GOD IS UNSELFISH
William Gladstone said, "Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race." If you think about that there's much truth in it. If everyone just looked out for #1 then no one would be satisfied; including #1. There's a lot to be gained by being selfish except what matters most.
Jesus didn't come to be served but to serve.
Matt. 20:17-28, "Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. “What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.” “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.” When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Think about this scenario for a moment. Jesus just gets done telling the disciples this distressing news and then we have James and John's mom coming with this request (Mark's version has James and John making the request. It was probably all three.) It's as if they were saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah; betrayed, condemned, mocked, beaten, nailed to a cross; we get it. But what about us? When you raise from the dead and establish your kingdom can we have the most prominent positions?"
Jesus just got done explaining the most selfless thing he would ever do and these guys immediately come back with the most selfish request. Jesus is like, "Did you just hear what I said was going to happen to me? Besides, you don't know what you're asking. All you're focused on is the glory and glamour; you're not thinking about what will happen on the way there."
It's the same way when we have selfish ambitions-we don't think of what will happen on the way to getting what we want-such is our tunnel vision. We're not thinking of what it might cost to get what we want. We're not thinking of the suffering others will endure. All we're thinking about is how wonderful it will be when we get what we're after.
'The rest of the disciples were indignant'. It's completely understood why they would be although I have to wonder: was it because they beat you to it? They had argued before about which one of them was the greatest so it would make sense that they were indignant the question is why exactly?
At the heart of all this selfishness was pride. Jesus needed to teach them that this prideful, self-centered, jockeying for position stuff was undignified and unspiritual. Jesus was saying, 'Those who don't know me go around lording themselves over others but that's not how you should be. Look at me. I'm the king of the universe but you don't see me treating you like slaves and putting strenuous demands on you. On the contrary, I'm the one serving you!"
Later, when he was washing their feet he said (paraphrasing), "You call me teacher and Lord and rightly so for that is what I am. But look what I've done-I've washed your feet-the job of a lowly servant. If I, your Lord, can do that for you, shouldn't you be willing to do that for one another? You'll be blessed if you do." Chuck Swindoll said, "What does the Lord do to assist me in seeing how selfish I am? He gives me four busy kids who step on shoes, wrinkle clothes, spill milk, lick car windows and drop sticky candy on the carpet. Being unselfish in attitude strikes at the very core of our being. It means we are willing to forgo our own comfort, our own preferences, our own schedule, our own desires for another's benefit. And that brings us back to Christ." It's a blessing to be unselfish.
Our attitude should be like Christ.
Phil. 2:1-11, "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, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Paul starts out with a series of rhetorical questions. If I were to summarize these introductory verses, I could say, "If you have received any benefit from Jesus' selflessness, go and do likewise." Jesus had selfless ambition. Jesus had others ambition. He chose (made himself) to be emptied, chose to be made nothing in order to be the most extreme benefit to the human race.
If he was selfish he never would've came (of course if he were selfish he wouldn't have been God). But there are so many ways in which we can look at Jesus and see what he would've done differently had he been a selfish man. Instead of coming to serve he would've demanded that he be served. Instead of devoting so much of his time to teaching, preaching and healing he would've only done so when it was convenient. Instead of being patient he'd been demanding and insensitive. Instead of loving unconditionally he would've loved only if he was being loved first.
"Therefore God exalted him". We need to see that being sacrificial is beneficial to us. That's the irony: we think that by being selfless we will receive less-we will be deprived-but it's just the opposite. Jesus, because he humbled himself was exalted. As Jesus himself said in Matt. 23:12, "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."
If we are willing to be unselfish we will be blessed beyond anything we could ever hope for by being selfish. Living selfishly results in misery; your own and those around you.
"There was a king who lived in a beautiful kingdom. He was happy and so were his people. They worked together to improve the kingdom and brought the king many gifts. The king, in turn, was generous to his people. People all over the world heard of this kingdom and came to visit. They admired the kingdom and they marveled at how happy everyone was. The kingdom prospered and grew.
But then something happened. The king grew selfish and wanted more and more. He grew self-indulgent and demanded that the people bring him more food and more gifts. The king's selfishness made him rich and fat, but the people became poor and miserable. One by one the people left and the kingdom that had once been so beautiful and so happy began to fall apart. The king found himself alone in his castle, surrounded by mountains of food and all of the luxuries of life, but on the outside the kingdom had crumbled and the people had all slipped away. The king who had it all became selfish and wanted to keep it all, but he ended up losing it all."
Living for self leads to a lonely existence. We need to live for Jesus.
What's in my heart?
Eze. 33:30-31, "As for you, son of man, your countrymen are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the LORD.’ My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain."
They came and listened but weren't putting Ezekiel's words from the Lord into practice. It didn't penetrate their hearts. Their mouths were full of devotion but their hearts weren't. They feigned interest in the spiritual things but their hearts were set on the material things.
Their hearts were full of greed and not only selfish desires but unjust selfish desires. They didn't just want for themselves they were willing to acquire it through dishonest means. This is how selfishness operates: it starts with desiring and acquiring through honest means. It starts out where I'm legitimately purchasing things to satisfy my selfish desires but then it comes to where I'm stealing them if I don't have the money to buy them. It starts out with taking everything you can get fair and square but then it evolves into taking what you can get by whatever means possible-manipulation, coercion, stepping on toes, undermining-you name it.
If left alone sin always progresses; regardless as to how quick or slow that process is. It typically begins small and grows from there. This wouldn't be the case if our priorities were straight.
Psalm 119:33-37, "Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word."
Here we see the psalmist ask God to do four things: teach, give, direct and turn. Being directed by self does not allow being directed by the word of God. So we need to ask God to teach us to focus on the right things because our hearts will naturally gravitate toward the wrong things. We need to ask God to give us understanding that the spiritual things are more valuable than the material; that a life of self denial has more value and blessing than the life of self-gratification.
We need to ask God to direct our paths and always point us in the right direction; lest we go our own way and end up falling into traps. We need to ask God to turn our hearts away from worthless things and toward the invaluable things. There will be times when we'll have the potential to be deceived into thinking instant gratification is the good and right thing.
I'm not saying that it's wrong if you do anything for yourself; there are times where it's allowable and even beneficial-but in moderation and under the control of the Holy Spirit. Since our natural tendency is to be selfish we need God to change our hearts and guide us.
What's the priority?
Luke 12:13-15, "Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
One of the most prominent times you'll see the ugliness of selfishness is at the reading of a will. The pain of the loved one's passing is quickly surpassed by fighting over who gets what. And these two brothers were prime examples of that.
This guy was focused on the wrong thing; his priorities were out of whack. Instead of coming to Jesus to receive spiritual truth he was focused on receiving material justice. Instead of looking to Jesus as a Savior, he was looking to him as a negotiator.
Jesus tells us to watch out! When greed takes over we lose sight of what's most important. And if it progresses far enough, there can be serious consequences.
Vs. 16-21, "And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
This man had been blessed by God yet his focus was more on the blessing rather than the one doing the blessing and the reason for the blessing. The man was already rich and the Lord blessed him with more. Chances are he had already been prompted along the way to be generous with what he had been blessed with but his attitude hadn't changed. God gave him one last chance to do the right thing and he failed.
"Look at all this produce. Well, there's only one thing to do-build bigger barns. What's that? Bless others as I have been blessed? Yeah, I'll get right on that!"
Instead of his priorities being on thanking God and blessing others, they were on himself. He presumed upon God that he would have many years to sit back and enjoy his bounty but he was wrong.
If we are unwilling to share what God has blessed us with we run the risk of losing what we so badly want to hold onto. "The greatest difficulty with the world is not its inability to produce, but its unwillingness to share." When we live selfishly everyone loses.
