ICCC
2-4-07
“An Unselfish ambition”
Philippians 2 & Acts 2
Ralph L. Woods: An ambitious farmer, unhappy about the yield of his crops, heard of a highly recommended new seed corn. He bought some and produced a crop that was so abundant his astonished neighbors asked him to sell them a portion of the new seed. But the farmer, afraid that he would lose a profitable competitive advantage, refused.
The second year the new seed did not produce as good a crop, and when the third-year crop was still worse it dawned upon the farmer that his prize corn was being pollinated by the inferior grade of corn from his neighbors’ fields.
That is what’s know as a pretty selfish attitude. Too often that is what we live like, we can be selfish with things, even things that God has given to us and said share them. That is something that we must change to be a great church.
Philippians 2:1-4
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
This is a very interesting piece of scripture. Warren Wiersbe in The Bible exposition commentary says , In Philippians 1, it is “Christ first” and in Philippians 2 it is “others next.” Paul the soul winner in Philippians 1 becomes Paul the servant in Philippians 2.
It is important that we understand what the Bible means by “humility.”
The humble person is not one who thinks meanly of himself; he simply does not think of himself at all! Humility is that grace that, when you know you have it, you have lost it. The truly humble person knows himself and accepts himself. He yields himself to Christ to be a servant, to use what he is and has for the glory of God and the good of others. “Others” is the key idea in this chapter; the believer’s eyes are turned away from himself and focused on the needs of others.
That is where the rubber meets the road. I have been talking for a while now about the fact that we can become a great church right here in Lake Odessa, Mi. But the question becomes how…well it is summed up right there… the believer’s eyes are turned away from himself and focused on the needs of others.
Friends lets all be clear about one thing…and that one thing is the mission of ICCC…in short that mission is, “Connecting people to Jesus through His Word, His Love and His Fellowship.”
That is what we are about. So how do we go about getting there…well I believe it all begins with us developing an Unselfish Ambition. That simply means the opposite of the selfish ambition, which means that we look out for me myself and I.
An unselfish ambition means that we turn that mindset around and look out for everyone around us first and make sure that we are meeting the needs of others before we concern ourselves with our own needs. You might be saying to yourself…hold on Fred, I too will have needs that must be met!
Fair point, but think of it like this…if we as a church can develop this unselfish ambition which by the way will take commitment and time, then there will be others that are seeking to meet our needs.
You may be asking what is it going to take to accomplish the mission here at ICCC…What are the steps that is takes to develop this unselfish ambition…well I am sure that there are many but we are going to look at three specific this morning. It is going to take us making some sacrifices…you see it is all about giving. The first step, the first thing we must give is…
1. THE GIVING OF OUR TIME.
Our time might be our most precious commodity, and maybe the most difficult to give away. Make no mistake about it people, I understand that you are all busy people that’s why I so appreciate it when you get involved in the ministry here because I know there are other things you could be doing…but you recognize how important this ministry is.
We all have things that are constantly competing for our time and because of that there are always going to be things that get pushed out of out schedule. We prioritize and we decide what is going to get our attention.
Philippians 2:4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Often times when we are looking at the interests of others that means that we need to give of our time.
The question that we need to ask ourselves is this…have I given the best I have when it comes to my time to God and His church? That can be a hard question to ask ourselves because we have to be honest with ourselves.
An unknown source once said…
How would you like to spend 2 years making phone calls to people who aren’t home? Sound absurd? According to one time management study, that’s how much time the average person spends trying to return calls to people who never seem to be in. Not only that, we spend 6 months waiting for the traffic light to turn green, and another 8 months reading junk mail.
These unusual statistics should cause us to do time-use evaluation. Once we recognize that simple "life maintenance" can chip away at our time in such huge blocks, we will see how vital it is that we don’t busy ourselves "in vain" (Ps 39:6).
Psalm 39 gives us some perspective. In David’s complaint to God, he said, "You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You". He meant that to an eternal God our time on earth is brief. And He doesn’t want us to waste it. When we do, we throw away one of the most precious commodities He gives us.
Each minute is an irretrievable gift--and unredeemable slice of eternity. Sure, we have to make the phone calls, and we must wait at the light. But what about the rest of our time? Are we using it to advance the cause of Christ and to enhance our relationship with Him? Is our time well spent?
You see that is where we need to focus our time…at advancing the Gospel of Jesus Christ…connecting others to Jesus and strengthening our own connection. Our precious time is the first thing that we need to be willing to give in order for us to develop and unselfish ambition. The 2nd thing we must give is…
2. THE GIVING OF OUR RESOURCES
We have just spent the last month talking about this. Do we trust God enough to put Him completely in charge of our finances? To be the great church that God desires for us to be, we need to be willing to give freely, willingly, and joyfully of our finances.
Why is that, well first of all it shows God that we most of all trust Him. Secondly it is something that we need to do if we want the Kingdom to be advanced right here in Ionia County. And thirdly it is necessary that we do this to develop an unselfish ambition. You see to often we think that if I give God my tithe, there is no way I can afford the things that I want. When the real truth is the more I give to God the more I will be blessed.
Captain Levy, a believer from Philadelphia, was once asked how he could give so much to the Lord’s work and still possess great wealth. The Captain replied, "Oh, as I shovel it out, He shovels it in, and the Lord has a bigger shovel."
Strive to develop a unselfish ambition with your finances and watch and see just how big God’s shovel really is. It is imperative that we practice the giving of our resources because that is a big way of connecting people to Jesus and strengthening our personal connection to Jesus.
And the third thing that we need to give to develop and unselfish ambition is we need to…
3. GIVE OF OUR TALENTS
We have all been blessed by God with unique abilities. We are all gifted in different areas. We have talked a lot about that here recently. If we want to be a great church then it is going to take each and every one of us getting involved to do the ministry.
There are many different areas of ministry that you can become involved with here at ICCC. I can guarantee that there is a place and a ministry for every person that desires to be involved.
Several years ago, two students graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law. The highest ranking student in the class was a blind man named Overton and, when he received his honor, he insisted that half the credit should go to his friend, Kaspryzak.
They had met one another in school when the armless Mr. Kaspryzak had guided the blind Mr. Overton down a flight of stairs. This acquaintance ripened into friendship and a beautiful example of interdependence. The blind man carried the books which the armless man read aloud in their common study, and thus the individual deficiency of each was compensated for by the other. After their graduation, they planned to practice law together.
We must all roll up our sleeves and get involved because we are not all strong in the same gifts, we have a lot of diversity in the way we are gifted and we need each other working together for this church to reach its full potential. So in order for us to develop a unselfish ambition and connect people to Jesus and strengthen our own connection with Jesus we must give freely of our talents.
We all give of our time, our resources, and our talents but sometimes we give them to things that will not last. Think for a second about Noah. Think about the time that he spent, the years upon years he spent building the ark just as God commanded. Noah lived with an unselfish ambition. He did all of that so that others could benefit.
Think of the unselfishness of Moses, not a confident man, but allowed God to use him to get the Israelites out of Egypt to stand before Pharroh. But most importantly think of the unselfish ambition that Jesus showed when He wept in the Garden of Gethsemane just before He went to the cross for all of us.
Jesus paid the price for us because He loves us and He wants for us to become a great people for Him…a great church that meets the needs of others, that shows love and compassion, that is devoted to His Word. The true model of a great church is found in Acts 2:42-47. This is our example to follow.
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
That is a church that understood what it means to connect people to Jesus and strengthen their own connection. They developed within themselves an unselfish ambition. And the results cannot be disputed. Let me close with this.
In Ernest Gordon’s true account of life in a World War II Japanese prison camp, Through the Valley of the Kwai, there is a story that never fails to move me. It is about a man who through giving it all away literally transformed a whole camp of soldiers. The man’s name was Angus McGillivray.
Angus was a Scottish prisoner in one of the camps filled with Americans, Australians, and Britons who had helped build the infamous Bridge over the River Kwai. The camp had become an ugly situation. A dog-eat-dog mentality had set in. Allies would literally steal from each other and cheat each other; men would sleep on their packs and yet have them stolen from under their heads. Survival was everything.
The law of the jungle prevailed...until the news of Angus McGillivray’s death spread throughout the camp. Rumors spread in the wake of his death. No one could believe big Angus had succumbed. He was strong, one of those whom they had expected to be the last to die. Actually, it wasn’t the fact of his death that shocked the men, but the reason he died. Finally they pieced together the true story.
The Argylls (Scottish soldiers) took their buddy system very seriously. Their buddy was called their "mucker," and these Argylls believed that is was literally up to each of them to make sure their "mucker" survived.
Angus’s mucker, though, was dying, and everyone had given up on him, everyone, of course, but Angus. He had made up his mind that his friend would not die. Someone had stolen his mucker’s blanket. So Angus gave him his own, telling his mucker that he had "just come across an extra one." Likewise, every mealtime, Angus would get his rations and take them to his friend, stand over him and force him to eat them, again stating that he was able to get "extra food." Angus was going to do anything and everything to see that his buddy got what he needed to recover.
But as Angus’s mucker began to recover, Angus collapsed, slumped over, and died. The doctors discovered that he had died of starvation complicated by exhaustion. He had been giving of his own food and shelter. He had given everything he had -- even his very life. The ramifications of his acts of love and unselfishness had a startling impact on the compound.
"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:12).
As word circulated of the reason for Angus McGillivray’s death, the feel of the camp began to change. Suddenly, men began to focus on their mates, their friends, and humanity of living beyond survival, of giving oneself away.
They began to pool their talents -- one was a violin maker, another an orchestra leader, another a cabinet maker, another a professor. Soon the camp had an orchestra full of homemade instruments and a church called the "Church Without Walls" that was so powerful, so compelling, that even the Japanese guards attended.
The men began a university, a hospital, and a library system. The place was transformed; an all but smothered love revived, all because one man named Angus gave all he had for his friend. For many of those men this turnaround meant survival. What happened is an awesome illustration of the potential unleashed when one person actually gives it all away.
We all give our time, our resources, and our talents and many times we give them to things that have no eternal significance. Lets work at making deposits in God’s bank…because when we make deposits in His account they will last long after we are gone.
Our mission is to connect people to Jesus through His word, His love and His fellowship…we can be great and let God receive all the glory but we must serve each other unselfishly.
Today is our Super Sunday…our 100% Sunday and it takes an Unselfish Ambition to commit to 100% Attendance, 100% participation and 100% Tithe.
