Skip to main content

What's Next? Consider others

 


Other-centredness is a big theme in the letter to the Philippians.

God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ (Phil. 1:8-10)

The 'you' and 'yours' are all plural. Paul is saying that as your love as a community abounds more and more you will be able to discern as a community what’s best next. Working out what is best next is not a solo thing. It happens in community. So as you explore gospel work:

  • Seek the wisdom of your church family and leadership;
  • Fully involve your spouse and children in the journey (if you have them) – they need to be on board from the beginning and all through;
  • Listen carefully to family members and honour your parents (even if they are not Christians).

And just as love drives good decision making, so love also should be the driver of gospel work:

It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defence of the gospel. (Phil. 1:15-16)

The right motivation for gospel work is an other-person-centred love. Timothy is a great example of that – ‘genuinely concerned for your [the Philippians’] welfare’ (Phil. 2:20). This is another very important point to underline: we have got to ministering out of love for people. Sadly it is possible to pursue gospel work from twisted motives – coveting someone else’s (perceived) glory and position. With one study In Canada finding almost 1 in 3 pastors having narcissistic tendencies, this is not a small problem. 

Other-person-centred love is not just an issue for gospel workers. It is what Paul prayed for in his opening prayer for the whole Philippian church. It is the foundational, Christ-like, gospel-born virtue: 

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Phil. 2:3-4)

Instead of having a false and inward-looking view of ourselves (‘vain conceit’ – literally ‘empty glory’) we are to have a ‘humility’ shaped by the gospel (Phil. 2:1-2, 6-8) which looks outward to the concerns of others and is far more keen to serve than be served. This has huge implications for every Christian:

  1. It changes how we do whatever work we are doing: the motivation, manner, quality, quantity. We are to do everything in love. 
  2. It changes how we decide what line of work we will pursue. We are not pursuing a career for our own sake or to compete with others but we are looking to do what is best for others and lifts them up. “The question regarding our choice of work is no longer "What will make me the most money and give me the most status?" The question must now be "How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God's will and of human need?" (Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor).

So in our decisions about what next, in our motivation, in our process of discernment – we are to consider others. This takes the focus off ‘me and my gifts’ and looks outward in love. 

But, finally, there is another even more important place we should be looking outside of ourselves... Consider Christ


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas is for weeping people

Who is Christmas for? Happy families? Children?  Is Christmas for those who have just lost loved ones in a bus crash? Or for those who lost parents or children in the horror of the Westgate massacre. Does Christmas mean anything to South Sudan as the bullets fly and chaos and fear escalates daily? How can we talk about Christmas when we’re surrounded by that sort of pain and sadness and mayhem? How can Christmas and death fit together? Well if Christmas is all about fun and family and eating and drinking and cute nativity plays then it obviously doesn’t fit with massacres and funerals and pain and suffering. But that’s not the real Christmas. There is NOTHING sweet about the real Christmas.   There is NOTHING sentimental or cute about the real Christmas story. Pick up a Bible and read Matthew 2:1-18. That is a dark story isn’t it? There’s the nice bit about the star and the gold, frankincense and myrrh but basically it’s about a mad king hunting down...
3 comments
Read more

Holding together restlessness and optimism

Piper has a great section in his Marks of a Spiritual Leader  where he holds together two vital biblical leadership virtues: 1. RESTLESS Spiritual leaders have a holy discontentment with the status quo. Non-leaders have inertia that causes them to settle in and makes them very hard to move off of dead center. Leaders have a hankering to change, to move, to reach out, to grow, and to take a group or an institution to new dimensions of ministry. They have the spirit of Paul, who said in Philippians 3:13, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Leaders are always very goal-oriented people. God’s history of redemption is not finished. The church is shot through with imperfections, lost sheep are still not in the fold, needs of every sort in the world are unmet, sin infects the saints. It is un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Utumishi wa Neno taster

It's finally starting! We had our first taster day for the church-based Utumishi wa Neno preaching course on Saturday. It was great to spend a few hours with 14 or so brothers and sisters and just spend soak in the Word. One of the crazy things we did was to read through the whole of Philippians out loud. How long did it take us? 15 minutes. And all of us enjoyed the experience and heard things we'd never noticed before. More thoughts on the day here . And for those who asked for the notes, they're available to download here . If you're in Kenya and want to get involved in the on-going Utumishi training see more info on the iServe Africa website .
5 comments
Read more