country but not to themselves. People are no longer concerned with the future of the nation but what they can get from the government and what the people in power will give them. The word conceit used in this passage means vanity or things that are vain. The use of this word is like when we are focused on what kind of cars the other parents are driving compared to ours when we drop our kids off at school. It is being so focused on the new house with the modern fireplace that our friend built compared to our own house that just has an old wood burning one and may not be updated. Our love of self is what tears us apart from the family of God and isolates us from the brothers and sisters that we are called to.
Humility
The counter to focusing on ourselves is to walk in humility. Humility is laying aside our selfishness and focusing on other people. Humility does not mean you become a door mat and allow people to walk all over you. Nor does it mean that you devalue who you are. True humility is believing what God says about you, it is actually pride to try to make ourselves seem lower than what God has called us to be. When you believe what God says about you, then you are free from wasting your time pursuing the self-gratification that tries to satisfy us apart from God.
When we humble ourselves and acknowledge who God created us to be, how he has gifted us. We are then free to look at others and see their true need. God has gifted each one of us through his Holy Spirit with gifts that will meet the needs of those who are lost or hurting. How can we minister those gifts to others if our eyes are on ourselves. God has greatly convicted me in this area recently, it is very easy for me to get focused on the errands that I am running and not look around me for the opportunities that he may be bringing across my path to minister to others.
Let's allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and remove any self-focus we may have, and humble ourselves before him so that we can touch the lives that God has placed in our path.