The Mind of Christ - Looking Out for the Interests of Others — John Piper

Before I pray, thank you for praying for Noelle and Talitha and me while we were away, and I would like to be greedy and ask for your prayer again. Tomorrow at about three, I get on the airplane and fly to Manchester, England, and then get in a car and drive about an hour and a half to Wales, and there speak on the gospel of Ruth four times to the student union, the students of Great Britain getting together before their school semester starts, and then two messages on missions.

So if you think of me, would you pray for strength and for the anointing of the Lord so that the ripple effect for the glory of Christ would be significant in Great Britain? Let's pray. Father, now we want to pray and hear the Word of God just like we have sung the Word of God, prayerfully, hungrily, eagerly, submissively, ready to change.

Wisdom for Living in a Relational Church Culture

At your bidding, we want your Word. Lord, I long for chapter two of Philippians to become more and more real in my life and in the life of this church, and so I ask that you would use this message to that end, that it would become real.

This way, this mind would become our mind ever increasingly. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. In the message that I gave just before I left on July 27, you recall that my burden was to describe what I used this phrase to designate the relational culture of our church, and the focus was that God might be pleased to work a kind of relational culture in us that would be the kind of place where wisdom, heaven-sent divine wisdom, would flourish, would grow up, enabling us to discern how to take the Solomonic sword and say, cut the baby in half with regard to problems in our lives and in our church that we just cannot figure out and cannot solve.

Got any problems like that in your life? In other words, I came to the end of that series on baptism and church membership without resolution as a church and said, okay, what do you do now? And the answer was, let's work toward a broader-based relational culture where the Bible says wisdom grows.

And perhaps then, out of that kind of fresh, growing relational culture, there would emerge, by God's design and by his Spirit, wisdom, not only for imponderables like that question, baptism and church membership, but all the other things in your life, your personal priorities, your parenting, your politics.

Seeking Wisdom for Personal Priorities

I don't know how you go about doing those three things, but let me just tell you why, for me, wisdom from above, spiritual wisdom, rising up in a community, landing in my heart, is so desperately needed in those three areas.

Personal priorities. What do you do every day to use your hours effectively? Eating, working, exercising, sleeping, reading, entertainment, conversations, evangelism, praying. There are no specific rules in the Bible as to how many minutes of your day should go into each of those.

So how do you decide? I don't know how to decide. You just do it, which means you better be wise, because you might wind up putting zero effort into something really important and way too much effort into something unimportant, because in the Bible there's no statement that says, one hour in the Word or ten minutes in the Word or one hour with your kids or ten minutes with your kids.

How do you decide? I'll tell you how you decide. You do what your heart feels like doing. That's what you do, which means we desperately need wisdom. Just growing up, just growing up. Or parenting. I dare say that 95 of our daily specific decisions in parenting are not laid down in Scripture.

Wisdom in Parenting and Politics

But we have to decide. Parents don't have the luxury of postponing how they think a child should be reared. It's happening. Whether you're ready or not, it's happening. Do they deserve a spanking? A hard one?

Or forgiveness this time? Second chance? Third chance? No chance? It's over. Go to your room. What? What do you do? You got an idea? You got this figured out? No, you don't have it figured out. You just do what seems best.

Right there. See the agenda it sets for us? We've got to become wise. It's just got to be there. Or politics. When I say politics, I don't mean mainly here this supercharged moment we're in where you're trying to figure out how to vote.

I mean, how do you think about being a citizen decisively of heaven and not of America? How do you live on the earth when your life is hidden with Christ in God? When you're an alien and an exile on the earth and yet biblically called to submit to the powers?

Biblically called to love your neighbor? To make a living? To subdue the earth? How are you in the world and not of the world? I don't know. You just do what seems right when you're faced with so many possibilities to fill your day with good things.

Do you see why this issue of a relational culture in which wisdom by God's grace might be pleased to grow up in our hearts is so urgent to me? They're church issues. They're personal priority issues. They're parenting issues.

They're political issues. And you could add to that list. So, we need wisdom. Let me give you a definition of wisdom. This is my effort to define wisdom. I think it's biblical. It would go like this. Wisdom is the ability of the soul to discern or perceive God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, gospel-fashioned, people-helping ways to live with the knowledge you have.

Ways to live. Discerning God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, gospel-fashioned, people-helping ways to live from the knowledge that you have. That's wisdom. And we desperately, we have to have it. We have to have it.

Philippians 2:4 and Looking to Others' Interests

So, I invite you to turn now, Philippians 2. Here's what I want to do. I want to give part two to that message and focus on a portion of this chapter. Verse four. And argue that this is right at the heart of the relational culture that we need at Bethlehem and in which the wisdom of God may be pleased to fall upon us, grow up within us, so that we know how to live.

In all the thousands of places where the Bible doesn't tell us specifically how to live. And then after I focus on verse four, I'm going to just point, because that's all we'll have time for, I'm going to point to the four illustrations of verse four in this chapter.

Jesus, Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus. And I want to make this clear that these four illustrations are not incidental illustrations of verse four. They are intentional illustrations of verse four. You will see that clearly as we walk through.

Paul has constructed... You might be surprised that he would do it this way since he's talking about very personal things in his own life and in the life of Timothy and the life of Epaphroditus. He's talking about very personal things.

You wouldn't think he's thinking structurally about how to unpack verse four with all these personal stories. Well, he is. And you'll see that. But first, let's get the main point from verse four. And I just want you to pray with me.

Ever since, I don't know when it started, maybe May or April, I've shared this message with the staff at our retreat a month ago and with the DG leadership a month ago. And now I'm sharing it with you because it's been on my mind and on my heart for months.

My main prayer for myself, I think my most recurrent prayer for myself has been verse four, that God would do such a deep work in me that I would not only look to my own interests but also to the interests of others.

I just want to be less selfish. I want to be more other-oriented. I want that to be a more default posture for me. I don't want to have to work at it as hard. I would like it to grow up in me because I think if we as a church could become verse four, I just think we'd be so wise.

God loves to bestow wisdom about how to live when verse four is happening in a church. Let's read it. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Now the word interest there is a filler.

It's not there in the original. It's just a filler. It's just your own and the others. So it could be this. Let me paraphrase. Let each of you look not only to his own financial affairs, your own property, your own family, your own health, your own reputation, your own education, your own success, your own happiness.

Don't just think about that. Don't just have feelings and desires about that. Don't just strategize about improving that. Also, take thought. Look to, spy out, go after, be interested in the financial affairs, the property, the family, the health, the reputation, the education, the success, and the happiness of other people, like your wife, your husband, your kids, your neighbor, the person you walk by on the street.

He's asking for the impossible, for selfish, depraved human beings who expect to be served and be treated well and are not by nature outgoing to serve others and to take interest in others. We're not like that.

It takes a miracle for that to happen to a human being. That's what Christianity does to a person. That's why Christ died for us, as we'll see. These words in verse 4 are a repeat, are they not, of Jesus' words, love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Your neighbor as you love yourself. In other words, let the good of your neighbor, the joy of your neighbor, the prosperity of your neighbor, the encouragement of your neighbor, the happiness of your neighbor, the well-being of your neighbor be the measure of your own self-preoccupation.

Or turn that around. Let your own self-interest be the measure of how much you go out to others. If you're watching television and your child says, would you play with me? Don't just think about how tired you are.

That's thinking of your own interests. Yes, you're tired. Think about that. Then, think about the other's interests. And by an act of gospel-fashioned, Christ-exalting will, if you have to, put the child's interests before the pleasures of your relaxation.

Humility, Service, and Freedom from Entitlement

The key, it seems, to this kind of behavior is verse 3. At least part of the key. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but, here it comes, in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. The old King James translates the second half of that verse.

Many of us lived in this for years. Let each esteem the other better than themselves. Now, I remember in the ninth grade thinking, that's impossible. Because my sister, Beverly, older than I, could read, it felt like, ten times faster than I could.

Probably she could. She took one Bob C. Twins novel and read the whole thing in an evening. 150 pages. So, clearly, she could not count me a better reader. Like the Bible says she should. Count others better than yourselves.

However, I got good grades in algebra. And Beverly really struggled. So there was no way I could count her better than me. In algebra. Well, so that's so much for my ninth grade exegesis. I missed the point!

What's wrong with that? Sounds kind of... I just missed it! What's wrong with the way I was thinking about verse three, second half of the verse? The point was not what others are. The point was what you count them to be.

And the focus is not on how they read, or do math, or any other trait. The focus is, will you count them worthy of your service? Worthy of dying for? Worthy of going down and lifting them up? Worthy of taking interest in their affairs?

Will you count them that, whether they're that or not? That was the point. Count others. Count others a certain way. So, would I encourage her and take time to help her and stop shooting buckets in the driveway some afternoon?

It says, in verse three, in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Worthy of your attention, your service. That word humility there, lowliness, is the great opposite of a sense of entitlement.

You want my definition of humility? Just use that one. It's the opposite of a sense of entitlement. So, do you walk through life mainly feeling, you owe me. You owe me a certain look when I walk by you on the street.

You owe me a certain behavior in the neighborhood. You owe me that newspaper before 6 .30. You owe me, and I get mad when you don't pay. Is that your basic orientation? If it's not, if it is, you're not humble.

And I'm not humble. You need to pray for your pastors. Who in the world can be like that? Well, Christians. Do you remember Paul, what he said in Romans 1 .15? He said, I am debtor to the Jews and to the Greeks.

Meaning everybody. I owe everybody. Nobody owes me. Where does that come from? It comes from being stunned at the grace of God. When he owed you nothing but hell, he went to hell for you. Until you're stunned by that, you will have a sense of entitlement.

You will walk through life, and your basic orientation will be, you owe me. But as soon as it lands on you with stunning force, that you were owed hell. And you got heaven at the cost of the life of the Son of God.

So much for your sense of entitlement. It's over. Humility happens. It's a battle. We have to preach it to ourselves. We have to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. That's where it comes from. That's where verse 4 comes from.

In humility, view people a certain way, namely, not as those who owe you, but ones that you owe service to. Verse 4, drawing it out. So, don't just take interest in your own life. Take interest in others, because that's the way you are in Christ.

Let this mind, let this mind be in you, which you have in Christ. Okay. That's the first part of the message. That's the culture. Would not that be a beautiful culture? Wouldn't that be beautiful? In a marriage, wouldn't that be beautiful?

In parenting, wouldn't that be beautiful? In a church, with lots of diversity, ethnically, age, marital status, socioeconomic, wouldn't that be beautiful? It would. It's a beautiful thing. The church, broken and bruised, let us move toward this beauty.

Jesus Christ as the Supreme Example of Humble Service

Now, let's just point to the four illustrations of this truth. Okay. Jesus, Paul, Timothy, Epaphroditus. It won't take long, and I won't do much with them, because you'll see very quickly what Paul is doing here, as he writes.

Verses 5 through 9. Have this mind. Now, that mind right there, that mindset is verse 4 and 3. That's the mind. I've just spent 10 or 15 minutes unpacking that without telling you that's what I was doing.

That's the mind. Let that mind be in you. Think that way. Have that mindset. It should be encouraging to you that he tells Christians to do this. Because you might think, you don't have to tell Christians to do that.

That's who Christians are. They're like that. And Paul says, no, no. The way it works is the Word of God in the hands of the Spirit of God awakens day by day who you are in Christ. That's the way it works.

You try to go away from the Word of God and the Spirit of God thinking, I'm not a Christian, I'm done, I'm fixed, I'm saved, I'm in. You won't be. The Word of God is alive. I just read today. I don't know if I can remember it.

In my devotions, John 16, we're not in the same place because we've got these five days and we can do anything we want. Whoopee! So we're reading John and it said, I speak these, I think this is John 16 .1, I speak these things to you that you may not stumble.

Man, I banked on that for a while because I'm a preacher. Why don't you stumble, Christian? Jesus is speaking to you. You stop listening, you're stumbling. The Christian life is dynamic. It's dynamic.

It's not an automatic thing. Okay. Have this mind among yourselves. I'm at verse 5. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus. And now he gives Jesus as an illustration of what it looks like when a church has this relational culture.

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count. Now notice that word. Remember I said it isn't what people are, it's what you count them to be. Who didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

It was worthy to be grasped and held on to, but he didn't count it that way. But made himself nothing or emptied himself. Taking the form of a servant, describing what I should do with Beverly and she with me.

You and your relations. Taking the form of a servant. That's what it means to look to the interests of others. Being born in the likeness of man and being found in human form, he humbled himself. There's the humble piece.

He laid down all legitimate entitlements. Did he not? If anybody deserved not to be crucified, it was Jesus. This is the life. This is the mind. He laid down all his legitimate entitlements and he served us in death.

By becoming obedient unto death, even death on the cross. If you ever struggle with humility, like daily, think about this. Think about that story right there. Verses 5 through 8 of Philippians 2. Just look at what Jesus did for you.

Christ's Exaltation and the Promise of Future Reward

I could skip it, but I won't. Verses 9 to 11 is a tip off that if you live this way... I mean, Ayn Rand, the novelist, she hated Christianity because she thought everything up to this point in my message was sheer rubbish because it meant sacrificing your highest values to dirt.

No count, no good human beings who don't think right, that don't act right, and you're going to get down and serve them? Baloney, she said, and she rejected Christianity because that's what she thought it was.

She didn't believe in God. If you die every day in the service of others and become absolutely invisible in this world with no reputation whatsoever or any earthly payback, verses 9 to 11, it's coming.

It's here not just for Jesus, it's here for everybody. Therefore, because he served in this way, because he took interest in others this way, because he laid down his life in this way, therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name that is above every name.

The way Jesus applied it to you is very simple. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. It's coming, but don't try to get it into this world. That's our problem.

We want it now. We want our exaltation now. Pay up. You owe me. Nobody owes you, especially God, but he's going to pay. He's going to pay with an exaltation and a joy that will make up every loss you ever had in the service of others in this world.

Paul's Sacrificial Ministry for the Faith of the Church

So that's Jesus. Here's Paul, verses 17 and 18. Verse 17. Even if I am poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I'm glad, and I rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

Now do you see the picture there? If I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, the picture in his mind is I'm not going to heaven. I'm staying on the earth that I might serve the advancement and joy of your faith.

Chapter 1, verse 25. And if it takes my death, I'm going to offer God the sacrifices of your faith. I live to build the faith of my churches if I die. And he said, in 1 Corinthians 15, I die every day.

And he did. He did. His back was so lacerated. Five times they whipped him. Three times beaten with rods. Day and a half in the open sea. Dangers in the cities, dangers from the rivers, dangers from my own countrymen.

Paul died every day for one reason, to build the Christ-exalting faith of his churches. It's what I want to be. I don't have a lot of time left. I don't have... Jesus is not going to be impressed with my books, you know that?

He's not going to be impressed with my going to England tomorrow. Zero. He'll be impressed with one thing. Verse 4. That's all. And you don't have a lot of time. And you're on the same level playing field I am.

Education has zero to do with this. Position in church doesn't have anything to do with this. Verse 4 is the charter of your life. And Jesus will reward you for it. Paul loved the church. I want to love the church.

Love it really well. He died every day for the faith of the church. Number 3. Timothy. Now here, verse 4 gets very explicit. So listen carefully. Start at verse 19. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you.

Timothy's Genuine Concern for the Welfare of Others

What's he going to say about Timothy? To draw out verse 4. For I have no one like him. Timothy's in a class by himself. What was it about Timothy that was in a class by himself? I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.

Now that's a loose translation of exactly the same phrase in verse 4. Your interests. Your own. Your finances. Your health. Your life. Your family. He's genuinely concerned for your welfare for they all seek their own interests.

There it is again. It's the other half of verse 4. So clearly, Timothy is given as an example of what Paul's trying to drive home in this chapter. Namely, verse 4. Not those of Jesus Christ, but you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son of the Father he has served with me in the gospel.

That's what I feel about you, Tom. A little embarrassed Tom here. Tom Steller served with me in the gospel for 28 years. I don't know anybody that does verse 4 better than you, Tom. I love you. I admire you so much.

I want to be like you. Don't let it go to your head. I know. I know what you're saying. You don't know me well. So, Paul loved Timothy so much. They all seek their own interests. I have no one like Timothy.

Oh, Bethlehem. I hope if Paul came he wouldn't have to say it's that rare here. That's a sad sentence. Timothy's the only one that lives this way. That's a sad sentence. So, would you pray with me? Would you just go hard after God this fall and say, God, do it at Bethlehem.

Do verse 4 at Bethlehem. Do it in me. Do it in my family. Do it in my personal priorities. Do it in my politics. Do this thing for us and in us. Finally, Epaphroditus. Oh, I love him. What a hero of mine he is.

Epaphroditus Risking His Life to Serve the Church

Verse 25. I have thought it necessary to send to you, Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my needs. So, he had brought something from the Philippians to Rome to serve Paul.

He had been the mediator of their service. Verse 26. For he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Now, pause. That's amazing. He has been distressed not because he's sick and not because you don't know he's sick, which is what would make me upset.

Nobody knows I'm sick. He's distressed because they know he's sick. What kind of man is this? He's a verse 4 man. That's all. He's just a verse 4 man. He's sick. On the point of death, Paul says later.

And he hears, they've heard that I'm sick. They're going to worry. They're going to think maybe I died. There's not a lot of good communication over those miles 2 ,000 years ago. God, help them. Help them not to worry too much.

Wouldn't you like to be like that? Instead of, nobody knows I'm sick. Nobody calls. Verse 27. Indeed, he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on me and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

Verse 29. So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men. He nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. There it is. Another fourth example of dying to serve.

A Culture of Selfless Love and Service

So, we're done. And I'll just close by saying it's a beautiful thing to look at Jesus, not counting equality with God, a thing to be held on to. I'm not going down there among all those sinful human beings who hate you and belittle us and don't embrace all that's revealed to them in natural revelation or through the Jewish people.

I'm not going down there. I'm God. I've got entitlement here. Isn't it beautiful that he just lets it go and comes for us? He comes for us. That's a beautiful verse four. And then Paul, isn't it beautiful that he loves his churches?

I listen to C .J. Mahaney's message. I love that message. I've heard it three times, I think. I could hear it every day because of how he pulls out how bad the Corinthian church was and how Paul loved them so much.

Paul loved the church and he was pouring out his life and dying every day just like I hope you will do for your small group, your family, this church, your neighbors. And isn't it beautiful to look at Timothy?

I have nobody like him who takes thought for the welfare of others. And isn't Epaphroditus beautiful? Gets sick and then he gets all upset because people hear that he's sick and he's ready to lay down his life to get the Philippian gift to Paul so that he could serve both of them as a mere messenger.

And wouldn't it be beautiful if God carried us forward? If C .J. were preaching this message, he'd take 10 minutes right now to lavish praise upon you at how good you are in this. I don't have 10 minutes.

But I will say, I am well loved at this church and I see a lot of verse 4. I really do. Saw a lot at Johnny and Friends camp and I see a lot in the city and I see a lot on all of our campuses. I just am saying, with Paul, more, more.

Father, we need wisdom in our personal priorities. We need wisdom in our families. We need wisdom in our friendships. We need wisdom in our politics. We need wisdom. And I believe there is a community life where wisdom grows more fully than others.

And that's what I'm aiming at. So I pray that verse 4, don't take thought just for your own things, but look at and take thought for the things of others would become a reality. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.