Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself (Part 2)
Philippians 2:1-11
February 14, 2010
Me/We:
I mentioned last week that the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself is contrary to the idea that the world wants us to buy into, and that is that we should each look out for ourselves ahead of others.
All of us struggle with that, not necessarily because of the world’s view, but because we’ve inherited that tendency toward selfishness right from Adam and Eve.
I don’t care who you are, there are times when you are happy to put yourself ahead of someone else and put your comfort and your convenience ahead of someone else’s.
And if you don’t think so, then you suffer from blindness caused by something else we all struggle with – arrogant pride.
I do it, you do it.
And yet we have this command from Jesus that says we’re supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves.
And that means putting the needs of others ahead of our own.
Okay – so we have this command of God to love others as we love ourselves, but we have this inherited propensity for selfishness fueled by our popular media.
What can we do to overcome our natural tendency to look out for number one and put others in that spot?
How can we move on from selfishness to servanthood in a way that makes a real difference in our own lives and in the lives of others?
God: The Bible gives us some really very practical advice on how to do that.
And the passage we’re going to look at shows us once again how down-to-earth and practical the Scriptures are, that they deal with the everyday stuff that you and I go through every day of our lives.
But before we get into the passage we’re going to look at today, I want us to revisit the foundational passage we’ve been looking at since the first Sunday in January.
Mark 12:30-31 –
29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
The premise I’ve been working from during these past weeks is that we love others best when we love God the most.
So we spent January talking about how to love God as we should, and last week we started looking at how we can love others as ourselves by looking at Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, and how he overcame racial, religious, financial, and other barriers to be a neighbor to a wounded stranger.
Today we look at a passage from the book of Philippians, written by the apostle Paul while he was under house arrest.
Philippians 2:1-11 (p. 831) –
I’m going to be talking a bit as we go through this passage, so be ready for some interruptions as we read it.
1 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.
I wish we had time to stop and talk about these first two verses, because it lays a great groundwork for what’s coming, but we need to move on to what the focus of our time today will be, and that is on the next three verses.
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.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
So those three verses are where we’re going to be focusing, but I don’t want to ignore the rest of this passage, because without it, we don’t have a basis for understanding the attitude Paul says we should have in verse 5, so let’s finish this passage, which is one of the greatest passages we have to point to in regard to three things – the dual nature of Jesus (being both God and man), the humility of Jesus, and the future exaltation of Jesus at the end of time.
These verses serve to underscore what Paul wants the Philippians and you and me to understand regarding the attitude we need to adopt if we’re going to love our neighbor as ourselves, so let’s read the rest of this passage:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Okay – so Paul starts off by saying that if they were walking with Christ, then it should show in how they get along.
They should be like-minded in Christ. This doesn’t mean they all agree about everything all the time – it means they are all seeking to have the mind of Christ (which he describes later).
They should love each other, and be in unity regarding their passions and purpose.
And then he takes the rest of the time to say, “Okay, here’s how to live this out in your everyday, normal living, while you’re at work, while you’re at home, while you’re on vacation, when you’re eating out, when you’re filling your vehicle with gas, when you’re frustrated at the check-out line, and even when your teenagers are making you re-think your position on birth control.
And he not only says, “Do this,” he goes further. He says, “You should do this because it reflects the attitude of the one we call our Savior and Lord and who will one day be shown to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and who will be shown once and for all that He really is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father through Him.
And so we’re going to spend the rest of our time today looking at how these three verses can play out in our lives as we seek to love our neighbor as ourselves.
We can all claim to love our neighbor, but remember that love is more than an emotion, it’s an action according to Scripture.
These three verses give us some great advice on how to love other people, undergirded by the idea that if we’ll do these things, we’ll be reflecting Jesus accurately to a world that needs Him so desperately.
And here is what I think God wants this passage to drill into our hearts today:
The example of Christ needs to be lived out by the people of Christ as we seek to live out the commandment of Christ.
Let’s read these verses one more time:
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.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Listen to these verses from The Message translation:
3 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. 4 Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
Here are three things that I think will help us summarize what Paul’s trying to communicate here.
> Cut “self” out of the equation.
Paul says some very specific and personal things here in verses 3-4:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit…
…consider others better than yourselves.
…(look) also to the interests of others.
It’s pretty obvious from this passage that if we want to love others as we should that we have to get ourselves out of the way.
We can’t see others and their needs if we’re focused on ourselves.
Next…
> Learn what real humility is all about.
You start that by remembering who you were outside of Christ.
Romans 5:8 –
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
According to the Bible, you were worthy of hell before you came to Christ.
It’s only because of God’s love, mercy, and grace that you have forgiveness and eternal life. You don’t deserve that.
When you get a handle on that, then you’re much less likely to look down on others and much more likely to put them ahead of yourself.
And lastly Paul wants to communicate that we need to…
> Reflect Jesus to the world.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
In verses 6-8 Paul tells how Jesus set the example for us.
Jesus set aside His glory.
Jesus set aside His comfort and convenience.
For the sake of people who didn’t want Him, according to John chapter 1, and for the sake of those who weren’t worthy of his attention and effort.
We need to get past the point that others aren’t worthy of our service and love.
They are just as worthy as you are, and if we’re going to take the Scriptures seriously we need to get to the point where we consider them more worthy than us.
If you call yourself a Christian, you need to show it in the attitude of Jesus toward you being passed on to others.
You: But how do we actually get going on this? How do we take this from paper to practice?
Let me give you five actions that I believe can help all of us move on to the next level, whether you’re just getting a handle on this or you’ve been living this out for a while.
1. Refuse to hold an “entitlement” mentality.
I wish it weren’t true, but even among Christians there is the notion that we deserve to be served and catered to, while the truth is that the opposite is what the Scripture says.
Jesus says that instead of seeking to be served, we should serve, like He did.
Adopt the attitude that others are more important than you are and you’ll shed the entitlement mentality.
It’s not easy, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, you can do it.
A second thing you can do to move from theory to reality is to…
2. Take the initiative in serving others.
Don’t wait for someone to ask you for help.
If you see a need and you can meet it, or if you can refer them to some help, then do it.
Serve spontaneously without having to be asked.
Anticipate needs before they come up.
A third action you can take:
3. Pray for the persecuted church.
What? Really? Yeah.
Why? Because if you take the time to pray for your brothers and sisters in prison and persecution for following Jesus, your heart becomes soft toward others in general, and this opens you up to noticing and acting on needs of those around you.
I know that this is what God has done for me as I started praying for the persecuted church, and I’m confident He’ll do the same for you.
Number 4…
4. Pray for recognition of opportunities to serve.
Notice I didn’t say, “Pray for opportunities…”
The opportunities are all over. All you have to do is look around and ask God how you should serve.
So pray that you’ll recognize them when they come across your path.
And lastly…
5. Serve your family first and foremost.
Don’t neglect your family in your service to others. You have a Scriptural obligation to look after those in your household as well as your parents, even if you are out of the house.
But listen – you need to be careful that you don’t use your family as an excuse to keep you from serving.
“You know, I’d love to help you with that. But my 18-year-old son needs me to be home when he gets done walking the dog…”
Or, “You know what, I’ve got 1 hour a month I allot for serving, and I really can’t take any more away from my family. Sorry!”
Yes, you should serve your family. No, you shouldn’t use them as an excuse to not serve others.
In all of this, the key is to remember:
The example of Christ needs to be lived out by the people of Christ as we seek to live out the commandment of Christ.
We: One of my favorite movies is the classic western, “Shane.”
In one of the climactic scenes of the movie, Shane confronts the hired killer that has been terrorizing the homesteaders.
I don’t remember the exact line, but he basically calls this guy a low-down murdering skunk, and the bad guy replies, “Prove it.”
This means, of course, “Speak with your gun or go down where you stand.”
So Shane found himself in a situation where he had to put up or shut up.
Proving it might cost him something. In this case it might cost him his life.
It’s easy to say we love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s easy to talk the talk.
But the Bible says we need to prove it.
The Bible says that we can say it all we want, but if we don’t do anything to help them when we can, then we really don’t love them, and we don’t really love Jesus like we claim to.
Proving our love for something may cost us something.
It may cost us some comfort. It might cost us some convenience. It might cost us some time on our schedule or even some money from our pocket books.
But I think that if more Christians would become intentional in loving their neighbors as themselves, more people would want Jesus for themselves because they see Him more accurately reflected than they’re seeing now in so many people who claim to be Christians.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could help people see that when we say we’re Christians they’ll see it in how we love our neighbors?
I think that would bring glory to God and serve to advance His kingdom.
